1. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
2. What advice do you think everyone should hear?
3. What are your favorite books and why?
Originally I intended to answer Question 2, but then I thought of Question 3 and I decided that I couldn't pass that one up because I just love books too much. My current favorites are as follows (in no particular order-that would be asking too much!):
the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
I think this sounds cliche, but Harry Potter is kind of like an old friend of mine. I grew up reading the novels and rereading them while I waited for the next one to come out. I don't actually remember reading the first few books for the first time; I feel like I've always known the plots. I was either Hermione or Ginny probably four or five Halloweens in a row. When I was eleven and I finished Deathly Hallows, I remember just closing the book and saying aloud, "I feel defeated." Not because Harry had lost or because of any plot, but because it was the end. There would be no more midnight Harry Potter parties at Joseph Beth, no more new magical adventures. It was kind of an absolutely terrible reality for me to accept. But I can still reread them, and I can still go to Harry Potter conventions in the summer (...yes, that actually happened last summer. And it most likely will next summer, too.) because essentially, I'm just madly in love with the entire world of Harry Potter.
I read The Book Thief at the end of the last school year and I can't begin to describe how much I love it. It is narrated by Death and centers around a young girl named Liesel Meminger (who steals books!) living with her foster family in Nazi Germany. I think it's safe to say that it is the most beautifully written book that I've ever had the privilege to have read. The end should have made me cry, but it didn't; I think it was because it honestly was so well done that I just couldn't accept it. Aside from being completely brilliant to read, The Book Thief is also a huge inspiration to me as a writer; I really wish that I had the talent that Markus Zusak has. His writing made me want to scream at times and made me feel like I was part of the book while I was reading it, and I would absolutely love to be able to do the same.
I want to say that I read TFIOS in less than twenty-four hours, but really I read the first chapter online a few months before it came out and I read part of the second chapter in the bookstore the day before I could actually start reading it. After that, though, it took me maybe five or six hours. It's narrated by a girl who is my age (sixteen) named Hazel Grace Lancaster who has been living for several years with thyroid cancer. TFIOS was also wildly inspiring for me as a writer; it DID make me cry and it made me reconsider my entire life and how I think. Part of what made it so incredible was how realistic it was; instead of feeling like I was reading, I felt like I was just with Hazel the entire time, seeing and experiencing everything that she did. Like The Book Thief, it completely changed me.
I read Pride and Prejudice over the summer when I swapped books with a friend at church. (I asked him if he'd read The Book Thief, and he said no, and he asked me if I'd read P&P, and I said no, so I let him borrow my book and I borrowed his.) When I was reading it, I kind of felt like I had to slug through it, but soon I was absolutely loving it. I'm really a sucker for romance-y stuff like Jane Austen novels, so that factors into my opinion of it, but I also feel like her wit is under appreciated. For instance, at one point, Mr. Collins proposes to Elizabeth and, revolted, she declines. He goes onto say, essentially, "I know that these days, ladies feel inclined to refuse at first so that the men will be more determined. Not to worry, I'll ask you again." She replies with something to the effect of "No, really, it's fine. I'm saying no and I mean no." He repeats his sentiments about how he knows what she's playing at, and in the end she does the equivalent of asking him if he's an idiot. I was probably too amused by this.
I'm sorry this post is so long! I seem to get too passionate about books.
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