W is for “What Happened To Lani Garver”

Welcome to the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Every day in April (except Sundays), I’ll be sharing a short bookish memory with you.

Have you ever seen strange parallels between a fictional story and your real life? Like, the story’s author somehow took parts of your life and put them in a book? This has happened to me before. The most recent time it happened was when I read All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. The first time I saw major parallels between my life and fiction was when I read What Happened to Lani Garver by Carol Plum-Ucci.

What Happened to Lani Garver – Carol Plum-Ucci

The close-knit residents of Hackett Island have never seen anyone quite like Lani Garver. Everything about this new kid is a mystery: Where does Lani come from? How old is Lani? And most disturbing of all, is Lani a boy or a girl? 

Claire McKenzie isn't up to tormenting Lani with the rest of the high school elite. Instead, she befriends the intriguing outcast. But within days of Lani's arrival, tragedy strikes and Claire must deal with shattered friendships and personal demons—and the possibility that angels may exist on earth.

This book was first published in 2002. I was in high school when I read it. By today’s standards, it’s probably dated and problematic, but at the time, it made me think about the world in a slightly different way. I’d never read a book about a character who didn’t identify as male or female. I knew that transgender people existed, but at that point in my life, I’d never given much thought to gender. All the people I knew were either boys or girls. Reading this book forced teenage-me to think seriously about gender issues. What happens if someone isn’t a boy or a girl?

As a teen, I was sheltered. If I had to put a label on the town where I grew up, I’d probably label it “Guns and God.” People went to church on Sundays and spent weekends hunting or off-roading in their trucks. There's nothing wrong with those activities, but there wasn’t much diversity in the town. Almost everyone was white, conservative, semi-rural, Christian, and middle class.

The edge of a neighborhood in the town where I grew up.

Shortly after I finished the Lani Garver book, my best friend decided to tell everyone that he’s gay. Honestly, I wasn’t surprised when he told me. We’d been friends for so long that I'd pretty much figured it out on my own. Like with gender issues, I hadn’t given much thought to sexuality issues. I was straight; my friend was gay. That’s just how life was. We could talk about dudes together. Our sexualities didn’t bother me, so I didn’t think about them.

Unfortunately, my friend’s sexuality bothered other people. Some of our mutual friends were surprised when he told them. Kids who’d always been nice suddenly turned vicious and said that being gay was “against their beliefs.” I don’t want to go into detail about the bullying my friend endured because I don’t talk about my friends’ personal lives on the Internet. (Also, this blog is all about me, remember?) I’ll just say that the bullying got scary. I was legitimately worried that someone would use Christianity as an excuse to physically harm my friend.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the Lani Garver book during this part of my life. In the book, the fictional bullies are annoying at first, but then their behavior slowly escalates until it becomes potentially deadly. I was watching the same thing happen in my real life. It was terrifying.

Luckily, no one hurt my friend like Lani was hurt in the book. We graduated, moved on to college, and everything was mostly fine. Our story had a much happier ending than the story in the novel.

Still, the parallels between What Happened to Lani Garver and my real life were unnerving. I guess fiction can be a little too real sometimes.

Have you ever read a story that was eerily similar to your real life?

V is for “Vacation”

Welcome to the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Every day in April (except Sundays), I’ll be sharing a short bookish memory with you.

We’re getting near the end of this challenge, and I’m running out of bookish memories. I’ve pretty much told you my entire life story, people! So, we’re going to talk about the future today.

One of the best things about books is that they let you experience the world. You can step out of your own life and into someone else’s for a few hours. Books can also teach you about places you’ve never been.

I love to travel. I have a huge list of places that I want to visit. Let's look at some bookish spots that are at the top of my must-see list:

As a kid and teen, I read a lot of nonfiction about Arctic exploration. These books inspired me to take trips to Alaska, British Columbia, and Alberta in my teens. I’d show you photos of my trips, but they were on a computer that crashed, so they don’t exist anymore. You’ll just have to trust me. My travel wish list includes a few other snowy places. I’d love to see Antarctica, Iceland, and Scandinavia.

In my textbook for German History class in high school, I saw photos of King Ludwig II’s Neuschwanstein Castle. This castle was the inspiration for Disney’s Sleeping Beauty Castle. Seeing photos of it in a book made me put Bavaria on my travel list.

Has everyone seen The Lord of the Rings movies? I’ve never been able to get through The Lord of the Rings books, but the movies are beautiful. They were filmed in New Zealand, which is definitely on my must-visit list.

My undergraduate degree is in English literature. This means that I took lots, and lots, and lots of Brit Lit classes. You can’t spend years reading about the UK and Ireland and not want to go there. I especially want to see London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. Those are all very “literary” cities that have inspired hundreds of books. (Many of which I was forced to read in college.)

 Paris, France is on everybody’s travel list, right? It’s on mine. Oscar Wilde’s tomb is there. The world-famous Shakespeare and Company bookstore is there, too.

Speaking of bookstores, I’d love to see some of the biggest English language bookstores in the world. There’s Powell’s in Oregon, The Strand in New York, and Waterstones Piccadilly in London.

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

U is for “Uncertainty”

Welcome to the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Every day in April (except Sundays), I’ll be sharing a short bookish memory with you. 

Conversations I had with myself while writing posts for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge:

No one wants to read this. Why are you even trying? You should’ve stuck to book reviews.

Wow, that’s self-obsessed.

You’ve already said that three times. Do you really need to bring it up again?

Now you’re whining about first-world problems?

You’ve spent hours on this post. Admit that it’s not going to work.

Delete it. Start over.

There are better uses of your time.

Children were gassed to death today in Syria. You’re sitting on your fat ass and writing about random number generators? *Slow clap.*

One of the things I struggle with is the value of blogging. Why do I do it? I’ve said before that running this blog requires huge amounts of time and mental energy. I don’t get paid to do it. All of my content is free, and there are no ads. This project is a labor of love. Since I put so much of myself into Read All The Things!, I’d like to believe that it has value. I want to think that I’m doing something good with this blog, but I don’t always feel like I am.

Sometimes I delude myself into thinking I’m using the blog to help authors’ careers. I always see authors on Twitter asking people to write reviews. I post a lot of reviews, but realistically, I don’t think I’m doing much to help anybody’s career. This blog has around 1,500 followers. My reviews are seen by maybe 50-80 of those people. My platform isn’t big enough to make a difference in any author's life.

I also don’t post anything particularly helpful on the blog. I don’t educate people. I don’t use the blog to bring attention to important causes. I mostly make jokes and yammer about books. At times, this whole blogging thing feels uncomfortably narcissistic.

Does all that joking and yammering have value? After giving the question way too much thought, I’m going to answer with a hesitant “Yes.” I think that fun, fluffy entertainment has value. If people were serious all the time, we’d probably be miserable. (Or, more miserable than we already are.) Reading and writing blog posts allows me to mentally escape from the world for a few hours a day. It helps preserve what little sanity I have. I think that’s valuable.

I hope my blog has brought you a few minutes of mental escape.

If you’re a blogger, do you believe that your blog has value? Do you ever feel uncomfortable and narcissistic when you talk about yourself in posts?  

T is for “Tommyknockers & Terabithia”

Welcome to the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Every day in April (except Sundays), I’ll be sharing a short bookish memory with you.

In my last Blogging from A to Z challenge post, I talked about how I was a reluctant reader until I discovered that some books don’t suck. Conveniently for this challenge, two of those non-sucky books start with T.

As an elementary school student, my parents and teachers forced me to read every day, and by the time I got to fifth grade, I was bored with children’s books. I wanted to read an adult book. So, I snuck one out of my parents’ dresser drawer. The book turned out to be Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers. I managed to read the majority of it before my parents discovered I had it and took it away. This book got me hooked on horror. After my Tommyknockers experience, I wanted to read more scary books.

The Tommyknockers – Stephen King

Something was happening in Bobbi Anderson's idyllic small town of Haven, Maine. Something that gave every man, woman, and child in town powers far beyond ordinary mortals. Something that turned the town into a death trap for all outsiders. Something that came from a metal object, buried for millennia, that Bobbi accidentally stumbled across. 

It wasn't that Bobbi and the other good folks of Haven had sold their souls to reap the rewards of the most deadly evil this side of hell. It was more like a diabolical takeover . . . an invasion of body and soul—and mind.

The second book that helped turn me into a bookworm was Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. This one was a Christmas gift from my parents. It was more age-appropriate than my stolen Stephen King book. Terabithia had everything I didn’t know I wanted in a novel. It has a rural setting, a little bit of magic, and some serious topics. Even as a kid, I hated reading fluff. I read this book so many times that I had parts of it memorized.

Bridge to Terabithia – Katherine Paterson

Jess Aarons' greatest ambition is to be the fastest runner in his grade. He's been practicing all summer and can't wait to see his classmates' faces when he beats them all. But on the first day of school, a new girl boldly crosses over to the boys' side and outruns everyone. 

That's not a very promising beginning for a friendship, but Jess and Leslie Burke become inseparable. Together they create Terabithia, a magical kingdom in the woods where the two of them reign as king and queen, and their imaginations set the only limits.

It’s slightly strange that I connected with both of these books. They don’t have much in common. But, if I hadn’t read them, I probably wouldn’t be running a book blog right now. These were the stories that helped me realize that books could be entertaining.

What’s the first book that you remember loving?