Sorry to have been so quiet all week Red Brick Readers. I’ve been at a conference in Seattle for my grown-up job (GUJ) and it’s kept me plenty busy. This post is as much an apology as an excuse to share some sweet photos I took in Seattle. I was actually speaking at said conference and since I’m not a stellar communicator in mediums that don’t allow for stealth hip hop references I spent much of my week standing in my hotel room in my underwear, rehearsing my presentation.
I was so busy that it wasn’t only reading and blogging that fell off my radar, but pop culture too! Too busy to read Gawker and LaineyGossip is really darn busy in my world. So I was surprised to come back to the news that The Giver cast are doing their press tour, meaning the movie is coming out soon. This all felt like it happened really quickly and while I ordinarily wouldn’t be excited for any piece of cinema that includes Taylor Swift in the cast, I feel so strongly about the book The Giver that I would probably go see a movie adaptation even if Taylor Lautner had been cast as Jonas.
There are a few pieces of writing that stand so strongly in my memory that I’m sure they shaped me not only as a reader and a writer but as a person. I was about 10 when I read The Giver and it was so different than anything I had ever read that the sensation of it lingered with me for weeks. It filled me with a sense of dread that things in my world might not be as they seem but also with a sense of power that someone like me might be able to upend a power structure through sheer will. I went on to read lots of dystopian novels in the coming years; Lord of the Flies, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, but you always remember your first.
What about you? Do you have books that stand out in your memory as having shaped you as a person? Did you read them as a kid, or just last week? Let me know in the comments.
The Giver will be released in theatres on August 15th. It does NOT star Taylor Lautner.
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