Escapism at it's blood-suckingest

During grad school, I often felt klaustraphobic between the massive amounts of homework, the group work, class, my two jobs, and the responsibilities included in starting up two on-campus organizations. I was stretched thin and living in a dorm with walls so thin I could hear my classmates' snores surrounding me.I never felt alone and sometimes all I wanted was to escape. Having no car and living in Vermont during winter and even worse "mud season" meant escape was often a physical impossibility. So I had to use my mind.

I have always loved reading, but when you have to read a minimum of 50 pages of textbooks a night, trying to follow a complicated novel is out of the question. I found a much needed relief in young adult fiction. The books were just juicy enough to want to read them and just easy enough to be able to do so quickly without really interfering with school work. I became hooked on Tamora Pierce, working my way through the Lioness Quartet and on to the Immortal Series and of course Keladry's books.

Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen became my favorite. I also read all the Harry Potters, all the Charlie Bones, and re-read all my favorite Madeline L'Engle books from A wrinkle in Time to A House Like a Lotus. Though I have a lot more time now than I did then, I still love young adult novels. It's a guilty pleasure which has become kind of about research as well because I would really like to finish the one I started writing several years ago. I digress.

My latest series, which I purchased at the Vegas Airport, is Twilight by Stephanie Meyers. There are four books, the first of which is soon to be a movie, and I love them all. I am not really that into Vampires. In fact that is why I didn't read this book sooner. I kept picking it up...it's been prominantly displayed everywhere... and I kept thinking, this is going to be totally predictable. The main character is a white girl named Bella who is wimpy and bad at sports, and so not the type of heroine I like to see in my books...but I am happy to say I mis-judged her. She has hidden depths and hidden talents and so does the book. It's not what I thought it would be. In fact I liked the first book so much I bought and read all four and it was well worth it. There are legends and shapeshifters, but somehow Meyers manages to avoid the whole fluffy unicorn fantasy land trap and writes from such a down to earth, small town perspective that you can really get into the characters.

My last three recomendations come from my trip to Powells in Portland. I LOVE POWELLS even if I do get lost there and spend way too much money everytime. While losing myself in the stacks I came across Magic Lessons, by Justine Larbalestier, another dark series about three teenage magicians. Set both in New York and Australia, the books chronicle a strange story of how their magic unfolds and could possibly lead to madness. This was also un-predictable and much creepier than I origiannly suspected, but worth the read.

If you want something a little more real and can take a little sadness, Looking for Alaska, by John Green was absolutely brilliant, poignant,and very well written. I won't spoil the plot. And last but not least, my favorite book of the summer, with the exception of Breaking Dawn, the last book of the Twilight series, was by Carolyn Mackler. It's called The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things and the fat girl does not get skinny....and I love it! (I also read her second book Vegan Virgin Valentine...totally great as well) Happy readings.