Tag: books

Banned Books Week

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(UPDATE: The images should be working again. Feel free to use them at your library! I’d love to know if you do! I also removed the dates so you can use them every year.)

Not surprisingly, I’m celebrating Banned Books Week at the library. As it happens, most of my favorite books have been banned at one time or another, so of course I want to publicize this week. Because I believe people should read anything they want to read. Sometimes the more “questionable” materials help us in ways we never expected.

Here are bookmarks I made for the library:

bannedbookmarks1-page-001 bannedbookmarks1-page-002

If you’re a librarian, feel free to use them at your library if you’d like. If you’re a parent, please don’t think Junie B Jones is bad. Please.

Last Lines

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A bit ago I discussed the pain of picking out a first line for a book. The first line is important, it reels the reader in. But you know what’s just as frightening to write? The last line. The last line is how the book will be remembered, it’s the last chance the author has to connect to the reader before the book is closed and the story completed. These moments before the end? It’s those that we live for.

For me, a last line can make or break a book. Sad isn’t it? I feel very strongly about last lines. I’ll adore a book, but if its last line is…meh…it loses some points. That’s not to say I’ve read a lot of books that have mediocre endings, I’m just, well, picky.

But it’s hard because we can’t all have “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” (The Sun Also Rises)

We can’t all have “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” (The Great Gastby)

(I won’t reveal other last lines as I don’t want to spoil books for you.)

So, there’s pressure. Lots of pressure to accurately sum up the book into one simple sentence.

The last line for TNWSY came to me in a migraine-induced haze. I don’t recommend this to anyone. I was lying on the couch with my eyes squeezed shut (lights hurt) and the last page, the last paragraph, the last sentence came to me. And I couldn’t not write it. So I let the light in, opened my laptop back up, and typed as fast as I could. And I was so happy with it. And even after edits and revisions, that one last line has never changed.

For TSWB, I hate my last line. Hate it. I’ve only done one round of revisions, so I can’t say much, but it just feels forced. I know something better will come eventually, but I felt the pressure to make it good. So I kept trying different things until I was moderately happy.

With Book 3, I just typed. I didn’t think about it, didn’t even know how the last page would end. I typed and poof it came to me. And it’s so incredibly cheesy, but I like it. I find it sweet and fun and sentimental and kind of like the book itself.

So in three attempts I haven’t found the best way to choose a last line. But i’m working towards it. Because if any of my books are ever published, I want that line to mean something. I don’t want readers to put down the book and go “meh,” I want them to high five it for its attempt at giving them the truths they were looking for.

How do you write your last line? Is it planned, or is it just improvised? What are some of your favorite last lines? 

Perks Moment

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I feel like everyone has their own Perks of Being a Wallflower moment. The moment they discovered the book and felt like it was written entirely for them. Well, with the release of the movie’s trailer, I was reminded of mine –

It was the summer of 2002 and I was working at Borders. I remember shelving the small books and being instantly intrigued by the minimal yellow cover. It was so cute. And the title was very…me. I had always felt like a wallflower. So I bought it and brought it home and read it.

And read it again. And again. And again.

It was the summer after my freshman year of college and while I was four years older than the protagonist, I knew how he felt. It was just so real. So I started reading it every year.

Now, there are two types of book owners I’ve realized: a) those who believe books are a work of art and prefer to keep them as pristine as possible and b) those who believe the more worn a book looks, the more loved it is. I subscribe to the second belief. My books are very loved.

So while reading, I started underlining my favorite sentences, passages, so I could easily go back to them. When I got back to college (I was home in Orlando during the summer; my school was in Tallahassee), I handed the book off to my good friends, instructing them to read it and underline their favorite passages. To me, the book felt like a letter I had to share, one that everyone made their own. I loved seeing the different underlined passages because while we all loved the I felt infinite moment, we each had different parts that spoke to us just as well. (My favorite line is the one underlined above. It’s simple, and perfect.)

In the process of handing it off so often, my copy started to wear down. Pages were lose, ripped. And then, one day, a friend spilled an oil candle on it. At first, I was upset; my book was ruined, gone, dead. But then, when the pages dried, I saw that there wasn’t any harm, really, and the only permanent damage was that it kind of smelled like cinnamon apple.

And I was okay with that.

Because every time I went into a Cracker Barrel I thought of Perks. Every time I went into one of those country, good-time shops, I thought of Perks. And I smiled.

Years later I taught high school english. On my first day, as a very scared 22 year old, I passed around surveys to my students to learn a bit more about them. Who was an athlete, who was a drama kid. The last question asked them what their favorite book was.

One student said Perks.

It wasn’t a Bill and Charlie moment; we didn’t become best friends or anything like that, but I was so happy to see that the book transcended generations. That the same book that spoke to me so many years prior still applied to teenagers today.

Which was when I realized that I could relate to these students. While I didn’t have a cell phone at their age, I did understand what it was like to be a wallflower.

And I think that’s the most important part of the book. It makes you feel understood, and connected to a larger group of people you might not have known otherwise. Good books can do that.

And this one certainly did.

Have you read The Perks of Being a Wallflower? What’s your story? What’s your favorite line? 

Book so far

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I wanted to highlight a few books I’ve recently enjoyed. Here goes!

The Rivals – Daisy Whitney

[Since this is a sequel, I won’t say much about it. But as a background, The Mockingbirds is about a secret student-run justice society that helps watch over the students at a private school. Really great first book.] Admittedly at first I wasn’t sure if I wanted a sequel to The Mockingbirds. I really enjoyed the first novel, and thought it stood alone well. However, after finishing The Rivals, i’m glad it was written. It was nice seeing what happened after the fact, and seeing how past experiences, although sometimes horrid, can help make a person stronger.

So Shelly – Ty Roth

As a Literature major and former English teacher, I so loved seeing Byron, Keats, and Shelley as modern-day high school students. A really neat idea for a book, that intricately wove historical details into a new story. Very neat.

Warm Bodies – Isaac Marion

So much more than a the zombie-love story people think it is! I neat story told through the eyes of a zombie who kind of has a thing for a human girl. I liked how it gave a new reason for the zombie-apocolypse, and made you feel for a zombie. Honest!

Spin – Catherine McKenzie

A journalist goes under cover at a rehab facility to get the scoop on a struggling celebrity. I read this book in about two days. It was quick, easy, and really, terribly fun. I wanted so much more at the end, and have already reserved the author’s newest book at the library.