by Sage Wentzell-Brehme ‘21
I did not read romance novels. Sure, I read some very bad YA novels that had romance, and I like a rom-com movie as much as the next person, but I read good books for the most part. Okay, let’s stop there. Why did I define romance novels as not objectively good books?
Read MoreA Response to Anne Helen Petersen’s Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud
by Lia James ‘21
CW: discussion of a racial slur
One may argue whether including the word in the written version of the book is crossing a line. Regardless, hearing the word in her own voice moved something in me. In not censoring herself in the audiobook, Petersen has normalized it. She has okayed it. She has set a precedent.
Read MoreBy Samantha English
Content warning: mention of anxiety, depression, and emotional abuse
I fell in love with the Brontë sisters when I was sixteen. I read Wuthering Heights in a slow-churning tempest of terror and intrigue, Cathy’s ghost lingering over my shoulder as I drew complex family trees of the Earnshaw and Linton families at my kitchen table. I carried my black-penned copy of Emily’s singular work to you, Wellesley, where it sat watching me, witchlike, waiting to be joined by its sister novels. It didn’t take long. By my second semester, I was in the Nineteenth Century Novel class, combing obsessively through Jane Eyre. I wasn’t just hooked. I was haunted.
Read MoreBy Samantha English
Content warnings: description of anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder
When I was fourteen years old, I bought The Fault in Our Stars at a Barnes and Noble in Darien, Illinois. It was a hot summer weekend, and I spent the afternoon in my grandmother's air-conditioned basement curled up on a blow-up mattress, falling in love with John Green's most recent novel of the time.
Read MoreBy Olivia Funderburg
The Hate U Give follows 16-year old Starr Carter as she navigates the ins and outs of being a teenager: from friendships and sometimes fighting to boyfriends and maybe taking the next step. But Starr’s life is more complicated than some 16-year olds’ are. She has to navigate living between two worlds: the black neighborhood she calls home and the elite, predominately white high school she attends. Starr’s life quickly becomes even more complicated when she is the only witness when her childhood best friend Khalil, unarmed, is killed by a cop.
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