For my last blog post, I wanted to write about my reading habits in college. I have noticed as I have started to get into a better head space that my need for reading has gone down. While I am sad that I am not reading as much I am happy to know that I do not need an escape from the real world as much as I used to need. Instead when I am feeling upset I have the courage to tell people in my life what is going on and what I need help with.

This is a huge step for me and I know that little me would be so proud to know how much I have grown as a person. Every once in a while I do still pull out a book to read when I have free time. As college has picked up I have noticed my free time has been a lot more limited with more assignments which I think also impacts my reading time. However, one book I have read this semester is Spare by Prince Harry.

I think that reading romance novels began to make me bored so I needed to spice up what I was reading. This book was one that I was so excited to read as I had been following Prince Harry and Meghan Markle since they have gotten married and was very excited to know what was going on and the whole story. This book did not disappoint my expectations at all.

This book was a tell-all tale of what it was like growing up as the Royal that was not needed by society and rather there just in case. Prince Harry shined a light on how he was only needed if his brother had died, and other than that he was forgettable. One quote from the book states, “My family had declared me a nullity. The Spare. I didn’t complain about it, but I didn’t need to dwell on it either. Far better, in my mind, not to think about certain facts, such as the cardinal rule for royal travel: Pa and William could never be on the same flight together, because there must be no chance of the first and second in line to the throne being wiped out. But no one gave a damn whom I traveled with; the Spare could always be spared.”  The only person he had was his mother, and after her death, his world came apart. He was addicted to drugs and had stories leaked from other members of the family to keep their names out of the tabloids.

It is also important to note, a common phrase used was he did not want history to repeat itself. He did not want his wife to fall into the depression that his mother had, by the family bullying his wife and making her out to be a monster to the public. He wrote, “I’d traveled the world from top to bottom, literally. I’d hopscotched the continents. I’d met hundreds of thousands of people, I’d crossed paths with a ludicrously large cross-section of the planet’s seven billion residents. For thirty-two years I’d watched a conveyor-belt of faces pass by and only a handful ever made me look twice. This woman stopped the conveyer belt.” His love for Megan is and was so pure. Knowing how much he loved her and wanted to protect her made my heart swell. I hope one day someone loves me as much as he loves her.

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In my last post, I talked about how I found my love for reading again during quarantine, but after that, I had to return back to school. If I am being honest I was so scared to return as I did not know how I was going to be able to readjust after not being in school for so long. However, seeing my friends and teachers again was nice as I had been separated from them for months. The return took place my junior year of high school. Everyone had put a huge emphasis on what was expected as a junior in high school and it was safe to say I was very overwhelmed.

In my junior year, I fell into a deep depression. It felt like I had the whole world on my shoulders and the pressure was really getting to me. People always said I seemed so happy that no one would have known how messed up my head was. I was very good at hiding how I felt and no one could have picked up on the differences. However, one thing made me feel like I could breathe. These were my books. At this point, in time I was reading for at least three hours every day. Some people called me crazy, but I felt like this was the only thing keeping me sane. I could lock myself in my room and read. During this time period, I was reading so many different books I could not even keep up with myself. Instead, I would read and then move right into the next book.

It was during this time that I found Colleen Hoover. She is an author that went extremely viral on TikTok for her books. I had never heard of her but I was happy to find her. One book in particular that I found the best was “It Ends With Us”. This book follows the main character Lily who struggles with an abusive husband and how she is able to escape and hopefully find happiness. While reading this book I was able to understand how easy it was to get trapped. She was in a relationship and I was in my own head. While they seem very different to me I made the connection.

One quote that always stuck out to from It Ends With Us was, “Sometimes we have to share it with the people who love us so we don’t come crashing down from the weight of it all. But I can’t help you unless I know you need it. Ask me for help. We’ll get through this, I know we can.” This made me realize that I can not keep fighting this battle by myself, instead, I needed to find a support system to help me.

This book made me realize you can not fight every battle alone. Instead, sometimes you need to find people to help you. After reading this book, I finally told my parents and my best friend about my struggles and was able to get the help I needed. I learned it was okay to feel, but sometimes it is hard to feel alone.

Finally, my book journey arrives in high school a place where I was still trying to figure out who I was as a person. I think that was hard to do when I was constantly being told what books I was supposed to be reading. There was no way for me to express myself through these books or find characters I related to. This was the part of my life that made me hate reading. Up until my sophomore year when Covid hit, I thought of reading books on my own time. Through this process of reading books on my own time, I found the genres that I appreciated and what I loved to read.

The first book to ever really make my love for reading come back was The Goal by Elle Kennedy, and yes it is a cheesy romance story. However, this was the first book where I fell in love with the people I was reading about. This book made me laugh out loud, and not feel so lonely when I was in quarantine. It was not a book that I had to write about, it was not a book that I had to listen to it be broken down it was just a book that I got to enjoy. The lack of emphasis on the book made me want to continue reading until I had to go to sleep. It felt like in a time when I could have no interaction with people I still was able to read about those interactions.

Covid was really hard being separated from everyone but my family. However, I came to realize that it was okay when I was with my books. As everyone else did I struggled with my mental health because I felt so alone. Books allowed for me to open myself back up and escape the reality of my world at that moment in my life. If it was not for Covid I do not feel like I would have ever gotten my love for reading back.

High school is not an easy time to navigate for anyone. Especially when you have to go through a worldwide pandemic but I will say that books have allowed me to step out of my shell and become happier. At times when I felt like no one heard my voice, I knew the characters of my books had people who did not hear them either. They allowed for me to know that everyone feels alone and it was okay to feel like that.

From Covid on I have read everyday, while I still enjoy a romance novel once in awhile my favorite genre has still shifted. But it was these types of books that made my love for reading to come back to me. When I started reading again, and choosing those books I felt like that 2nd grade Kaila who loved to read. I brought my love back and it has stayed with me through all my hard times.

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When I hit seventh grade I got to the point in my schooling career where I started to get assigned reading. At first, I was so upset that my teachers were telling me which books I had to read and what books I had to enjoy. It made no sense. How would they know the books that would make me feel a certain type of way? Turns out they were right because I ended up getting assigned to one of my favorite books of all time The Giver. Due to this book, I was able to understand why teachers want us to read certain books as they allow us to understand different lessons.

One major lesson this book taught me was that it is okay to second-guess things. Jonah the main protagonist seconded guesses his whole life and is able to see the truth. This lesson to me was so important because there have been so many times I should have seconded guessed something and put it into perspective. The determination of his character to be himself really help me realize that I should try to be myself as well. It is clear that he had to face hardships to be himself and it made me realize being yourself is never easy. You have to second-guess things and have to have courage which he taught me as well.

Another huge thing this book taught me was my hate for movie adaptions. After this book, I had to watch the movie (it was assigned) the movie was terrible in my eyes. It lacked all of the important thoughts and the characters did not look like how I thought they did base on the book. For me, it ruined the story and the development of these characters I so deeply thought I knew. These movie adaptions do no more than good when it comes to who I believed to be the characters. Movieweb.com wrote, “Ultimately, it comes down to the idea that no author writes their book with an adaptation in mind; otherwise they’d just write a screenplay. That’s why it’s always important to keep in mind the fact that not everything will translate perfectly. An author can have long-winded dialogue that helps set the scene or tells the important pieces of the plot. Movies don’t often have the luxury for long conversations, not without something else happening to keep the audience entertained and the dialogue from dragging on.” There is a reason that these are books not screenplays and many directors do not think they could get it exactly right.

Overall, the Giver is a book that taught me many different things. A lot of them at the time I did not even realize that I was learning such key details about myself. Books are a way that you can learn life lessons not just through characters but the reason you picked up the book. My hope is through my life that I continue to gain lessons through books and continue to find love in all the books I read even the assigned ones.

Work Cited:

McDougald, Katelin. “Why Movies Rarely Live Up to the Book, and Why That’s Not Necessarily Bad.” MovieWeb, MovieWeb, 15 Jan. 2023, https://movieweb.com/book-adaptations-bad-movies/#:~:text=Books%20Are%20Never%20Meant%20to%20be%20Films&text=An%20author%20can%20have%20long,the%20dialogue%20from%20dragging%20on.

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