Monday 10 March 2014

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”


Hey everyone, as you might have guessed by the name of this post, today I'm going to be talking all about books! 

Since I was old enough to read I've always devoured books. I remember queuing at midnight for each of the Harry Potter books and then staying up all night and begging mum to let me stay off school the next day to finish reading it. Bit of a geek? Yup!

Towards the end of last year I noticed that I'd not been reading as much and had instead been reading trashy magazines or scrolling aimlessly about the Daily Mail website on my lunch at work. I don't think gossip sites/magazines really benefit anyone at all, they focus mainly on putting celebrities down, playing on the readers insecurities to promote products and spouting pointless drivel. So come January 1st, I decided to ditch the gossip columns and get back into reading. I decided to start with books I already had in my collection but had either forgotten about and left unfinished or not gotten into in the first place. I've been keeping a list of each one I've finished as a means of encouragement. So far I've managed to read eleven books this year and have thoroughly enjoyed each one. I've already got a list of books I want to read next and am going to have to make quite a big Amazon order soon!

Now that I've given you a little background info I thought I'd share a few of my recent reads with you all.


Looking For Alaska by John Green

I think John Green is a great author and I loved The Fault In Our Stars so I knew I wanted to read another of his books. Looking for Alaska is about Miles Halter a teenage boy whose life has been pretty dull so far, he goes off to boarding school and meets Alaska Young. She's everything he isn't and brings excitement into his life. The story follows the two and their school friends through their life at boarding school. I don't want to give too much away but tragedy strikes and Miles learns a lot more about life.
The book is beautifully written and it keeps you interested the whole way through. There's nothing worse than when a book has you skipping through chunks of unnecessary detail. 

Room by Emma Donoghue

Next up is an author I hadn't heard of, Emma Donoghue. I was drawn in by the plot and knew I had to read it. Again I don't want to give too much away so I'll just use the description from the back of the book itself. 
"Jack is five. He lives with his Ma. They live in a single, locked room. They don’t have the key.
Jack and Ma are prisoners."
This book is brilliantly written and gives a unique perspective on our world as seen through Jacks eyes, its quite upsetting in some parts but lovely all the same.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar is a semi-autobiographical novel and is the only novel written by Plath who primarily wrote poetry. Knowing that Plath committed suicide shortly after the publication of the book makes for a harrowing read. I found that I really connected with the main character Esther, as the novel is so honest and describes perfectly a normal girls descent into depression and insanity. Esther is clever and ambitious and she deals with things any girl her age would, boys, self image and not knowing quite where life is heading, it is this quality that makes Esther so relatable; the fact that she could be any of us.


I hope you enjoyed this post, I think I'll make it a bit of a regular thing, maybe every few months so I can recommend a few more reads for you all. 
If you have any suggestions of books I could read next please leave me a comment and let me know :-)

Rachael x




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