Today, I’m excited to introduce my sister Sydney. We’re 18 months apart (I’m older) and very close. However, I have always been the “reader” of the family because Sydney swore off reading at a pretty young age. (I still wince when I think of the things she has said about books.)

And then this past summer, I somehow convinced her to read Divergent and she devoured all three books in two days! (She’s a speed reader – definitely faster than I am!)

Her summer assignment for her AP Lang class was to write a letter to someone who influenced her relationship with reading. She was to describe her personal relationship with reading – whatever it may be. (Had her relationship with reading changed? What had contributed to these feelings, either positive or negative?) Of course, it had to tell a story.

Sydney wrote her letter to me, and I wanted to share it simply because I think it’s hilarious and also because it is entirely possible to change the mind of the most stubborn non-reader. Enjoy! (I’ve bolded a few of the lines I find especially funny.)

Dear Brooke,

I can’t believe that you are already in college. It seems like just yesterday you were starting high school. *I miss you so much; I miss your annoying laugh when we watch Psych together and I know I always get mad at you, but I miss all of your unneeded commentary when we watch TV or movies.

So you may not know, but I have recently gotten back into reading. My favorite books right now are cheesy romance novels, but I am gravitating towards more appropriate books for my age level. Since I have been missing you, and haven’t heard you nagging me to read, I started to read the books on our kindles. So far this year I have read 25 books. I finally read The Hunger Games, The Raven Boys (your favorite book), The Fault in our Stars, and Matched! I am what you would call a reading machine. I don’t know why my mind has been corrupted to think that I do not enjoy reading. When I was a little girl, I loved reading books. I remember at night, you, Dad, and I would lie on the futon and dad would read to us. We would snuggle up next to dad before bedtime and he would read the books to us. We read the whole Narnia series together! Once we got older, we didn’t give up reading time, we just started reading our own books. You guys would always get mad at me because I whisper the book out loud because it was easier for me to understand it. Thankfully I have outgrown that habit.

When I was about ten or eleven I started believing that reading was “uncool” or “nerdy,” so I stopped cold turkey. I would tell people that you read and wrote enough for the both of us! I guess the thought kind of stuck in my brain and now I have to conquer it by reading nonstop! I may begin to enjoy reading again, but I don’t think I will ever outgrow my hatred of libraries. **I don’t know what it is about that place but it gives me the creeps. It has a specific smell that I cannot take. Well the whole concept of the library freaks me out. The thought of touching and reading out of the same book that a million other people have checked out sounds like a germ fest. Who knows what people do with those books! Reading from my kindle is less germy, so that is what I have been reading lately.

Anyways, I wanted to write to you to thank you for always being there for me. I also wanted to say thank you for pushing me to read and to improve my writing. You and Dad are always encouraging me to read more. You actually turned me onto my favorite series. Do you remember the Gallagher Girls books? There are 6 in the series and I have read them at least three times each. Well, enough of my babbling, how is college? It is weird how grown up you are. ***Just don’t forget little old me when you become a best selling author and live in New York in a gorgeous penthouse!

Love,

Sydney H

*I’m actually living from home. So I still see her every day.

**I am a huge fan of libraries. (We are NOT an anti-library family. Only Syd feels this way.)

***Aww! Thanks for the vote of confidence, sis. <3

P.S. I did NOT post this to convince you what a TERRIFIC sister I am. (That was just an added bonus.)

“WHAT ARE YOU FAVORITE BOOK BEGINNINGS AND/OR ENDINGS?”

So many of my books are in storage, and so (though I desperately wanted to) I could not go rifling through them all to reread first and last lines. Also, I’ve been frequenting the library a good bit recently.

Fave first lines:

“First the Colors.
     Then the humans.
     That’s usually how I see things.
     Or at least, how I try.”

– The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

So original. I love it. <3

“The screw through Cinder’s ankle had rusted, the engraved cross marks worn to a mangled circle.”

– Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Over the summer I led a book club for middle school girls, and we read this book together. It was priceless watching their faces when they read the first line.

“The servants called them malenchki, little ghosts, because they were the smallest and the youngest, and because they haunted the Duke’s house like giggling phantoms, darting in and out of rooms, hiding in cupboards to eavesdrop, sneaking into the kitchen to steal the last of the summer peaches.”

– Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

I love how the books begin and end with third person rather than first.

“After a year of slavery in the Salt Mines of Endovier, Celaena Sardothien was accustomed to being escorted everywhere in shackles and at sword-point.”

– Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Gah, this is great.

“Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.”

– Fault in Our Stars by John Green

If that isn’t depression, I don’t know what is. 😉

“My dress is black and itchy and I hate it.”

– Mind Games by Kiersten White

Such personality.

Fave last lines:

” **A LAST NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR**

I am haunted by humans.”

– The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Book Thief made the list twice!

“I’ll tell them how I survive it. I’ll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I’m afraid it could be taken away. That’s when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I’ve seen someone do. It’s like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years.
But there are much worse games to play.”

– Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

The ending of this book aggravated me, but there is something so gritty and realistic about these last lines.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVE FIRST/LAST LINES? PLEASE SHARE!

Also… be sure to check out the rest of the chain!

(I plan to add the full schedule soon, rather than the link I’ve provided for now!)

So I interrupt my hiatus to say CONGRATS to Amy Zhang, whose debut novel Falling Into Place hit shelves today.

I’m SO excited for her – I can’t even imagine what this might feel like. 🙂 I love reading Amy’s blog posts, and her tweets, and I’m just as excited to read the novel I’ve heard so many great things about. She’s worked so hard and she’s definitely an inspiration to all the rest of us teen writers. Thanks for that, Amy!

I had the privilege of interviewing Amy back in November 2013 about her writing and her book (which didn’t even have a title at the time!). Fun fact: she wrote her fastest draft ever in a bathtub. 

Hope your book birthday was absolutely FANTASTIC! 

Be sure to check out Falling Into Place on Goodreads and Amazon.

Also, loved this recent interview with Amy Z.

Hi everyone,

just wanted to let you all know I’ll be taking a 2-week hiatus. I should have seen this coming in advance, but at the moment my top priority is settling into a new routine as I’ve just started my freshman year of college. (Eek!) I definitely don’t want to neglect the blog, and so that’s why I’m taking these next two weeks to sort everything out and to plan for upcoming posts. I hope you understand! In the meantime, I’ll still be responding to any comments/questions/emails. So feel free to contact me!

I’ll be back on Thursday, September 18. Can’t wait!

Thanks,
Brooke H.

So I’m participating in “Rewind & Review,” a blog hop hosted by Shae Has Left the Room. Basically, we’ll be glancing back at what happened on the blog during the month of August, and also take a look at what I’ve been reading.

Books I Bought

EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE TEXTBOOKS FOR MY COLLEGE CLASSES.

Books I Read

Defiance by C.J. Redwine
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
The Taking by Kimberly Derting
Silver Shadows by Richelle Mead
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Books I’ve Been Given For Review

Not in the Script by Amy Finnegan

Articles I Read and Enjoyed (worth sharing!)

10 Things I Did In My Teens That Helped Me Get Published – Go Teen Writers
What Jane Eyre Can Teach You About Mind-Blowing Heroines – The Procrastiwriter
The Reader’s Emotional Journey – Writer Unboxed

Posts You Might Have Missed

Brooke Reviews: Smart Girls Get What They Want, The Big Wheel, Cruel Beauty
TCWT Blog Chain: Characters I’m Most Like
TTT: Books I’m Not Sure I’ll Read
My acceptance of the Sunshine Award
TTT: Books I’ve Been Told I MUST Read
The Giver: Movie vs. Book
TTT: Want to Read, Don’t Own

Upcoming on the blog:

AH, September! The first month of my first year of college. I’ll continue to post consistently. You can look forward to reviews of the books I’ve read this past month, including To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, The Taking, Anna and the French Kiss, and Defiance. I’ll be participating in Top 10 Tuesday. And I’d like to read If I Stay and then see the new movie in theaters, which would mean a “movie vs. book” review sometime in the next few weeks. And, of course, I’ll let you know how school goes!