BEDD 26: favorite books of 2011

I used to be an avid reader when I was a child. My mom was always buying me books to read and we would spend a small portion every night reading together.  I continued to read quite often all throughout grade school and middle school, but high school changed that.  I'm sure it was the busy schedule of homework and rehearsals and all the other things I've done that made me put reading on the back burner to everything else. When I had my hip replaced in the months following during recovery I slowly picked up the habit of reading a little every night.  Back in May when I joined GoodReads.com I made a goal to read twenty books before the end of the year; I've already completed that goal and I hadn't really even begun to think about my favorite books I've read until someone asked me on Tumblr.

"Because memories fall apart, too. And then you're left with noting, left not even with a ghost but with its shadow." - Looking for Alaska by John Green

Looking for Alaska by John Green wasn't what I expected it to be; I think the hype around it made me think about it differently than what I should have been thinking to begin with.  To be honest, now months later, I can't remember what I had initially thought when I first started reading this novel.  I enjoyed this book because in a way it talked me through a friendship gone wrong, one that happened two years ago that I'm still having trouble getting my brain around.  I give mad props to John for his writing style, one that I'm actually a bit jealous of.

"There is a relationship between the mind and the body that can both create a physical condition and enable us to recover from it." - Nothing is Impossible: Reflections on a New Life by Christopher Reeve

I'm happy that I read this book when I did, because it was a time during recovery that I was feeling really down and didn't know what to do with myself.  I had this feeling that I might never fully recover, or that I wouldn't be able to go on and do the things that I had been dreaming about all year, like travel the nation and go to Europe.  Reading this book gave me something that my parents and my friends weren't able to give me; Christopher Reeve shared the reality he went through with such a massive change in his life, and though mine was no where near as great as his, the writing spoke to me and told me that things would be okay in the end, that if he could go on with life and do things he never would have thought he could do, then I can surely go on too.  There just isn't enough praise for this book; I admit, I cried through a large part of reading it, but it was worth it.

"And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer." - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I honestly don't even know why I enjoy this book so much.  I've read it twice this year, once for my junior English class and then again sometime after surgery.  There's a way in the writing that makes this book a good read for me.  I can also say that I enjoy the content of the book, though I haven't been able to actually closely examine it like I would like to.  But that's alright, because I get to read it again for class this semester for my junior English credit that I missed last year due to surgery.  I'm hoping that I can get something even more out of this book; I'm sure though that I'm still going to enjoy reading it once again.

Link of the day: 365 more days to go.

days until Senior Year Part 2 begins: 9

days until I become an adult: 12

days until graduation: 144

10DYC: four books

This one was a lot harder to do, just for the fact that I read often but there aren't many books that truly stick out to me.

1. Looking for Alaska

by John Green

I read this over the summer, and though I thought it was a decent book I haven't really thought much about it recently.  It did however give me a lot of food for thought that I thought about a lot over the summer.  One of my favorite quotes actually comes from this book that helped me sort my thoughts out about a situation with a friend of mine that had happened a few years ago.

"Because memories fall apart, too. And

then you're left with nothing, left not even

with a ghost but with it's shadow."

2. The Dictionary

I know: I'm such a nerd.  But seriously, I love the dictionary.  I have a college Merriam Webster dictionary, hard back that my mom bought me last year when school started.  I used it primarily for debate, so there's a ton of sticky notes in it, and I've highlighted important words, that usually pertain to the government in some sort of way.  My English teacher a few weeks ago assigned us this vocabulary list and asked us how we were going to complete it. Someone said to look the words up in the dictionary, and she said that took too long, and that no one wanted to lug around a dictionary. Unknown to most, I keep my dictionary in my car. And I even named it Lucy.

3. Kansas Curiosities

by Pam Grout

I prefer to read things with historical references in them, or history books in general.  Once again, I know I'ma nerd.  While I was living in the library this past summer, I found this book called Kansas Curiosities in the new section.  Considering I love my state a lot and the cover looked interesting I checked it out.  I seriously learned a lot about my home state that I didn't even begin to know.  I read most of the book outloud to my mom, and she didn't know of half the things.  The book basically gives you interesting places to go visit throughout Kansas and a description of the history pertaining to that place.  I've been to about a third of the places in the book (which is the second edition, I have yet to read the first edition).  This book inspired me so much as to put the entire book on my bucket list; I want to check every single one of those places off before I die. And there's a lot of them.

4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

by J. K. Rowling

I've basically grown up with the Harry Potter series, and I have to thank, again, J. K. for such a brilliant series. In general, the Harry Potter series has helped me through a lot of hard times but if I really had to chose a favorite of them all, I'd chose Deathly Hallows.  Deathly Hallows just seems to be the beginning of everything to me.  Yeah it's the ending to the series, but the fact that it still leaves room for imaging what happens afterwards is nice.  I can't even fully explain why I love Deathly Hallows as much as I do.

Today is awesome because: I'm giving blood for the first time at the American Red Cross who come to our school once a year. Bit nervous, but I"ll be fine.

days until ACT: 30
days until the fall musical: 54
days until I become an adult: 108
days until graduation: 239