No matter how hard life can be, sometimes cuddling up with a book can help
College can be a very messy, confusing and frustrating time in anyone’s life. With that often comes a feeling of isolation and feeling like the world around you is actively fighting against you. It’s hard to find any comfort and relaxation due to a combination of factors so complex, you usually don’t even know where to start describing them. In the past two years since being at college, I feel like I have had big moments where I have felt very lost through my relationships and my own ability. One of the main ways that I have gotten through these doubts has been reading books that are very raw and emotional. I can often relate these books to greater themes about the relationship between resilience, womanhood and love. The ways in which these books talk about these topics can help any young college-aged girl find her way and understand the beauty of life in a time where it seems like there is none.
1. Bluets by Maggie Nelson
I want to preface this by saying: this book is not for everyone, but I think giving it a try is still important. The book is written as a collection of vignette poems, which may make it very confusing, but once you understand what is happening, everything ties itself very nicely together. The book touches on what happens when the speaker begins to consider how blue is their favorite color with their reflections on love, sadness and writing. When I first read this book, it deeply resonated with me during a time when I was feeling lost about my feelings toward someone. Reading this book helped me understand how that feeling – even though I felt very alone in it – was very universal, which was very comforting in a time where I felt so lost.
2. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
This book is a science-fiction novel that follows a group of women through a large span of time. I won’t give away too much information because the less you know about the plot going in, the better. The book explores how the main character manages her own loneliness, how she turns that into motivation to do good and eventually finds solace in that sense of loneliness. This book touches on what being a woman really is – something that is not measured in relation to men, just an emotional and hard, but fulfilling and beautiful experience. Finishing this book has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my life. The meditations of what it means to be a woman and live a filled life are incredible, and I think that they changed my life in some way.
3. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Another science-fiction novel, but it reads as a bildungsroman that’s set in a world that is only slightly different from our own. The novel follows Kathy H. and her two classmates as they navigate growing up in this strange world. Little explanation is given about this new world, imitating how we feel about our own. This book is beautiful and one of the only to make me completely sob when it ended. The book explores what it means to love someone and love the world in return, ending on an amazing reflection of what it means to be human.
These books may seem out there, but I feel like reading them will give other college-aged girls great perspective on love and life that are so crucial in young adulthood. Be warned, though, they are written so greatly that you will get sucked into them. They are definitely the books perfect for when you want to feel all of your emotions and confront them.