While summer may be winding down, your reading habits don’t have to. For many, reading can decrease anxiety, bringing the reader out of their stressful world and into a new world, filled with adventures, romance, horror, and everything else in between. Here are some great reads to take you away this semester!
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Room – Emma Donoghue
Now a major motion feature starring the wonderful Brie Larson, Room gives a new perspective to kidnapping stories everywhere. Told from the perspective of a five year old, Jack. The story shows the life of a kidnapping victim and her new son, who are being held hostage in a soundproof shed in a residential backyard that they’ve come to call room, and Jack has learned to call home. When Jack’s mother, overwhelmed with depression and doubts after being in the room for over six years, devises a plan to escape, Jack is hesitant, but complies, leading to them being rescued. The book goes on to show Jack’s troubles acclimating to the new and scary world, while his mother tries to pull herself together for her son. The narration from a young child, full of innocence, confusion, and intrigue gives the novel an almost lighthearted tone, and Jack wins your heart over as you watch him meet his grandparents, cut his hair, and feel the rain for the first time.
9/10
2. Animal Farm – George Orwell
A high school classic I had never read, passed down to me by a cousin moving who didn’t have room for a majority of her book collection. I read the book in one day while sitting on the beach; a quick read with a deeper meaning. While Animal Farm follows the tale of a group of farm animals taking over the farm they are staying on, overthrowing their human owners, the book itself is a giant reference to the politics going on at the time. Ironically enough, the book seemed to relate very well to our current political situation, showing how leaders can truly manipulate their people by claiming their power and therefore claiming superiority. Maybe the upcoming season of American Horror Story will make a few references despite all the clowns…
7/10
3. It’s Not Okay – Andi Dorfman
Past Bachelor and Bachelorette contestant Andi Dorfman pours her heart out in a tell all
self help book, dealing with her break up with the infamous number twenty six from her season of the Bachelorette. After seeing Andi at Her Conference in the Summer of 2016, I was determined to read her book. Little did I know that day I would win a signed copy of her book that I would read a year later. The only thing I didn’t like was that I didn’t wait to read the book post break up. Everything she was saying was very inspirational, but would’ve have been much more uplifting for myself, personally, if I had been going through a breakup as well. For fans of the shows, she does touch and tell some interesting details about her life with “twenty-six” as she coyly calls him throughout the book, as well as other contestants and how the show itself works!
7/10
4. Swimming Lessons – Claire Fuller
Swimming Lessons is a book I received through the Book of the Month Club after gettinga free book coupon from them through my Her Campus survival kit! When I looked at the five different books options I could choose, I was unsure of what the books were about, there weren’t really descriptions of the stories in their info sections. I was happily surprised with the book! The book bounced back and forth between two different perspectives – a daughter going to visit her her elderly and ill father in the hospital after a freak accident in the present and her mom writing notes to her husband throughout the daughter’s childhood. The storyline follows the mystery of how the mother/wife disappeared and what truly happened to her when she went missing. I read the book in two nights, staying up until almost three in the morning to finish it on the second night. The story compels you, as details of the parents sad and unfortunate life circumstances and relationship start to slowly seep out at the seams.
9/10