(no subject)
The last book in a trilogy I'd been reading came out the day after Christmas, and I was excited to go and get it. I heard that it had leaked early so I searched for it in Barnes and Noble, dragging Courtney to the "Teen Section." I realized the humor in the situation of two 18 year olds searching desperately for a book amidst the Princess Diaries and Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging. And I kept hoping some friend of ours would show up, preferably one who knew how sophisticated Courtney's taste in literature actually was, yet would automatically doubt it once she is spotted in that area. That's right, I'm telling the truth: Courtney would take Meg Cabot over Sylvia Plath anyday.
Anyways, I've been devouring this book over the last two days, realizing how much I miss this. Escaping into these worlds where everything is ten times more dramatic and adventurous than my own life. But in this particular book, a reoccurring theme is the facade of certain characters in order to charm or manipulate. They will do anything to get what they want, telling each other through false grins how lovely they look. And somehow I manage a connection between this angsty, fantasy, victorian "teen" novel and real life.
This whole first semester at school I just keep feeling as though I haven't made any true friends as I have at home. People seem even more fake, even more wanting to impress. Everyone smiles and laughs on cue and have recited ways of getting "We should definitely hang out," an empty invitation, into any conversation. With the real friends I have, we don't make plans to hang out, we just end up together and hang out. It's not something we feel obligated to do, or something we're testing out to see if it feels like a match.
So reading these "escapist novels," as Courtney calls them, makes me happy and depresses me at the same time: I do get to escape and feel as though I'm involved in things I know to be impossible in my lifetime, yet at the same time it depresses me to admit which excellent, adventurous, romantic things will never happen to me, and which depressing, unfortunate things are actually universal truths.
So there's that.
Danielle
Anyways, I've been devouring this book over the last two days, realizing how much I miss this. Escaping into these worlds where everything is ten times more dramatic and adventurous than my own life. But in this particular book, a reoccurring theme is the facade of certain characters in order to charm or manipulate. They will do anything to get what they want, telling each other through false grins how lovely they look. And somehow I manage a connection between this angsty, fantasy, victorian "teen" novel and real life.
This whole first semester at school I just keep feeling as though I haven't made any true friends as I have at home. People seem even more fake, even more wanting to impress. Everyone smiles and laughs on cue and have recited ways of getting "We should definitely hang out," an empty invitation, into any conversation. With the real friends I have, we don't make plans to hang out, we just end up together and hang out. It's not something we feel obligated to do, or something we're testing out to see if it feels like a match.
So reading these "escapist novels," as Courtney calls them, makes me happy and depresses me at the same time: I do get to escape and feel as though I'm involved in things I know to be impossible in my lifetime, yet at the same time it depresses me to admit which excellent, adventurous, romantic things will never happen to me, and which depressing, unfortunate things are actually universal truths.
So there's that.
Danielle