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Just wanted to let you all know that I finally made a bookstagram!! If you want to see what books I’m reading and hear my thoughts on them, give me follow over on Insta at snowybookowl !! I’ve wanted to do this for a long time and I finally got around to it. I’m really looking forward to developing my page and sharing some cool books with you all (:

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But love is complicated, it’s messy. It can inspire selflessness, selfishness, our greatest accomplishments and our hardest mistakes. It brings us together and it can just as easily drive us apart. It can drive us.

Courtney Summers, Sadie

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I forget that at times, I was a kid, that I did kid things. That I read about the girls I dreamed of being. That I did things like play in the dirt and make mud cakes. Drew pictures myself. Caught fireflies in the summertime.

Courtney Summers, Sadie

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Now and then, I witness the ones who are left crumbling among the jigsaw puzzle of realization, despair, and surprise. They have punctured hearts. They have beaten lungs.

Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

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Hope in the shadow of fear is the world’s most powerful motivator.

Neal Schusterman, Scythe

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Everyone is guilty of something, and everyone still harbors a memory of childhood innocence, no matter how many layers of life wrap around it. Humanity is innocent; humanity is guilty, and both states are undeniably true.

Neal Schusterman, Scythe

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The mistakes I’ve made are dead to me. But I can’t take back the things I never did.

Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

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Does it break my heart, of course, every moment of every day, into more pieces than my heart was made of.

Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

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Sometimes you have to set some of it down. You can’t carry all of it forever.

Jennifer Niven, Holding Up the Universe

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It was one of the best days of my life, a day during which I lived my life and didn’t think about my life at all.

Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

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Hey everyone! I’ve missed posting on this blog so much, but the past year and a half have been crazy. I started my first year of college last fall, and I didn’t have the time to keep this blog going, though I do have a couple other blogs - shameless plugs to my main blog @sleepybeaches , poetry/art blog @landslides , and book blog @snowybookowl lol check em out if ya want (:

BUT rest assured, I have still been reading and collecting quotes, so I have a giant backlog I’m excited to share! I’ve so missed chatting with you all about books and quotes, and I’m so happy to be back.

I’m sending you all my love <3 I know times are tough right now, but I hope my little blog gives you even a little bit of solace. As always, please send me a message if you need someone to talk to!

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Recommended Reads of 2018

This was a strange reading year for me. I’m currently halfway through my senior year of high school, so between academics, extracurriculars, and college applications, I haven’t had as much time to read as I would like. But somehow I still managed to read 87 books. Unfortunately, I don’t even have my usual ten books to recommend because I don’t have that many favorites. So I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for just 8 this year. Without further ado, here’s this year’s list:

8. Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande

I’m not really sure what compelled me to read this book, but I’m very glad I did. This is a nonfiction work about aging and how doctors (and loved ones) sometimes get so carried away with medical procedures and forget to consider other factors such as the patient’s quality of life. I know, I know, it sounds morbid and depressing, but it completely changed my perspective on medicine. I think this is an excellent book to read to better understand the elderly and why cutting-edge, experimental surgery is not always the best option even if it can prolong life. An interesting read, and one far outside my comfort zone.

7. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Okay, I swear this is the only other depressing nonfiction book. I really got into memoirs this year, largely thanks to this book. Kalanithi chronicles his life as a neurosurgeon unexpectedly diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. Suddenly he is forced to accept the fact that he is dying, which gives him a greater appreciation for how his patients feel and makes him think deeply about his life and choices. I sobbed at the end, and if you know me at all you know that is a testament to the sadness of this memoir because I am not a crier. It was so, so good though.

6. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

I have no idea what took me so long to finally read this book. I read Albertalli’s The Upside of Unrequited last year and adored it, and I’ve had this novel waiting for me on my Kindle for a while, but I finally picked it up and devoured it. If you haven’t already heard, this is the story of Simon, who has been anonymously message another boy from his school. They like each other but neither has officially come out, so their identities are secret. (I’m sorry, I’m really bad at describing books so I’m gonna quit while I’m ahead; if you’re interested, please just look it up haha). It was super duper cute, which I am always here for.

5. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

If you’re ever in the mood for a book that not only breaks your heart but completely pulverizes it and stomps all over it, this is for you. This novel is set in Nazi-occupied France during WWII and follows two sisters rebelling in their own ways. I truly felt like I was in France right next to the characters the whole time, and I cried so hard at the end I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish it. So if you need a good cry, pick this one up (or anything Hannah’s written honestly—I’ve discovered a new favorite author).

4. Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia

The best way I can describe this novel is it’s a blend of two books I adore, Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell and The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli. Eliza is the creator of a famous webcomic but no one at school knows, so she’s a miserable outcast in real life. But then she meets Wallace, an unsuspecting fan artist for her comic. Basically, it’s adorable and made me very happy, which I call a success.

3. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

Honestly, all I have to say is this follows a guy who runs a bookstore. What more do you need to know? There are two types of books I read indiscriminately: Jane Austen retellings (which, to be clear, this isn’t, but I do have recommendations if you’re looking), and books about books. What can I say, I’m a simple girl. Anyway, this was great and made my bookish heart happy.

2. Noteworthy by Riley Redgate

I really didn’t expect to like this book all that much, but I LOVED it. I wish there were a fandom for this book because ya girl needs some fan art. Anyway, this takes place at a artsy boarding school. The main character, Jordan, has too low of a voice to score a leading role in a musical, so instead she dresses as a guy and auditions for an all-male a cappella group... and gets in! She makes friends with all the guys in the group (all of whom I love) and has to keep up this elaborate act as they prepare to compete. Think Pitch Perfect but way more wholesome and enjoyable (sorry, is my hatred of Pitch Perfect showing?). So, so good.

1. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Okay, this is one of my favorite books of all time now. It’s absolutely amazing and made me feel all the things. When perfect child Lydia turns up dead, her family is forced to grapple with everything that led up to this, all the struggles and misunderstandings they have had over the years. It deals with the lofty expectations we have of one another and how everyone inevitably disappoints people by not meeting those expectations. This is another one that made me cry. It was so human. Ng has such a talent for capturing people’s humanities in realistic and sometimes brutal ways. I will for sure read whatever she comes up with next.

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Love your blog!!

Thank you!!!!

[youngadultquoted]

Have you seen it in your parents? That moment when they become people? I think you have. It sneaks up on you, doesn’t it? One day they’re parents, and the next they say something racist, or get a cut that takes too long to heal, or make a simple mistake driving, and a facade falls away and they become mortals like the rest of us. After the facade is gone, it can never come back.

— Francesca Zappia, Eliza and her Monsters

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I learned years ago that it’s okay to do this. To seek out small spaces for myself, to stop and imagine myself alone. People are too much sometimes. Friends, acquaintances, enemies, strangers. It doesn’t matter; they all crowd. Even if they’re still all the way across the room, they crowd. I take a moment of silence and think: I am here. I am okay.

— Francesca Zappia, Eliza and Her Monsters

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I didn’t always have things, but I had people—I always had people.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

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Imagine that. Even when we’re pressing snooze and rolling over in bed, folding ourselves into our covers and postponing the day’s bubbling over, and soon after notching cold butter on warm toast, or later coming to a halt as we bound up a flight of subway stairs only to stall behind an elderly woman whose left leg trails behind her right leg—one leaden step at a time—even then, when time decelerates and the relative importance of our lives, of our hurry, undergoes a sudden, essential audit; even then, our heart never stops.

— Durga Chew-Bose, Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays