"She was trapped in a city where life moved at a snail’s pace, where people were content selling fish at the market, spending their meager earnings on bottles of soju to drown out their sorrows at not having been born rich."

– Mummy Dearest by Shay Zutshi

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Spotlight: Reading Reflections

Reading Reflections September 14: Science Fiction

I typically stay away from science fiction. I'm not deterred by science itself, rather the fact that the entire genre is based on the single question, "What if?" For me, pure speculation doesn't move me like realistic fiction does because characters tend to be less developed. After all, authors must focus on air-tight realities.

Sep 14

Reading Reflections June 23: Historical Fiction (or history in fiction, if you prefer)

One of my favorite aspects of reading fiction is learning about history through a character's lense. History textbooks are often drab, and nonfiction, while informative, is designed to teach rather than to engage. But strong works of fiction that can captivate my attention while giving me a history lesson make are even more well-rounded than simply stories themselves.

Jun 22

Reading Reflections May 26: Story Length

In high school, I loved Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo. Ten years after high school, I decided to read the full unabridged version, since we hadn't read the full version in class. The unabridged version is close to 1,200 pages! And I'm starting to see why my tenth grade English teacher had us read the reduced word count.

May 26

Quote of the Week - September 23

“I'll never know who I was supposed to be. Maybe everyone feels that way, curious about the invisible crossroads in their lives, the wrong turns and chance encounters that change everything. But I am haunted by it, the gulf between how I imagined my life and what it became. I can't escape the feeling that a giant hand plucked me out of one story and dropped me into an entirely new one."

Finding My Way

Malala Yousafzai

Read previous quotes in the Quote of the Week Archive

Spotlight: Reading Reflections

Reading Reflections September 14: Science Fiction

Reading Reflections June 23: Historical Fiction (or history in fiction, if you prefer)

Reading Reflections May 26: Story Length

Quote of the Week - September 23

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