Relatability

It is day 24 of quarantine. I have finished another season of Love Island and am currently dreading all the finals the next 2-3 weeks entail. I have been writing all my assignments down in a planner  to keep myself organized to some extent and it is kinda working? Being home is driving me a tad bit insane, I miss the normalcy of my life! On a less positive note, I do not think this is going to end by May. I am hoping (actually praying) it will end before the fall semester, but who actually knows. I wish I can say I have been reading for pleasure, but honestly, I have not! My workload has just increased, and I have been a procrastinating mess. 

On a semi brighter note, 3 bookstores have responded to my emails regarding my final project about independent bookstores. I had a phone call with one and an email correspondence with the other two. I was shocked to be completely honest I never thought anyone would respond. I was expecting some of the answers I had gotten, but some responses surprised me. I will leave you all in suspense until I finish the actual product.

I read Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey for one of my classes and I really enjoyed it. In high school, I read Pride and Prejudice, and I liked it.  But unfortunately, I have not dipped my toes into any other Austen books. I now realize dipped my toes was a weird depiction of book reading, but I am going to just go with it. I liked how in Northanger Abbey, Austen gives us a nontraditional heroine, someone very ordinary and plain. I think here she challenges the expectation and the role a hero plays. It also challenges our understanding of self.

I always thought I had to relate to characters in novels in order to like them, but I am not sure if this is true. Not to give the most basic example, but most of us love Harry Potter and part of the reason I fell in love with Harry Potter is that I felt like I related to the characters. In every novel, I read I try to relate to characters on one degree or another. Though I don’t think we necessarily have to relate to their persona but rather feelings. We all could relate to feelings of sadness or happiness or anger or fear, etc. I apologize for that long-winded tangent; I think my point was that relatability doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker because we all feel things and feelings could correspond with us. I also think just because I relate to a book does not mean I like it.  I read The Magicians, and the protagonist was the most annoying human. I definitely see some of his annoying traits reflected in myself and the mere fact that we relate does not make me like the book anymore.