Dear Stephanie Perkins

It's been too long since I've had a book to gush about. A book that filled me up, made me it's prisoner, made me squeal like an idiot and made me believe in love and words. A book that sparks my insides and moves me to write and to read and to smile and to UGH very loudly.

Stephanie Perkins you win again. 

Last year I read Anna and the French Kiss swiftly followed by Lola and the Boy Next Door. I shared some thoughts on those two books here but to echo the sentiment a bit, these books moved me so much. These characters are just so alive and so beautiful and broken and unique. The way Stephanie writes is just electric and so full of love. You can feel this woman's passion and love for words and her characters soak through the pages.

She writes how I want to write. I love when you can tell an author loves their characters and I think Stephanie Perkins takes the cake there. I can almost feel her squealing with me when the characters kiss and getting frustrated with me when her characters aren't together. I like that I can feel how much love and care and attention each character gets. I like that the characters become my friends and that they are Stephanie's friends too.

I devour her books also. It's been a good summer for reading but good GOD I was not ready for the majesty of Isla and the Happily Ever After, the last book of her sort of, interrelated series. I don't want to give anything away by way of plot but here's the low down. Isla is shy and has always loved Josh, a broody hot artist who can't seem to focus on much. After a very awkward (and literally awesome) first official meeting over summer vacation, their school year in Paris becomes a lovely jumble of romance and sorrow and GUYS I COULD NOT.

One of the best parts of these books is that they truly transport you to the landscapes that they take place in. In Anna, you are swept away to Paris and you return back to Paris in Isla after some time in New York and some even more delicious time in Barcelona (STEPHANIE PERKINS I CAN'T WITH YOU). But one of my favorite experiences was reading Lola while I was in San Francisco last week. I mean, holy wow it brought the book to life in bursting colors. I drove through the Castro and picked the houses I though Lola and Cricket lived in and loved in. I bought some crazy dresses in the Haight and felt my Lola showing. She knows San Francisco and she paints each city she uses so lovingly and so beautifully.

My favorite line of Lola

I could gush about the intricacies of her books forever, how much I love the boys she writes (PS STEPHANIE PERKINS YOU ALSO SUCK BECAUSE I CAN'T PICK BETWEEN THE THREE OF THEM HOW DARE YOU), and how beautifully she writes her women. I can see pieces of all of them in me and that makes reading her books very fun and also very revealing. These girls have their faults and there are times when reading them revealed mine and I got so uncomfortable for a minute, but then so inspired. Like Isla for example. She is so hard on herself and she focuses on her past and Josh's past so much. I was so frustrated reading that until I realized that I do the exact same thing. Her books always seem to reveal me. It's because her characters are so damn realistic. It might seem easy to dismiss these books as easy to read or mindless romance but HOT DAMN do they get heavy and real and raw.

Stephanie Perkins is the writer I want to be and her words always wake me up when I need them to. I have been in the worst writing rut of all time. I feel like I have creative ADD. I sit down to write, feel so jazzed to be writing, and then I just can't. It feels empty and useless to try. I feel like I have nothing to say and no words to say anything. But her books excite me. They make me feel love and they make me feel a love of love in books. That feeling of getting so sucked into words that you cannot stop, you cannot and will not put it down. I want to write a book like that and Stephanie Perkins makes me feel like that type of writing is possible.

On her blog she has talked about battling depression. About how hard it is to write through it sometimes. I feel that pain so so much. Brains are assholes. Brains tell you you can't write or that you shouldn't or that people won't like you. And when that happens, bodies and words shut down. On one of her posts about depression, I left a comment for her about how much she inspires me. And guess what? She responded to me! :) She said "Thank you, Em. I'm so sorry that your brain is mean to you, too. I'm glad you're fighting it! Keep writing. I can't wait to read YOUR book someday. :-)"

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ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I was dying when that happened last year. And something more, I know she means it because she is just the nicest.

I know this post is all over the place but in the end, it has one purpose. Thank you so much Stephanie Perkins. Thank you for your books, your characters (particularly the boys but... how can I pick between the three ugh), your hope, your words, being you. Thank you for everything. Thank you for giving me my writing back.

I cannot wait for your next masterpiece.

Alaska

I always wanted to write and I always took solace in words. My childhood was tumultuous to say the least but something vital happened to me when I was about 15 (which now looking back on it was a big year for books) I fell down my first youtube hole and spent four hours watching all of the Vlogbrothers Brotherhood 2.0 videos. It was 2007 and the project was just hitting its sixth month. John and Hank Green made videos back and forth and somewhere in there John mentioned a book he wrote called Looking for Alaska.

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I wandered into Barnes and Noble, grabbed a copy, then went home and read it all in one sitting under a pile of sheets and tears. I'd never felt so wholly understood by a book. I'd never seen a character so like me on pages. I'd never had feelings I'd always felt put into words I didn't know were the right words. I'd always loved books but this was my first favorite book. My world changed that summer night. I finally knew what I wanted to write.

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When I talk favorite books, I have my Big Three. I've talked before about Gatsby and The Book Thief and there is no better time than now to talk about Alaska. It's January 10th. It's Alaska Young Day.

I read this book every January to coincide with Alaska Young day. If you've read the book, you know the significance of January 10th. But even if the day wasn't significant I'd read the book once a year, just as I do with my other favorites. I miss these characters when I don't read the book. I think of them sometimes like I reminisce about my own friends. "Hey, remember the night in the barn with Pudge and Alaska? That was great." They are just as real to me as my friends. They've taught me just as much and helped me grow just as much.

I read this book at an interesting time. I was growing and changing and my life was turning around me quickly while I stood powerless to stop the ever growing wreckage. I could see myself going down a very dangerous road and I welcomed it because what else could I have done? What else was I worth?

In the character of Alaska I saw myself. Powerful, motivated, broken, sexy, charged, enraged, empowered. Volatile, scary, passionate, self destructive. Reading her story was like holding up a mirror, or a warning. We were driving down the same road at 95 miles an hour. The difference? She turned left and after reading her, I turned right. She saved me. She was my first building block in finding myself.

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I still see myself in her when I read the book. We talk the same still. Think the same often. I'm still as moody as ever and I have my days where answering questions won't happen and you just have to accept that my melancholy streak will never die. But after this novel I grow. Every time I read it I grow. I'm reminded of the dangers of holding to your past and letting it kill you. I grow with Pudge and learn the value of my own great perhaps.

John Green, though. He's been my favorite author since I as 15. His words have kept me up half the night way before The Fault in our Stars ripped all of our hearts out. He's influenced my writing style a lot, I'd like to think. I love his always honest, never preachy way of expressing emotion. He is relatable and open and never patronizing or belittling. He knows we are intelligent people and he knows how big our hearts are. His gift really cannot be touched and if I could be 1/8 of what he is, I would be pleased with my life.

His words always inspire me, whether I'm rereading a book of his or watching his weekly videos. He is so unwavering in who he is and always full of hope and inspiration, something I want to be as well. He makes me better and he makes me hope. He makes me want to write so I can save someone like his books saved me. In a few years when some fifteen year old girl feels so alone and lost, they can pick up my book and feel heard and healed, just like I was.

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In my second year of college before I took my time off, I was in a directing class. The final project was to direct our own short 20 minute play. When I was down at that university, I was incredibly unhappy and I was not writing at all (which explains part of the unhappiness). After tearing through script after script and finding nothing, I saw Alaska sitting on the edge of my bed staring at me with her emerald green eyes, a cigarette between her smirking lips. I knew what to do.

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I wrote a play based on the book. I wrote a twenty page script in one night and cried after I was done. I hadn't written in so long. I hadn't felt my words carrying me in so long. The misery seemed to clear and I felt like myself again. This book brought my words back to me and to this day that play is the piece of writing I am the most proud of. Now, if only I could find some way of getting John Green to read it! That would be the dream.

So on this day, January 10th, Alaska Young day, I celebrate this life changing book. I'll read the book, pour myself a revolting glass of Strawberry Hill, and hold an unlit cigarette between my lips for her. An eternal thank you to John Green for this book, the life changing member of my Big Three that shaped who I am, my career goals, and everything. Thank you Pudge, Takumi, Lara, The Colonel, and Alaska most of all.

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The Book Thief

Some books transcend everything, don't they? They change the way you think. The way you write. The way you see the world. They change everything. It gets to the point where you feel incomplete without that book living on your nightstand staring at you every night. When you see other people reading the book you get jealous that they are spending time with your best friends among the pages, cradling the spine like you cradle those characters in your heart. The book has become so completely yours and so completely you that you simultaneously want to share your love for it and keep every single copy in the known world under your bed for yourself.

This is The Book Thief. The untouchable, perfect, heartbreaking, groundbreaking work of art that changed everything for me.

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I read this book for the first time when I was about 15. I was immediately pulled in to this world as I watched Death walk alongside these characters and sit by their side in the snowy streets of Molching, Germany. I was immediately in love. I had never read words like this before in my life. The way death described things. The way he saw the world. I wanted to stand with him as he told me his stories, to see the world in the colors he saw it in.

DEATH AND CHOCOLATE

First the colors.

Then the humans.

That's usually how I see things.

Or at least, how I try.

***Here is a small fact***

You are going to die.

I loved the voice Death had. The tired, dry, sarcastic wit. The love he feels for Liesel. For Rudy. For them all. Death's narration makes this book. The way he describes colors. Every time I reread this book I find a new description to love. The first one I underlined? The eyes of a dead pilot the color of coffee stains.

I've never seen description like this. It's an amazing feeling to pick up a book, not realizing how different you will be after you read it. This book changed my writing entirely. I began going description crazy and I saw the world around me twist and turn while I read some passages over and over again. I had never been so taken by a book. 

When I got to the last fifty pages or so, I slowed down. I had tears cascading down my cheeks and I felt like I would never be able to breathe normally ever again. It took me two hours to pull myself through that mountain range of rubble and I emerged on the other side tear-stained, exhausted, and wholly swept away. It still takes me about two and a half hours to read those last pages. Those are some of the most gorgeously brutal words I have ever read.

I've never felt so attached to characters. They feel like family. Because the author spends so much time letting you get to know these characters, you cannot help falling in love with them. He tells you stories that really have no consequence in the grand scale of the story. They don't move plot forward per se, but they make your heart ache for these people. Rudy with his lemon hair, Liesel's love of words and hours spent on the floor of a secret library, Hans breathing with his accordion, Rosa's hidden moments of tender love with Hans, Max sweating fear every hour of the day. Lord, I can't even type about this book without getting tears in my eyes.

This book gives me the most visceral reaction of any book I've ever read. I feel my entire body pulsing when I read it and when I even think about the words. If I ever feel the need to cry, I can think of a scene in the book between Max and Liesel and in seconds glass tears will fall. If I need a laugh, I think of Liesel and Rudy saumensching with each other in the school yard or along the Amper River. Even the name of my blog comes from this book. Liesel reports the weather to Max one morning so the hidden Jew can have a small taste of the sky.

"The sky is blue today, Max, and there is a big long cloud, and it's stretched out, like a rope. At the end of it, the sun is like a yellow hole..."

Max, at that moment, knew that only a child could have given him a weather report like that. On the wall, he painted a long, tightly knotted rope with a dripping yellow sun at the end of it, as if you could dive right into it. On the ropy could, he drew two figures- a thin girl and a withered Jew- and they were walking, arms balanced, toward that dripping sun. Beneath the picture, he wrote the following sentence.

***THE WALL-WRITTEN WORDS OF MAX VANDENBURG***

It was a Monday, and they walked on a tightrope to the sun.

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I've spent a lot of time thinking about why this book has affected me so much; enough to lead me to read it once a year, each year highlighting and underlining more and more of my beloved well-loved copy. (I would read it more but I physically and emotionally don't think I could handle it.)

I think at my core, I connected with Liesel and her love of words. Her inspiring, motivating, life changing dedication to reading and writing and taking control of her own world through words. The power of language is a theme that is so central in this book and that is also a big part of my own life. Nothing moves me more than the power of language and watching this little girl fall in love with words reminds me of myself discovering words and using them as a weapon, a crutch, an embrace, a friend. I see so much of me in Liesel. I see me in her feeling of displacement and her deep love for those she cares most about. Her quiet watchfulness and powerful soul. I love that little girl. 

I love all of those characters. I am in love with Max Vandenburg. Hans and Rosa are my second parents. Rudy. To quote Death:

He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It's his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.

This book kills me. This book steps on my heart. This book makes me cry. 

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I was so nervous when I heard this book was going to become a movie. Actually, screw nervous. I was livid. I was in my bathtub reading the book when I decided to look at Tumblr tags, hoping to find some pretty fan art. Instead I found a cast list and filming locations. My heart burst open. No, I thought, this is The Book Thief. Not the Movie Thief. Where will the words be? No. These are my characters. They'll have to leave out so much. No. No. No.

I remained furious for months. I got protective and angry. I didn't want people to start claiming this book that was my lifeblood as their own after seeing a movie and never holding these characters in their hands. I wanted the movie to be done right, to do justice to these words that are so ingrained into me. I didn't want people who I felt didn't deserve this book to be able to see the movie and cry. They don't know these characters like me, they don't deserve to sit and cry with me. They will cry because of the Holocaust, I will cry because I'll be watching my family and my heart on the screen. 

Then I saw the trailer. And lost it completely. It blew me away. I was crying within the first three seconds. I was so happy because it looked exactly like what I always pictured, but also different enough to let me keep my images of these people and places alive in my brain. I calmed down with being so militant about this book being mine. My perception of this book and the meaning I have assigned to it will always be mine and nobody will ever touch that. But now the world will see why I go so crazy over this. They will get to meet my loves. 

I am so scared to see this movie. If watching the trailers is any inclination, I will be a horrible sobbing mess the entire time. I went to a movie last weekend and saw the trailer for the first time on the big screen and immediately started weeping, much to the embarrassment of my sister, brother in law, grandmother, and fellow movie-goers. My mom flat out refuses to see the movie with me because I won't be able to stop crying throughout. That's alright, I'd rather brave it alone. 

This was a whirlwind to write. I'm once again tear stained and exhausted; it's like I just finished reading the book. I love this book to pieces, with every beat of my heart and I am so happy to share my love of this book with you all. 

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Dear Rainbow Rowell

I finished the best book last night. It's called Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell and I urge you- I implore you- to rush out to a bookstore and get this book immediately. I was so taken by this book and even with its 434 pages, I raced through it. I found myself postponing reading it because I knew how fast I would get through it and I wasn't ready for it to end. But the second I picked it up last Sunday night, I finished the second half of the book in two hours. When the book closed and my dry eyes finally pried themselves off of the last page, I had that lovely settled feeling that comes after finishing a perfect book.

If you are a person who considers yourself to have any sort of internet presence, you will connect with the main character Cath so much. She writes fan fiction for a series of books about a young wizard named Simon Snow. While she can't seem to connect as much in the real world and her group of real life acquaintances is small, online she has any number of friends at her fingertips. Although my blog doesn't have the 20,000 hits hers does, I relate to her feeling of connection and love through the internet. I love my blog readers, I love reading other blogs, I love this internet communication.

If you consider yourself a writer at all, read this book. Rainbow Rowell has the most delicate and perfect way with words. She just... she gets it. She gets what writing feels like, the urgency that you can feel building in your fingertips as you write or when you feel an idea building in your head and no matter where you are, you just start intensely staring into space as the characters move inside your head.  Samples:

"She liked to sit next to him and watch all that good come out of his hand. Watch the jokes spill out in real time. Watch the words click together."

"'But there's nothing more profound than creating something out of nothing.' Her lovely face turned fierce. 'Think about it, Cath. That's what makes a god- or a mother. There's nothing more intoxicating than creating something from nothing. Creating something from yourself.'"

"Your characters quiver, Cath, like they're trying to evolve right off the page."

I just... I can't, you guys. She is unafraid of words and her passion jumps off the page and seeds inside of your soul. I cannot seem to ever forget her characters and I struggle starting new books after I finish hers because I just love these people so much.

The thing I love the most about her writing is how she writes romantic scenes and romantic feelings. This is another area that she just gets. She makes is so raw and so real and it was the first time that I really felt urgency in the romance. A lot of books make every love scene and every romantic feeling very delicate and light. "I can't get close enough to you, I want to be near you..." BLAH. No. It's more than that. It's an all consuming desire and Rainbow Rowell knows that and she writes that. And... it's so incredibly sexy I cannot stand it. I've had to put her books down and fan myself because YES. Just... read this:

"Right about then, Cath realized just how close she was to the edge of Levi's jaw- and remembered what she'd promised herself to do there  She closed her eyes and kissed him below his chin, behind his jaw, where he was soft and almost chubby, like a baby. He arched his neck, and it was even better than she'd hoped.... Cath brought her hands up to his neck. God, he was warm- skin so warm and thick, a heavier ply than her own."

"Levi's mouth was open, too, and he kept pulling back a little like he was going to say something; then his chin would jut forward again, back into hers. God, his chin. She wanted to make an honest woman of his chin. She wanted to lock it down."

I JUST NO AHHHH

Don't even get me started on the sexiness of Eleanor and Park. A taste:

"If he were to look up at her now, he'd know exactly how stupid she was. She could feel her face go soft and gummy. If Park were to look up at her now, he'd know everything. 
He didn't look up. He wound the scarf around his fingers until her hand was hanging in the space between them.
Then he slid the silk and his fingers into her open palm. 
And Eleanor disintegrated."

"She wanted to lose herself in him. To tie his arms around her like a tourniquet."

"'And you look like a protagonist.' She was talking as fast as she could think. 'You look like the person who ins in the end. You're so pretty, and so good. You have magic eyes,' she whispered. 'And you make me feel like a cannibal.'"

That protagonist line? My favorite line in the history of all books. It is perfect. I want my man to look like a protagonist. Get out of her, Rainbow Rowell. You win.

Go get these books, everyone. I can't even write well when I write about these books because they are too perfect for my words. The only way I can describe these books is with Rainbow Rowell's words from Eleanor and Park:

"'I just want to break that song into pieces,' she said, 'and love them all to death.'" I love every piece of these books. To death.

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gaga

"So. When I wrote the next song, it was one of the hardest things that I did because, you know, everybody went on about all the clothes, right? And all the makeup and the wigs and 'why does she always cover up?' So I decided I would use this opportunity to tell you why. Because the whole world is watching and what I wanted you to know is that like some of you, which is why I wrote Born this Way, I cared not for success, I cared not if people liked it. I cared only about that even just one person that it might touch. I was willing and will always be willing to risk it all for what I believe in. 

So here I am. The human underneath the wigs.

This is my real hair.

 And the reason for that is because what I was saying was like you, some of you, I've went through some really tough times. And tough times I've never really talked about. And I never talked about it because I didn't feel that I needed to use it for people to like my music. And I won't tell you exactly what it was now because, no need to be a downer, really. But I'm telling you because in order to write ARTPOP, I had to be willing to take off all the wigs and the makeup that I used to cover up the pain. And it's not that I don't love my wigs- I am my hair, obviously- it's just that I used them for a long time to become different people so that when I woke up in the morning and I didn't feel strong enough to be me I just created someone else. And it worked and it will work for all of you whenever you choose to do it. But in order to grow, be a better artist, and to become closer to you I knew I had to show you what's underneath all of the theater. So here I am. In order to get here, I had to climb through a lot of swine."
- Lady Gaga, iTunes Music Festival, September 1, 2013

This right here is why I have been a Gaga fan from day one and why I will continue to be one from here on out. She is real and raw and afraid, like all of us. She's not fake. She believes in what she creates. And look at how beautiful she is, natural and free.

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This is a new song she wrote for her fans after she broke her hip and was unable to perform. Her passion and love of performance is something of her that has always inspired me and will continue to inspire me. Gaga, I love you. Also, I have been told we look alike. I'll take it.

Please give this song a listen. She is so talented. So beautiful. Let her inspire you too. Lyrics below.

It's off, it's on

The party's just begun

Take off, and run

Let's celebrate the fun of being young

I don't wanna grow up

I don't wanna grow up

But when the lights come on

You lift me up, and I feel strong

I won't be right without you

And I might break without you

I'd rather be poor and happy than rich and alone

I'll write hit songs about you

No matter how we'll get through

I'll keep on singing for a living, but I wanna be in love

And I wanna be with you

I wanna be with you

Lights off, lights on

The music has begun

More light, you run and get the bad guy's gun

I love the songs that you play

And I don't care what they say

Cause I was born this way

When I hear you scream, I hit the top of the stage

Close my eyes, I know exactly who I am

I won't be right without you

And I might break without you

I'd rather be poor and happy than rich and alone

I'll write hit songs about you

No matter how we'll get through

I'll keep on singing for a living, but I wanna be in love

And I wanna be with you

I wanna be with you

I won't be right without you

And I might break without you

I'd rather be poor and happy than rich and alone

I'll write hit songs about you

No matter how we'll get through

I'll keep on singing for a living, but I wanna be in love

And I wanna be with you

I wanna be with you

No matter what breaks me, I wanna be with you

Friday Favorites-Deserted Island Books

I'm a pretty passionate person, which means I love a lot of things. I have a lot of favorites and I have a hard time with questions about picking favorites. But... I'm also a masochist and I love discussing favorites with people. To borrow a quote from John Green, a favorite author, "Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than the stories and people we are quoting." Our favorites show a lot about ourselves. Next time you think about your favorite anything, think about what is says about you.

I want to start putting up some posts about my favorite things! It's the best part of dating and getting to know someone, seeing their favorites and what they love. So every few fridays, let's get to know each other with some favorite sharing, yes? If you have any ideas for what you'd like to see here, let me know! Movies, books, food, literary characters, you name it!

To start off, let's take one of the hardest questions to answer and hash it out! You're on a deserted island. What five books would you take with you to a deserted island? I saw this post on one of my favorite book blogs called The Midnight Garden. I love what they said about why this is so hard. It means forever with these five books. So what do you pick? The classics, the guilty pleasures? The books that changed you? GAH This is so hard. But so fun. It's like a horrible version of that game Would you rather? I love that game too.

So. After much debate! Here are my five deserted island books.

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1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

This I feel is decently self explanatory. I love the romance, I love the words, I love the passion. I love Jay Gatsby. It's a book I can never get sick of and it would be a real comfort during any long dark nights. Something about this book feels eternal to me and it would be the first thing I would miss if I didn't have it with me.

2. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This is another of my absolute favorite books; a book I read once a year. It is unbearably sad but it is also probably the most beautiful book I have ever read. This book changed me and made me a different person and a different writer. Zusak is incredibly talented with his words and this book has some of my favorite literary characters of all time. When I finish reading this book I miss the characters like I miss friends I haven't seen in a while. I would have to keep these characters close.

3. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I have a box set, so I'm counting it as one book and bringing all three with me. K at The Midnight Garden counted her Harry Potter box set as one so this works too. These books make me feel strong and have pulled me through a lot. THey are exciting and full of adventure and if I was ever in a pickle on my little island I would just pull a Katniss and save myself. I'd need these books there to learn from. And also because they are too good to not bring. These books are perfect. I am Katniss Everdeen and I wouldn't want to lose my connection with her.

(I would like to point out that I am in PAIN trying to pick just five. This was a foolish idea.)

4. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides 

Here is another book with some of the most beautiful writing around. I read this book for the first time this year and was enraptured by it. It's so unique and just fills your mind with thoughts and questions. It's a pretty book. It's so dark and sexy and haunting. If I have the rest of my life to be on an island, I want to spend that time pondering complex things. This book really makes me do that. Also I love Lux. 

5. Looking for Alaska by John Green

Rounding it out with one of my absolute favorite books of all time, by a favorite author. This was the first book I called a favorite and this book fell in to my hands when I was 15 years old and I still can't get over it. It makes me laugh, it makes me weep, it makes me feel, it makes me love. This book made me want to write more than I already was writing at the time. It's another one of those "contemplate life" books and it gives me a lot of hope. Can't leave hope at home when I'm stuck on an island.

Ok. Well that was torture but I'm happy with my list! Not all of my absolute favorite books made the cut, but I will be all set on my island. And these books do say a lot about me, don't they? I have quite the morbid streak. Ha I can't help but laugh as I count up the total casualties I'll be reading for the rest of my life on my little island. Ha. Awesome.

What are your five books to take to a deserted island? I'd love to know!