|
Books that stood out to me as a teenager:
- A series of Unfortunate Events (all of them) because I liked the never ending mystery of it all, and I was both annoyed, and pleased by the fact that you never actually find out what actually happened to the parents. I know it was a fictional series, but it was, and still is, the only fictional books I’ve ever read. I was particularly impressed by the author’s playful use of words and punctuation that could draw me in and keep me interested and curious. He kind of inspired me to be more creative with the way I use words when I write. Not that I’ve done much writing for fun lately, but occasionally I do. The other book, I’m almost embarrassed to admit was: - The secret by Rhonda Byrne. I got particularly obsessed with this book, I think partly because I grew up in quite adverse circumstances, I started to think that if I was just more positive, more positive things would happen for me. I really developed quite a strong positive and optimistic attitude to life, believing that if I just thought about good things often enough, good things would happen. In practicality this often meant that as a teenager sometimes I came across optimistic to the point of seeming delusional. As I’ve got older, I’ve really come to the conclusion that the book “the secret” is a load of crap. However, I do think that I cope better in life with adversity than some of the people I went to school with have because of how I frame life events, often choosing the frame them as the next opportunity and frame them in more positive ways. I think that’s something I gained from reading that book, even if it was mainly a bunch of nonsense. The rest of the books I read as a teenager were to do with serial killers. Particularly Ted Bundy, and John Wayne Gacy, and other stuff to do with weird, horrible, violent crimes. |