Reading, Writing, and Me

  Little Fires Everywhere  by Celeste Ng Overview: Mrs. Richardson has done everything right as prescribed for women in 1998. She went to college, got married, had four children, and promptly returned to work as a journalist at the small paper in Shaker, Ohio where they live the perfect suburban lives. Never mind that Mrs. Richardson is less than satisfied with how it's all panned out if she really  listens to that tiny, niggling part of her brain. But she holds the moral high ground in every situation, so that's fine. Mia, the Richardson's new tenant, paints a sharp relief as the, societally speaking, the wrong to Mrs. Richardson's right. A college drop out, Mia has flitted around the country with her daughter in tow, moving whenever she got the urge, making a living through a series of minimum wage jobs and her photography. She does what's required to survive and leave as much time as possible for her art. Their children serve as fascinating refractions of their d

I'm not sure if book hauls on blogs is a thing or ever was a thing, but I've actually bought and was gifted books for the first time in a very very long time, and I'm excited to share, so you're getting a book haul. I thought this might be an interesting update on how my reading tastes have started to evolve since I first started college. My tastes have started shifting around in ways that feel sudden and confusing. I've been reading a lot more literary fiction lately and less YA. There are certainly tons of YA books that I'm excited for, but since the genre doesn't have much about kids in college, I've found myself starting to pull away from it a bit more. It's honestly confusing and disconcerting and deserves its own essay. But I've also had a ton of fun exploring a new category. If you'd like to explore these books and authors more, click on the author's name to visit their website.  Aside from actual book purchases I've made latel

  Yesterday, I took myself on a bit of an adventure. I took myself on a date, per se. From the second I set foot in LA, my life has been pure chaos. From trying to settle my first apartment to adjusting to long days spent walking around campus to the actual workload that comes with university, I realized two things. 1) I was exhausted, constantly anxious, and feeling extremely stuck, and 2) I'd hardly seen any of the city that I'd recently moved to. This weekend, I decided to remedy both issues by imposing a single day ban on all school related thoughts and heading to one of the places on the top of my To See list in LA- Skylight Books .  While I was much more familiar with the other prominent LA bookstore (which I will visit at some point!), The Ripped Bodice , because of the YA world's close proximity to romance, I was immediately intrigued by the tree growing up in the middle of Skylight. I'd first seen it featured in Claudia Sulewski's  vlogs . Located on a st