second year priya desai

A few weeks ago, I read the best book I’ve read in a very long time: Normal People by Sally Rooney. I couldn’t explain to you why I loved it so much if I tried—all I know is it made me deeply emotional. As in, I had to put it down when I finished some chapters because I didn’t want to cry in front of my family. Anyways, this isn’t a book review, even if I think you should read it. This is about that specific feeling of being so deeply invested in a book that the real world fades away, that accepting that the people around you aren’t thinking about the same characters in your mind is unfathomable.

I’ve been trying to read more this year. After years of reading nothing except school-assigned novels, I decided I was going to read nineteen books this year (for 2019, get it?). It was a bold choice on my part, but as of October, I’m only three books away from my goal. The best part, undoubtedly, has been feeling that melancholy in my heart that I remember from childhood. I’ve read a lot of amazing books this year, but one of the reasons Normal People meant so much to me is because it made my heart hurt in that very specific, kind of good way.

I mostly remember this feeling from childhood. As a kid, the Scholastic Book Fair was just as amazing as my birthday, and I wasn’t alone in this feeling. Until we all got older and stopped reading entirely—with the exception of what we see online and maybe the occasional positive press publication.

This is a common theme in the lives of most people I know, including myself. Everyone remembers their childhood love for books, but now we’re too busy to read anymore, right? Or maybe all the assigned reading in high school ruined books for you. I realized something life-changing a few months ago: if I dislike a book I’m reading, I can simply choose not to finish it. Sounds simple enough, but I think everyone still feels the leftover obligation to follow through with it, like we’re reading an assigned novel.

Still, I couldn’t tell you how many people have expressed to me that they’d love to start reading again, but just can’t for whatever reason. Realistically, we all have the time; if you exclusively read for 15 minutes every day, you will eventually finish that book. And hopefully, this book is one that immerses you fully into the lives of its characters, or makes you wish you could start from the beginning again. If you’re looking for a sign to start reading again, this is it.

Here are some of the best books I’ve read recently. I hope reading them puts you in that same state of limbo that I felt.

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Life of the Party by Olivia Gatwood

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

A Post-Literary State of Limbo