As an adult, I am having trouble finding a book whose plot really jumps out at me. When I was a middle schooler, there was a novel at a book fair I bought that I felt like was written *just* for me. I was a kid who loved animals, action, mystery, drama, and historical fiction. The book was called Firehorse and combined every single one of those things. The main character was even a girl that shared my name. I still love all those things, with a pinch of romance, but want something obviously more age-appropriate as an adult. Tell me, what's a book that you felt was perfect for your interests/passions, or one you could see yourself in, and what are those interests/passions? Any genre, any time period.
by erchelelr
5 Comments
I’ve always LOVED modernist/ existentialist literature ( Camus, TS Elliots etc) and the 19th century Romantics. I’m an English literature major and did a big assignment exploring the queer coding of the Byronic hero ( is a complex, rebellious, and brooding character, often marked by a dark past, intense emotions, and a sense of alienation or defiance against societal norms, popularised by the poet Byron and contemporaries such as Mary Shelley writing about Victor Frankenstein) in Romantic literature.
Victorian/ regency history is an obsession of mine and as a lesbian, I was particularly interested in this phenomenon where for some reason, a lot of lesbians, completely independent of one another all developed ‘gentlemanly’ personas modelled specifically on Byron. Anne Lister would be an obvious example as would Virginia Woolf’s girlfriend Vita Sackville West whom she based the character Orlando on. I’m personally not a massive Woolf novel fan but I picked up Orlando because as a modernist book deliberately following the Byronic hero trope to tell a story about same sex desire/ navigating gendered spaces, it caters to literally everything I’m interested in. I was hooked and loved this book so much I actually cried at the final passages. It’s beautiful and even though I’m a cisgender woman and can’t really relate to Orlando’s experiences, the emotional undercurrents and literary references resonated so well, especially Orlando’s attempt to write something decent and feelings of inadequacy/ questioning as a writer despite their compulsion to write. I felt like I really was discovering something so personal and perfect for me as I read. My favourite read this year and a strong contender for all time favourite.
it has to has to has to be ‘The Alchemist’ by Paula Coelho, very well-known book, but I didn’t know it at the time, to be very honest
I picked it up for a quick read near my train station after a huge reading block, and was engrossed in it for the entire ride home, finished it in around 2 hours, and those 2 hours of reading are probably the best I’ve felt about reading in a while now.
(warning – spoilers ahead)
Something about just rearing sheep for years and travelling across country borders is so appealing. And then just selling all those sheep to run away to another country because a gypsy woman told me I’ll find treasure there is even cooler. It’s so crazy to have someone like a king of Salem who gives me weird profound truths.
In all seriousness though, more than just how everything sounded so amazing, it was just how much my heart resonated with the main character. I, keeping my temper aside, would have done much the same as he had done. Trusted easily, dropped everything in search of some obscure treasure, been punished for how easily I trusted, and still ready to love even easier, and then finding out that obscure treasure was exactly where I had started in the first place. I want to live in a world like that, where I can travel easy and dream even easier. It is what I expected life would look like when I’d read books every waking moment of life.
So coming back to books after an extensive reading block, and finding a wisp of some childish dreams, in the first book I read, was vaguely comforting. I’d like to live there still, so maybe I’ve not let go of those dreams at all.
Piggybacking off of my love for animals, the James Herriot novels have long been a favorite of mine. Also love the British humor and the inclusion of regional vernacular for maximum effect.
Reamde
I’m a huge hard sci fi fan. The past year I read Project Hail Mary, and it was like it was written expressly to make me happy. It threw everything at me that I like most in a sci fi. I’m even very much like the central nerd character in the story (though admittedly he’s much smarter than me).