It’s a New Year, collegiettes! A fresh start, a clean slate, and another chance to get things right are just a few of the stigmas that come with 2013. If you’re like most people, you probably made resolutions to keep for this upcoming year. I included reading more during downtime instead of turning to the television on my resolutions list this year. Reading is definitely something I want to continue having as a big part of my life. It’s a positive habit. If you spend just 20 minutes a day every day reading during the school year, you will have spent an average of 3,600 minutes reading, and you will have processed more than 1,800,000 words! What better way to continuously learn and keep your mind active than by picking up a book that contains a subject you enjoy?
Last week during my move back up to Gainesville, I was browsing the book section at Target and noticed that they have a section dedicated to emerging, new authors. If you are having a hard time finding a book that catches your eye, Target’s book club is a great place to look! Below, I’ll highlight three books that sounded interesting to me. (They might interest you, too!)
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
If mystery and crimes interest you, this book may be worth picking up!
From the back cover: “When two young girls are found brutally murdered with their teeth missing, newspaper journalist Camille Peaker, whose hometown the girls were found in, is sent to investigate. Over the course of her stay, Camille, who has never fully exorcised her past demons, is forced to contend once again with her mother, a woman whose toxic antics may have driven Camille to a lifetime of cutting herself, along with sundry small-town characters whose savage quirks and dark secrets make the town a veritable cesspool of human failing. With Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn delivers a startlingly dark whodunit that hums with narrative tension and chilling psychological insight.”
Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner
A love story and comedy wrapped up into one… what could be better?
From the back cover: “An unexpected love story… Jules Strauss is a Princeton senior with a full scholarship, acquaintances instead of friends, and a family she’s ashamed to invite to Parents’ Weekend. With the income she’ll receive from donating her “pedigree” eggs, she believes she can save her father from addiction. Annie Barrow married her high school sweetheart and became the mother to two boys. After years of staying at home and struggling to support four people on her husband’s salary, she thinks she’s found a way to recover a sense of purpose and bring in some extra cash. India Bishop, thirty-eight (really forty-three), has changed everything about herself: her name, her face, her past. In New York City, she falls for a wealthy older man, Marcus Croft, and decides a baby will ensure a happy ending. When her attempts at pregnancy fail, she turns to technology, and Annie and Jules, to help make her dreams come true. But each of their plans is thrown into disarray when Marcus’ daughter Bettina, intent on protecting her father, becomes convinced that his new wife is not what she seems… With startling tenderness and laugh-out-loud humor, Jennifer Weiner once again takes readers into the heart of women’s lives in an unforgettable, timely tale that interweaves themes of class and entitlement, surrogacy and donorship, the rights of a parent and the measure of motherhood.”
One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus
This novel is based on actual historical events. For anyone who enjoys learning about early life in the West, this should interest you!
From the back cover: “One Thousand White Women begins with May Dodd’s journey west into the unknown. But the unknown is a far better fate than what she left, as May had been put in an insane asylum by her high society family for the “crime” of loving a man beneath her station. This government program, in which women are brought west as brides for the Cheyenne, is her only hope. What follows is the story of May’s adventures: her marriage to Little Wolf, chief of the Cheyenne nation, and her conflict of being caught between two worlds, loving two men, living two lives. Jim Fergus has so vividly depicted the American West that it is as if these diaries are a capsule in time.”
Get out there, and pick up a book! Even reading just 15 minutes a night before you go to bed will relax your mind. Before you know it, you’ll be finished and on to the next novel on your list!