Readers Rock

I LOVE the library! After my setback, I was feeling a little more cooped-up than usual, so I made my way to the Denver Public Library and loaded up on books. Ever since then, I feel like a kid again—when I was little my mom and I would go over to the Glenview Public Library and get a bag full of children’s books every week. Now I’m doing the same thing: I bring my brown Whole Foods bag and return my stack of weekly reads, and then fill up another bag full of books. It’s great.

One of the reasons I’m reading so fast is because I’ve become obsessed with Teen Fiction. I’ve started writing my own, so I’m “researching” the genre (and by researching I mean, having a great excuse to read books that are supposedly not for people my age). There are so many great ones out there:

Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak; and Catalyst)
Carolyn Mackler (Vegan Virgin Valentine; and The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things)
Sarah Dessen (The Truth About Forever; That Summer; Just Listen)

And, in non-Teen fiction, I’ve also started reading Maggie Estep’s mysteries: Hex; and Gargantuan. She is such a poetic writer (in fact, in speech team in high school I competed in Poetry and won with her poem “I Am The Sex Goddess of the Western Hemisphere”—which is a hilarious piece).

Anyway, all this writing and reading (with more of a purpose than “just for fun”) has been highly fulfilling, and it makes me realize I might not ever have stumbled upon this joy if not for my setback.

I’m not saying I’m happy about the setback, I’m just saying sometimes good things come from dark places.