Today we have Hannah Harrington here for a guest post on her favorite books over the years! This post is part of The Teen Book Scene's blog tour for Saving June by Hannah Harrington. You can find out more about the tour here. Make sure to visit all the other stops of the blog tour if you'd like to know more about Saving June!
I’ve always been a voracious reader! I was one of those kids who would get in trouble for reading during class instead of studying math, and it even drove my mother—an avid reader herself—to the point of exasperation sometimes. Here are some of my favorites from throughout the years:
Age 5: My mother used to read the Little Critter books by Mercer Mayer to me every night, and we had a lot of them. They were the first books I learned to read. My favorite was Just For You, where Critter keeps trying to do nice things for his mother but of course they never turn out right. I always loved the illustrations, too.
Age 10: In fourth grade, we read The Giver by Lois Lowry in class, which in retrospect is a little surprising since while it is a book targeted at younger readers, it does have some heavy content for a bunch of ten-year-olds. It was the first story I’d read that had such an ambiguous ending. I was used to tidy conclusions with everything wrapped up nicely, and I remember how startling it was to have this big question mark, leaving Jonah and Gabe’s fate up for interpretation—something that frustrated a lot of my peers, but I really loved how much it challenged me to think at that age. It also kick-started my love for dystopian novels, and is still one of my favorites.
Age 15: I read a lot of young adult fiction at this age, but the book that stands out to me most is Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty. I wasn’t much like Jessica Darling as a teen, but I did identify with her in at least one way—I’d recently moved from my hometown to a new town for high school, leaving my best friend behind, and we would write long emails to each other similar to Jessica and Hope’s correspondence. Since I was going through the exact same thing, it really made me connect to the story. And who doesn’t love Marcus Flutie? He was a refreshing love interest—a bad boy but not really that bad, wore ironic hipster t-shirts before it was all the rage, was flawed but someone you could root for, and very charming. The voice of the novel was so engaging and funny and heartbreakingly teenage at times; I must’ve read my copy ten times that year.
Age 20: My favorite book at age twenty was The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, which I actually read during my senior year of high school for a literature class. I’d always been a voracious reader, but no other book had hit me on such a visceral level. It horrified me, it made me cry, it absorbed me completely. I was torn between wanting to fly through it and wanting to stretch out the experience as long as possible, because you can never replicate a first read. Literally the second I finished it, I spent about ten minutes just staring into space absorbing it all, and then promptly turned back to page one and read it all over again.
Age 5: My mother used to read the Little Critter books by Mercer Mayer to me every night, and we had a lot of them. They were the first books I learned to read. My favorite was Just For You, where Critter keeps trying to do nice things for his mother but of course they never turn out right. I always loved the illustrations, too.
Age 10: In fourth grade, we read The Giver by Lois Lowry in class, which in retrospect is a little surprising since while it is a book targeted at younger readers, it does have some heavy content for a bunch of ten-year-olds. It was the first story I’d read that had such an ambiguous ending. I was used to tidy conclusions with everything wrapped up nicely, and I remember how startling it was to have this big question mark, leaving Jonah and Gabe’s fate up for interpretation—something that frustrated a lot of my peers, but I really loved how much it challenged me to think at that age. It also kick-started my love for dystopian novels, and is still one of my favorites.
Age 15: I read a lot of young adult fiction at this age, but the book that stands out to me most is Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty. I wasn’t much like Jessica Darling as a teen, but I did identify with her in at least one way—I’d recently moved from my hometown to a new town for high school, leaving my best friend behind, and we would write long emails to each other similar to Jessica and Hope’s correspondence. Since I was going through the exact same thing, it really made me connect to the story. And who doesn’t love Marcus Flutie? He was a refreshing love interest—a bad boy but not really that bad, wore ironic hipster t-shirts before it was all the rage, was flawed but someone you could root for, and very charming. The voice of the novel was so engaging and funny and heartbreakingly teenage at times; I must’ve read my copy ten times that year.
Age 20: My favorite book at age twenty was The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, which I actually read during my senior year of high school for a literature class. I’d always been a voracious reader, but no other book had hit me on such a visceral level. It horrified me, it made me cry, it absorbed me completely. I was torn between wanting to fly through it and wanting to stretch out the experience as long as possible, because you can never replicate a first read. Literally the second I finished it, I spent about ten minutes just staring into space absorbing it all, and then promptly turned back to page one and read it all over again.
Thanks for the great guest post, Hannah!
Make sure to check out the rest of the tour stops, and keep your eye out for Saving June, which has already been released. It's a truly amazing book - you can read my review here.
Harper Scott’s older sister has always been the perfect one, so when June takes her own life a week before her high school graduation, sixteen-year-old Harper is devastated. Everyone’s sorry, but no one can explain why.
When her divorcing parents decide to split her sister’s ashes into his-and-her urns, Harper takes matters into her own hands. She’ll steal the ashes and drive cross-country with her best friend, Laney, to the one place June always dreamed of going: California.
Enter Jake Tolan. He’s a boy with a bad attitude, a classic-rock obsession and nothing in common with Harper’s sister. But Jake had a connection with June, and when he insists on joining them, Harper’s just desperate enough to let him. With his alternately charming and infuriating demeanour and his belief that music can see you through anything, he might be exactly what she needs.
Except June wasn’t the only one hiding something. Jake’s keeping a secret that has the power to turn Harper’s life upside down again.
When her divorcing parents decide to split her sister’s ashes into his-and-her urns, Harper takes matters into her own hands. She’ll steal the ashes and drive cross-country with her best friend, Laney, to the one place June always dreamed of going: California.
Enter Jake Tolan. He’s a boy with a bad attitude, a classic-rock obsession and nothing in common with Harper’s sister. But Jake had a connection with June, and when he insists on joining them, Harper’s just desperate enough to let him. With his alternately charming and infuriating demeanour and his belief that music can see you through anything, he might be exactly what she needs.
Except June wasn’t the only one hiding something. Jake’s keeping a secret that has the power to turn Harper’s life upside down again.
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