2011 Books: Books 19 -24, Some YA Reading to Pass the Time

19: If I Stay and 20: Where She Went

I’ve been reading the most depressing books lately. If you’re planning on reading If I Stay and don’t want a spoiler, stop reading now. If I Stay is the story of Mia Hall, a young cellist that ends up the only survivor of a car accident that killed her entire family. From her coma, she narrates while trying to decide if she really wants to live. Here’s the spoiler – she lives, but ends up leaving her boyfriend Adam. Where She Went is from his perspective. It describes when fate forces them to meet up again. I enjoyed reading both of these, but multiple times while reading the book, I did get the wiggins thinking about being trapped near my own comatose body. I found Mia a little annoying, but I still liked the story. I preferred the second book because I liked Adam better as a narrator, but the end of their story got a little too saccharine for my tastes.

21: Dear Me: A Letter to My Sixteen-Year-Old Self

I absolutely adored this collection of letters that various celebrities (mostly British people that I needed to look up) wrote to their 16 year old selves. The letters range from hysterical to heart breaking and were a great collection of advice and thoughtfulness. It made me think a lot about what I might write to 16yo Annie. I also wondered what I would have wanted to write to a 31yo version of me back then. Maybe I’ll get around to writing that letter one of these days. (I did finally write this letter. See: Dear Me (#tweetyour16yearoldself))

22: Vampire Academy and 24: Frostbite

Teenage vampire novels are definitely one of my guilypleasures. Both of these are from the Vampire Academy series. Neither of them were particularly awesome, but I still tore through them. I’m sure that I will also attack the final four books at some point. I’m not sure which one of these was written first, but this series reminds me a lot of the House of Night series.

23: Photographs--Annie Leibovitz, 1970-1990

This wasn’t exactly reading, but I kind of worship this book. Annie Leibovitz inspires me and has since I was a budding photographer back in high school. I’m not much into photography anymore, but I love the way that she uses her art to capture the essence of a person. She has a knack for capturing beautiful, truthful moments. I can’t help but look at the pages and feel inspired to do the same thing.