Don't you just love it when you can burrow under the covers of your bed with a book you know you love and just spend the rest of the night reading away despite the time? Especially in winter when it's freezing and there is no better sanctuary than under your covers with the electric blanket happily thrumming.
I have two books I need to read that my friends have lent me, but last night I was really craving reading a book that is sort of 'feel good'. I ended up dying to read one of ultimate fav books:
I ended up reading 190 pages in one go until it was 2am lol. This book never gets old...... It never fails to get me so emotional... If I ever ge to be a writer, I honestly want to write stories like Melina Marchetta. They are so simple and yet so powerful and emotional that you can reread them over and over again and feel the same amount of love for it as you felt when you first read it years ago.......
I mean, gosh, for the whole story Mia, the mother, is depressed and suffering in her bed... You don't really know what the old Mia was like - all you have are memories from Francesca, the daughter. And yet, you grow to love Mia so much!! When she makes the slightest progress with her depression - like actually managing to eat a tiny bit of food, you can't help but burst into tears because you are so hopeful that Mia will be able to continue slowly getting better! I mean, holy crap!!! We readers have never met the old Mia, and yet we can be affected so much by the depressed Mia making small progress? I realllllllllly want to be able to affect readers like that in my stories....
My god, this quote about Francesca dealing with her mum's depression always gets me instantly choked up:
'I do the deals-with-God thing. Make her better...make us all better and I'll change the world for you. But God doesn't talk to me. It's because every night I lie here with music in my ears and i say my prayers and fall asleep in the middle of them. He only talks to people like Mia. People he thinks are worth it. Because they have passion. They have something. I have nothing... I'm a waste of space......' I guess I chose to read this book last night above all the other books I love because I can sort of relate to the mother... I mean, I don't have acute depression like she does, but the anxiety disorders I have right now are just as confounding and I've certainly had days when I was too scared to leave my bed. I love that the message throughout the book is that there is no easy answer to the Mia's depression... There is no one sole cause of it, or one sole answer to curing it. It takes time...and that's exactly what I am facing right now with my anxiety disorders.... When Mia makes slight progress with her depression, it gives me hope that the small progressions I make with my disorder will also get me closer and closer to complete recovery. ^^
Besides, Mia is not the only reason why I love the story.... It's really amazing how Francesca slowly learns (despite her typical teenage attitude getting in the way) that your true friends are the ones that are there for you in the bad times... You might not even realise that they are your true friends until something like that happens, but you sure learn quickly that they are your real friends. It's really beautiful to see how those four girls (and 3 guys) slowly build a huge bond together without even realising it! Such beautiful friendship!!
And of course, the unbelievably strong bond between Francesca and her lil bro Luca is so touching! And I relate to it so much because I am exactly the same way with my older bro. What was my fav quote from the book about them? 'I can't tell horror brother and sister stories about Luca and me. We're crazy about each other and our arguments are limited to who gets control over the TV remote between 7:00pm and 7:30.' Yeppp absolutely the same between me and my bro. Only it generally fighting over internet time and I'm usually the one being the most forceful in arguments LOL!
PLUSSSSS one of the girls, Tara, is such an opinionated person in regards to social justice issues. And why hello, so am I! Yet another thing I commmmpletely relate to in this book! <3
Gah, I could gush on about this book until the cows come home so I better leave it there and actually finish it.. It's currently sitting beside me begging for me to finish it. But I don't want to finish it because I don't want it to end even though I've read it thousands of times..... *sigh* The joys of a great book, I tell ya! lol
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