30 Day Challenge, Day Three: A Book You Love

Let's be real, like many things in life, I am totally enthralled by reading. I adore books, and think they are the easiest way to learn, to grow, to be someone different. If you ever find that you are not impressed with who you are, pick up a book, you'll be different by the time you're done, if it's good enough. I think I'll discuss a few and see where this goes, since everything I write is almost always pure stream of consciousness anyways. My all time favorite book is and will be forevermore Sailor and Lula, The Complete Novels. I love this story so much, my daughter will be named after it. Barry Gifford does something so magical to me. Even though Sailor and Lula end up having all these crazy, outlandish adventures, you feel as if they could happen to you, happen to anyone, if only you had the right partner. Maybe the point isn't to have such insane things occur, but to be with someone who makes you feel as if anything of those things could be possible. My whole life, all I ever wanted was for someone to take my hand and lead me far far away, to run away with me. All I yearned for was that feeling, that Sailor and Lula feeling. They're not some romanticized, perfect, love story, they're actually white trash mediocre. They're on the run, poor, smoking hooligans staying in seedy hotels. Everything your parents warn you against, but happy with each other and just being wild and free. This books somehow manages to embody love and freedom, two things that sum up everything I have ever cared about in life. Next on the list is a book I find lots of people are disappointed in. I love Looking for Alaska, I think it is the best thing John Green has ever written. I think The Fault In Our Stars is incredibly overrated, the most average thing I've seen. However, Looking For Alaska, a true masterpiece. Alaska is every girl suffering from severe depression, trying to find answers, stumbling around, looking for temporary happiness in thrills, trying to avoid ruining others because deep down you know you're a walking disaster. And Pudge is just is the guy who thinks she's a mystery. It's a book that portrays a romanticized image, only to rip that image away from you. It's like a train running right at you, and you know it's coming, and you are powerless to stop it. It's a book to read when you need answers, not because you get them, but because you don't. Following, we have my favorite author, Tony O'Neill. The walking, talking definition of underrated. Tony O'Neill is vile and disgusting, and not for the weak-hearted, or maybe even the weak of stomach. But there's always something to be found in the disgusting. My personal favorite, Down and Out on Murder Mile, a true story. It begins, have you ever loved anything as much as Tony loves drugs? Probably not. To pimp his wife at the time out for drugs and to get raging mad when she won't suck a guy off to fuel their habit, to not care about her or anything else. But what is the strongest force on Earth? Love. He says something to the effect of, I know I'd have to quit or she'd have to start. He talks about his choices not being between his wife or the girl he is in love with, because that's really no choice at all. But a decision between a life with drugs, or a change in the normal, the seemingly impossible, a life without drugs. All of this has come from memory so I don't recall the exact date this book was completed, but Tony O'Neill has been clean ever since, and is still married to the girl he fell in love with. And is still completely, so fucking rad. He didn't lose anything by getting clean, but gained a writing career, a wife, and a daughter. A book to embody hope.