Kick Back, Relax & Read
By: Kara Harper
Nothing is worse to me than being stuck in a mood where I’m too distracted to focus on school, but distractions such as TV and movies can’t quite catch my interest. That’s when I usually turn to my ever-growing collection of books for a new way to escape. Reading is a great to take your mind off everyday stress, where you won’t be tuned into a screen re-watching the same old things. To appeal to the many different tastes in genres and storytelling, I offer three book suggestions that vary incredibly from one another. In hopes that they will wrap you up in their pages and take you away as they have done for me.
The first book I suggest puts a new and unexpected twist on the zombie apocalypse, that will appeal to horror and adventure fans alike. The book Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick focuses on the survival of a trio of characters thrown together in the aftermath of a massive EMP (Electromagnetic pulse). In this thrilling and dark story, we are shown a world in which the lucky ones are those died, and the unlucky are those focused to survive among the changed.
To lighten things up a bit the next book I recommend goes out to all those who are fans of the stories that pull at our heart strings. The book All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven, is a coming age story told in two perspectives from very different characters, who find their way to one another in the most unlikely way. Filled with love, sadness, and a realization about mental illness this story is deeply moving and beautiful.
The third and final book I’m introducing is the end of the world like you’ve never seen before. We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach is a story told from the perspective of four teenagers facing down a meteor headed for earth. It covers their final months leading up to what could be the end and how each of them comes to terms with their lives and what they have made with the time they had. This story is at the same time terrifying and beautiful in its writing. Joseph Addison, the 17th century essayist wrote: Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. We’ll leave it there.