Hey guys! Sorry I totally blanked on the Ask Me Anything meme; I've been doing renovation for like the past two weeks, so I've been away from the internet and also totally losing track of all time (genuinely thought it was the 19th today) because I am so tuckered out. But I guarantee if you prompted me you will see a response posted here before the end of the month. Eternal Scouts' honor.
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lusimeles prompted: what would you say were your most formative books, both as a person and/or writer?
I am almost too excited about this to actually write this post. I'm so afraid I'll forget something! But also I could talk about this at length forever.
I think a lot of my most formative books as a person are books I read as a kid, unsurprisingly. The stuff you read growing up has a way of getting a stronger hold on you than almost anything. The impact is profound. Those books definitely helped shape the person I became and they are immensely important to me even now, at my heavily advanced age. I'm sure it's this way for a lot of people. I definitely measure sections of my life by what I was consuming at that time. And I've come to the hesitant decision that most of the formative-to-me-as-a-person books are the ones I read as a kid, and most of the formative-to-me-as-a-writer books at ones I read as an older teen/young adult. (Adult lol). Even if the early stuff laid the groundwork, it wasn't until I became a more critical consumer of media (and also began actively thinking of myself as a writer) that certain books hit me in a writerly way. And of course these things do intersect!
Sadly all of my books are packed up right now so I won't be able to peruse them for this post. I'll have to try and do everything from memory and just hope I don't fuck anything up.
I have a definite preference for American literature, and I do think there is a stylistic commonality there that appeals to me. And it's what I want most to emulate in my own writing. In general terms, what I try to do most is this: clean, straightforward prose with unexpected bits of beauty or lyricism. Is that so pretentious? Y'all can be the judge of whether I get anywhere close to that ever in my life, but that is generally what I go for and what I'm drawn to. I like a good mix of the nonchalant and the surreal. I also like strong character voices and unreliable narrators, which is honestly probably why I read as many biographies and memoirs as I do. But my number one writing rule is that everyone is the hero of their own story, and I try to keep that in mind; every character is off doing their own shit and worrying about their own issues and I really try and express that in everything I do. Everyone is blinded by their own point of view. It's all too easy to forget that in service of the main character and main story, but it's important.
FORMATIVE FOR ME AS A PERSON
Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine
I've talked at lengthabout this book before. I think it's the first book I ever thought of as a favorite, if that makes sense. I remember getting it out of the school library when I was little and just falling in love. I loved Ella so much. Her strength and her humor and all those awesome gowns... I think she was definitely a hero of mine as a kid even though I didn't think of it in those terms. I just loved the book. I read it so many times it came apart. I used to sleep with it in my bed, lol. I've said many times that I think it's a great book for a little girl in terms of female characters and romance, and it really holds up for me even as an adult.
Aria of the Sea, Dia Calhoun
I must've read this around the same time as Ella Enchanted, but I can't really remember... I haven't looked at this book since I was like nine years old but some of the scenes are still so strong in my memory. You guys, I wrote fanfiction for this book before I knew what fanfiction was. I wrote it in my marble notebooks, next to my hand-drawn art of the Spice Girls. I think they were mostly AUs lol. Does anyone know this book besides me? I hesitated putting this on the list but I mean, baby fanfiction. That seems pretty formative to me. It's about this young girl with the improbable and awesome name Cerinthe Gale who was like a healer of some kind, but then she couldn't save her mother from dying so she decides to follow her other dream of being a dancer. She gets accepted to this ritzy dancing school and has to deal with all kinds of boarding school mean girl stuff, as well as figuring out what her ~true calling~ is. Also I think she has a love interest. Who maybe whittles? Someone whittles. And her main mean girl antagonist is SO GREAT, absolutely foretold my continuing love for horrible and glamorous girls driven by deeply-buried insecurities. I do not remember the girl's name, but she was such a bitch, oh god, I loved her. Obviously she and Cerinthe were the best dancers at the school except Cerinthe was poor so everyone looked down on her. And the BEST PART was when the Mean Girl stole Cerinthe's dance and performed it STARK NAKED and also better, in a mean girl show of superiority. And later she has some horrible accident and her bone is sticking through her leg and Cerinthe has to save her, etc, etc. Man. I should read this again.
Harry Potter, JKR
I mean, what do I even say? I think as a generation we all get the formativeness of HP. Could be a post unto itself tbh.
The Lost Years of Merlin, T.A. Barron
I read this series around the same time as the early HP books, and they really warred for affection in my heart, haha. I was super into Arthurian stuff as a kid, but generally of the Morgan Le Fay variety because, you know, glamorous evil bitches are my thing. But I looooovveeeeddd these books. Does anyone know these??? It's about young Merlin's misadventures on this fantastical island mystical land place. I should re-read these too. It's hard to explain exactly what makes something specifically formative to you, so Idk, it's kind of a feeling. Something that you know lives in your heart.
Remember Me, Christopher Pike
I was SO OBSESSED with this book. I read it so many times. It was probably one of the first teenager books I read when I was still too young to be reading things like that, and I was all scandalized by the sex, etc. I bought it and Witch at the same time but I vastly preferred this book; Shari was a fun narrator, and the story was just more interesting to me, I guess? It's funny the stuff that sticks in your brain from books you read years ago. I remember she died in that orange pants-brown shirt outfit and even as a little one I thought that sounded fucking hideous and obviously something a dude writer would come up with. And when she dies, the stars turning red and dripping like candle wax! And going into all her friends dreams, and how her shady boyfriend like showered with his cousin once??? And of course the unwitting incest of Shari's brother and his girlfriend. Oh 90s, why did you love incest so much?
Also Shari/Peter 4ever.
Someone Like You, Sarah Dessen
I very much loved all of Sarah Dessen's books when I was a teenager. They were formulaic in a certain way: all coming of age stories of teenage girls wherein the main character had to wade through family drama and a (usually) bad boyfriend. But formulaic in a very comforting way, because it was a story I craved and wanted more of, and I knew I wouldn't be disappointed. Later on she started writing more romances that ended happily, but I was super into the earlier novels because the main couple rarely ended up together. And it was because the guy, whatever his virtues, was usually kind of shitty and not good for the girl. And the narrative didn't pretend otherwise! The girl would figure this out and learn and grow and be stronger on her own. I mean, I didn't even get why I liked that back then, but it seems even more important to me now. Realistic, girl-centric stories! Imperfect romances that are not romanticized! The importance of being cool with yourself! Ditching shitty boys! And of them all, Someone Like You was my favorite, possibly because it was the first of her books I read. They made it into a shitty movie with Mandy Moore that smooshed it together with another of the books and totally changed the ending to make her get with the guy, all of which is stupid.
The Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice
I talk about these books too much, so I will just redirect anyone interested to the tag.
The Realm of Possibility, David Levithan
I kind of cringe at the thought of this book now, if only because I'm not sure I would still care about it, especially in the intense way I did when I was fifteen. I loved David Levithan books (Boy Meets Boy was also delightful) (p.s. one time David Levithan contacted me on MySpace, HOW ABOUT THAT) but my friends and I made a bible of Realm of Possibility. It just...man, it's just such a teenager thing. I haven't looked at it in a while, but I guarantee it is one of those things that you need to be an angsty fifteen year old to read and it is not the same at any other time in your life. But maybe I'm wrong. It's a collection of poetry but also a novel; each poem is from the PoV of a student at this fictional high school and each was told in a different style, befitting the character telling their story. It was cool to see how they intersected and overlapped, and how each character saw the others vs their own personal thoughts and feelings. I mean, it was a cool book. And it really hit home for me at that time in my life. As I said earlier, I have a real thing for every character being the main character of their own lives, and this book was really good for that.
The History Boys, Alan Bennett
DEFINITION OF FORMATIVE. The list could begin and end here. One of the most important pieces of media in my life. THB crept up on me and then just consumed me; I think the play was recommended by a friend, so I read it and liked it but it wasn't until I saw the film and then listened to the radio recording of the play that it really crystallized. I mean, again, I think at least part of it was timing – I was the same age as the characters when I discovered it, so I think it resonated in part because of that. But it's also just incredibly smart and well-written and fascinating. So important. So so so important.
Flowers in the Attic + My Sweet Audrina, V.C. Andrews
I first read Flowers when I was a tween, as every girl should, and I was appropriately horrified but could not look away, as every girl should. But its sequel, Petals on the Wind, proved too much for my young mind and I abandoned the series and any other Andrews books, though I would sometimes peep at them in bookstores like you do with "dirty" books. Then Lifetime announced they were going to do a movie version, and that website The Toast (anyone?) did a V.C. Andrews day chock full of amazing articles (I would link but the site's not working rn so I'll update later) that really inspired me, so I decided to give Flowers in the Attic a re-read (which I've been doing a lot of lately with my tween books and I'm finding it very satisfying). AND NOW EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED. As a kid I enjoyed the vicarious craziness of the books, that car-crash-can't-look-away quality they have, but my trollish love of incredible trash had not formed back then, so I enjoy her books one bajillion times more now. But that's not the only reason why I love them. I think people get distracted and wrapped up in the incestousness and soap opera plots of her books, but that is not their main selling point, IMO. They are horror novels told like fairy tales. They are books exclusively for girls. Seriously. No boys allowed. They access a very specific kind of adolescent girl-rage that is rare in most media. I will take any chance I can to rec this article, because it explains the Andrews appeal better than I could ever hope to. Please do go read it.
My Sweet Audrina is not part of the Dollanganger series; in fact, it is Andrews' only standalone novel. And tbh if you only ever read one V.C. Andrews book, make it My Sweet Audrina. It's probably her best written novel but also the craziest, condensing all of her usual themes in this kaleidoscope of Southern gothic horror. I think it's more of an explicit horror novel than any of her other books, though the horror is not supernatural; her horror is too-familiar, the horror that exists within human beings. And the atmosphere is exceptional.
FORMATIVE AS A WRITER
A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood
Definitely a book I'm mentioned before (especially because of my distaste for the film version, which, understatement). The opening paragraph of this book is one of my favorite passages in all of time, forever, and I basically fell in love instantly. It's a stunning little novel, very gorgeous and very painful. And it's the first book that I can remember reading and feeling jealousy mixed in with my appreciation. You know? I read it and I thought: this is how I want to write.
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton might be my favorite writer. I could quite literally spend like half an hour just analyzing one paragraph from one of her novels. There's so much there! So much to parse! So much good psychological character-driven stuff written up so prettily! And such a dry, unexpected sense of humor. Plus, this bitch has the best dialogue on the market, I'm telling you. If Edith was born in our modern age, she'd be an A+++ screenwriter.
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
For a huge Scottie fan, I am actually tragically underread. Not to get all Angela Chase on you guys, but sometimes his stuff is so beautiful it hurts to look at it! The poetry of Scott's writing is just too too beautiful to me. It's aggressively, painfully beautiful. I can't bear it.
Visions of Gerard, Jack Kerouac
I studied Kerouac in college, and we did it a sort of fun backwards way: we studied his work biographically, i.e. we read it in the order it happened in his life, not the order in which it was written. So the first thing we read was Visions of Gerard, which was one of Jackie's later novels but is about his very early childhood, specifically the brief life of his older brother Gerard. It's very beautiful and achingly nostalgic; there's one passage in particular that I always loved, about the house and his mother's cooking, just beautiful. It's interesting to think of an older Kerouac sort of longing for that time in his life when he was very young, because the death of his brother (who was nine, while Jack was around....four or five, maybe?) obviously had a profound effect on him and his entire family. I loved it because the language was so evocative; I know Jackie's style isn't for everyone, but it highly appeals to me. I would recommend listening to some of his recordings, because the cadence of his voice brings a lot to the material.
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
When I first read The Bell Jar in high school, I didn't like it, because I was an asshole. But it had a profound effect on me when I read it again last year. I don't know how to explain this exactly, but it just... It made me highly conscious of characterization in a way I was not before. Obviously it's very personal to Plath which is why it's so raw and honest and true, but it really sort of clicked a light on in my brain when it comes to how to write people.
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
Another book I feel like people tend to throw off these days but I can't help always having a soft spot for it. It's a family favorite, so it was very much in the background of my brain my entire life, even before I read it. I just love Holden's voice and PoV. The beginning is my favorite part; sometimes I just go reread the bits about him tapdancing in the bathroom and saying he's the goddamn governor's son, it's very comforting for me.
The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde
So important! Wilde was one of those writers that I was into before I ever read a word, haha, just because I could sense that he was going to be important for me later on. When it comes to that sort of zany wit, etc, etc, he is the lord and master. And Earnest is my favorite, I love those characters to absolute pieces.
The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides
Another novel that inspired jealousy in me. The contrast is what kills me: there's this deep reverence and gorgeous writing about these girls, but then whenever one of the Lisbon sisters opens her mouth to speak, she's saying the most blasé teen nonsense. Because as idealized as they are by the narrators, the text doesn't forget that they are real people living real lives and experiencing real pain.
So I think my taste definitely follows a pattern, especially with the as-a-writer books. Umm this post is already very long and I hope y'all enjoy it even though I got kind of tired and lazy by the end there. Talk to me about books!
I am almost too excited about this to actually write this post. I'm so afraid I'll forget something! But also I could talk about this at length forever.
I think a lot of my most formative books as a person are books I read as a kid, unsurprisingly. The stuff you read growing up has a way of getting a stronger hold on you than almost anything. The impact is profound. Those books definitely helped shape the person I became and they are immensely important to me even now, at my heavily advanced age. I'm sure it's this way for a lot of people. I definitely measure sections of my life by what I was consuming at that time. And I've come to the hesitant decision that most of the formative-to-me-as-a-person books are the ones I read as a kid, and most of the formative-to-me-as-a-writer books at ones I read as an older teen/young adult. (Adult lol). Even if the early stuff laid the groundwork, it wasn't until I became a more critical consumer of media (and also began actively thinking of myself as a writer) that certain books hit me in a writerly way. And of course these things do intersect!
Sadly all of my books are packed up right now so I won't be able to peruse them for this post. I'll have to try and do everything from memory and just hope I don't fuck anything up.
I have a definite preference for American literature, and I do think there is a stylistic commonality there that appeals to me. And it's what I want most to emulate in my own writing. In general terms, what I try to do most is this: clean, straightforward prose with unexpected bits of beauty or lyricism. Is that so pretentious? Y'all can be the judge of whether I get anywhere close to that ever in my life, but that is generally what I go for and what I'm drawn to. I like a good mix of the nonchalant and the surreal. I also like strong character voices and unreliable narrators, which is honestly probably why I read as many biographies and memoirs as I do. But my number one writing rule is that everyone is the hero of their own story, and I try to keep that in mind; every character is off doing their own shit and worrying about their own issues and I really try and express that in everything I do. Everyone is blinded by their own point of view. It's all too easy to forget that in service of the main character and main story, but it's important.
FORMATIVE FOR ME AS A PERSON
Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine
I've talked at lengthabout this book before. I think it's the first book I ever thought of as a favorite, if that makes sense. I remember getting it out of the school library when I was little and just falling in love. I loved Ella so much. Her strength and her humor and all those awesome gowns... I think she was definitely a hero of mine as a kid even though I didn't think of it in those terms. I just loved the book. I read it so many times it came apart. I used to sleep with it in my bed, lol. I've said many times that I think it's a great book for a little girl in terms of female characters and romance, and it really holds up for me even as an adult.
Aria of the Sea, Dia Calhoun
I must've read this around the same time as Ella Enchanted, but I can't really remember... I haven't looked at this book since I was like nine years old but some of the scenes are still so strong in my memory. You guys, I wrote fanfiction for this book before I knew what fanfiction was. I wrote it in my marble notebooks, next to my hand-drawn art of the Spice Girls. I think they were mostly AUs lol. Does anyone know this book besides me? I hesitated putting this on the list but I mean, baby fanfiction. That seems pretty formative to me. It's about this young girl with the improbable and awesome name Cerinthe Gale who was like a healer of some kind, but then she couldn't save her mother from dying so she decides to follow her other dream of being a dancer. She gets accepted to this ritzy dancing school and has to deal with all kinds of boarding school mean girl stuff, as well as figuring out what her ~true calling~ is. Also I think she has a love interest. Who maybe whittles? Someone whittles. And her main mean girl antagonist is SO GREAT, absolutely foretold my continuing love for horrible and glamorous girls driven by deeply-buried insecurities. I do not remember the girl's name, but she was such a bitch, oh god, I loved her. Obviously she and Cerinthe were the best dancers at the school except Cerinthe was poor so everyone looked down on her. And the BEST PART was when the Mean Girl stole Cerinthe's dance and performed it STARK NAKED and also better, in a mean girl show of superiority. And later she has some horrible accident and her bone is sticking through her leg and Cerinthe has to save her, etc, etc. Man. I should read this again.
Harry Potter, JKR
I mean, what do I even say? I think as a generation we all get the formativeness of HP. Could be a post unto itself tbh.
The Lost Years of Merlin, T.A. Barron
I read this series around the same time as the early HP books, and they really warred for affection in my heart, haha. I was super into Arthurian stuff as a kid, but generally of the Morgan Le Fay variety because, you know, glamorous evil bitches are my thing. But I looooovveeeeddd these books. Does anyone know these??? It's about young Merlin's misadventures on this fantastical island mystical land place. I should re-read these too. It's hard to explain exactly what makes something specifically formative to you, so Idk, it's kind of a feeling. Something that you know lives in your heart.
Remember Me, Christopher Pike
I was SO OBSESSED with this book. I read it so many times. It was probably one of the first teenager books I read when I was still too young to be reading things like that, and I was all scandalized by the sex, etc. I bought it and Witch at the same time but I vastly preferred this book; Shari was a fun narrator, and the story was just more interesting to me, I guess? It's funny the stuff that sticks in your brain from books you read years ago. I remember she died in that orange pants-brown shirt outfit and even as a little one I thought that sounded fucking hideous and obviously something a dude writer would come up with. And when she dies, the stars turning red and dripping like candle wax! And going into all her friends dreams, and how her shady boyfriend like showered with his cousin once??? And of course the unwitting incest of Shari's brother and his girlfriend. Oh 90s, why did you love incest so much?
Also Shari/Peter 4ever.
Someone Like You, Sarah Dessen
I very much loved all of Sarah Dessen's books when I was a teenager. They were formulaic in a certain way: all coming of age stories of teenage girls wherein the main character had to wade through family drama and a (usually) bad boyfriend. But formulaic in a very comforting way, because it was a story I craved and wanted more of, and I knew I wouldn't be disappointed. Later on she started writing more romances that ended happily, but I was super into the earlier novels because the main couple rarely ended up together. And it was because the guy, whatever his virtues, was usually kind of shitty and not good for the girl. And the narrative didn't pretend otherwise! The girl would figure this out and learn and grow and be stronger on her own. I mean, I didn't even get why I liked that back then, but it seems even more important to me now. Realistic, girl-centric stories! Imperfect romances that are not romanticized! The importance of being cool with yourself! Ditching shitty boys! And of them all, Someone Like You was my favorite, possibly because it was the first of her books I read. They made it into a shitty movie with Mandy Moore that smooshed it together with another of the books and totally changed the ending to make her get with the guy, all of which is stupid.
The Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice
I talk about these books too much, so I will just redirect anyone interested to the tag.
The Realm of Possibility, David Levithan
I kind of cringe at the thought of this book now, if only because I'm not sure I would still care about it, especially in the intense way I did when I was fifteen. I loved David Levithan books (Boy Meets Boy was also delightful) (p.s. one time David Levithan contacted me on MySpace, HOW ABOUT THAT) but my friends and I made a bible of Realm of Possibility. It just...man, it's just such a teenager thing. I haven't looked at it in a while, but I guarantee it is one of those things that you need to be an angsty fifteen year old to read and it is not the same at any other time in your life. But maybe I'm wrong. It's a collection of poetry but also a novel; each poem is from the PoV of a student at this fictional high school and each was told in a different style, befitting the character telling their story. It was cool to see how they intersected and overlapped, and how each character saw the others vs their own personal thoughts and feelings. I mean, it was a cool book. And it really hit home for me at that time in my life. As I said earlier, I have a real thing for every character being the main character of their own lives, and this book was really good for that.
The History Boys, Alan Bennett
DEFINITION OF FORMATIVE. The list could begin and end here. One of the most important pieces of media in my life. THB crept up on me and then just consumed me; I think the play was recommended by a friend, so I read it and liked it but it wasn't until I saw the film and then listened to the radio recording of the play that it really crystallized. I mean, again, I think at least part of it was timing – I was the same age as the characters when I discovered it, so I think it resonated in part because of that. But it's also just incredibly smart and well-written and fascinating. So important. So so so important.
Flowers in the Attic + My Sweet Audrina, V.C. Andrews
I first read Flowers when I was a tween, as every girl should, and I was appropriately horrified but could not look away, as every girl should. But its sequel, Petals on the Wind, proved too much for my young mind and I abandoned the series and any other Andrews books, though I would sometimes peep at them in bookstores like you do with "dirty" books. Then Lifetime announced they were going to do a movie version, and that website The Toast (anyone?) did a V.C. Andrews day chock full of amazing articles (I would link but the site's not working rn so I'll update later) that really inspired me, so I decided to give Flowers in the Attic a re-read (which I've been doing a lot of lately with my tween books and I'm finding it very satisfying). AND NOW EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED. As a kid I enjoyed the vicarious craziness of the books, that car-crash-can't-look-away quality they have, but my trollish love of incredible trash had not formed back then, so I enjoy her books one bajillion times more now. But that's not the only reason why I love them. I think people get distracted and wrapped up in the incestousness and soap opera plots of her books, but that is not their main selling point, IMO. They are horror novels told like fairy tales. They are books exclusively for girls. Seriously. No boys allowed. They access a very specific kind of adolescent girl-rage that is rare in most media. I will take any chance I can to rec this article, because it explains the Andrews appeal better than I could ever hope to. Please do go read it.
My Sweet Audrina is not part of the Dollanganger series; in fact, it is Andrews' only standalone novel. And tbh if you only ever read one V.C. Andrews book, make it My Sweet Audrina. It's probably her best written novel but also the craziest, condensing all of her usual themes in this kaleidoscope of Southern gothic horror. I think it's more of an explicit horror novel than any of her other books, though the horror is not supernatural; her horror is too-familiar, the horror that exists within human beings. And the atmosphere is exceptional.
FORMATIVE AS A WRITER
A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood
Definitely a book I'm mentioned before (especially because of my distaste for the film version, which, understatement). The opening paragraph of this book is one of my favorite passages in all of time, forever, and I basically fell in love instantly. It's a stunning little novel, very gorgeous and very painful. And it's the first book that I can remember reading and feeling jealousy mixed in with my appreciation. You know? I read it and I thought: this is how I want to write.
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton might be my favorite writer. I could quite literally spend like half an hour just analyzing one paragraph from one of her novels. There's so much there! So much to parse! So much good psychological character-driven stuff written up so prettily! And such a dry, unexpected sense of humor. Plus, this bitch has the best dialogue on the market, I'm telling you. If Edith was born in our modern age, she'd be an A+++ screenwriter.
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
For a huge Scottie fan, I am actually tragically underread. Not to get all Angela Chase on you guys, but sometimes his stuff is so beautiful it hurts to look at it! The poetry of Scott's writing is just too too beautiful to me. It's aggressively, painfully beautiful. I can't bear it.
Visions of Gerard, Jack Kerouac
I studied Kerouac in college, and we did it a sort of fun backwards way: we studied his work biographically, i.e. we read it in the order it happened in his life, not the order in which it was written. So the first thing we read was Visions of Gerard, which was one of Jackie's later novels but is about his very early childhood, specifically the brief life of his older brother Gerard. It's very beautiful and achingly nostalgic; there's one passage in particular that I always loved, about the house and his mother's cooking, just beautiful. It's interesting to think of an older Kerouac sort of longing for that time in his life when he was very young, because the death of his brother (who was nine, while Jack was around....four or five, maybe?) obviously had a profound effect on him and his entire family. I loved it because the language was so evocative; I know Jackie's style isn't for everyone, but it highly appeals to me. I would recommend listening to some of his recordings, because the cadence of his voice brings a lot to the material.
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
When I first read The Bell Jar in high school, I didn't like it, because I was an asshole. But it had a profound effect on me when I read it again last year. I don't know how to explain this exactly, but it just... It made me highly conscious of characterization in a way I was not before. Obviously it's very personal to Plath which is why it's so raw and honest and true, but it really sort of clicked a light on in my brain when it comes to how to write people.
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
Another book I feel like people tend to throw off these days but I can't help always having a soft spot for it. It's a family favorite, so it was very much in the background of my brain my entire life, even before I read it. I just love Holden's voice and PoV. The beginning is my favorite part; sometimes I just go reread the bits about him tapdancing in the bathroom and saying he's the goddamn governor's son, it's very comforting for me.
The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde
So important! Wilde was one of those writers that I was into before I ever read a word, haha, just because I could sense that he was going to be important for me later on. When it comes to that sort of zany wit, etc, etc, he is the lord and master. And Earnest is my favorite, I love those characters to absolute pieces.
The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides
Another novel that inspired jealousy in me. The contrast is what kills me: there's this deep reverence and gorgeous writing about these girls, but then whenever one of the Lisbon sisters opens her mouth to speak, she's saying the most blasé teen nonsense. Because as idealized as they are by the narrators, the text doesn't forget that they are real people living real lives and experiencing real pain.
So I think my taste definitely follows a pattern, especially with the as-a-writer books. Umm this post is already very long and I hope y'all enjoy it even though I got kind of tired and lazy by the end there. Talk to me about books!