7 Books You Need to Read Over Spring Break
1/9Spring break is here! While lots of fun times, parties, and dance floor jam sessions are likely in your future for your seven days of blissful freedom, there’s still going to be plenty of downtime. After all, how can you be at your best if you don’t allow yourself a little time to kick back, relax, and just lay low for a bit? For those moments or hours (or maybe even days on end) where you’re simply too tired to carry on conversations and too indecisive to pick a new show to Netflix-binge, why not go old school and pick out a great book (or two or three or nine) to bring with you and read? As Lisa Kleypas once said, “a well-read woman is a dangerous thing”...so get on with your bad self and get to reading. Besides, if the next time you do decide to venture to a party and the person you’re talking to doesn’t get your Count of Monte Cristo reference, well, they don't deserve your time anyway. Think of it as a weedout test.
2/9Room by Emma Donoghue
You’ve likely heard about Room before, as the Oscar winning movie starring Best Actress Brie Larson. Well, before it was a movie, it was a bestselling book — and the book might just be better than the film (and that’s saying a whole heck of a lot). The story itself is dark but the message is uplifting. Hope, love, courage...all of these things can make or break you. This book is about always believing that it will get better — and then doing everything in your power to make sure that belief comes true.
3/9Bossypants by Tina Fey
Tina Fey is a goddess. We all know this. So if you haven’t read her book yet then you need to stop what you are doing and immediately run out and get it because it will change your life. Bossypants is essentially the story of Tina’s life, told in essay format, and it will inspire you to dream and reach big.
4/9Yes Please by Amy Poehler
LOL, like Tina Fey’s book would make the list but Amy Poehler’s book wouldn’t. Those two can do no wrong — and that includes each writing a New York Times bestseller. While Fey’s book is more of an autobiography, Poehler’s is more of a collection of essays. Neither one is better than the other, it just means that they’re different and both absolutely worth the read. Poehler digs deep on this one, though, so fair warning: you might need some tissues.
5/9Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez
Back in 2001, a beautician named Deborah Rodriguez flew from Michigan to Kabul on a humanitarian trip. While there, she discovered her calling, and a few months later, armed with sponsorships and donations, she opened up a beauty school in the largely Taliban-occupied city. The true story is about love, friendship, determination, crossing cultural barriers, and how even in the face of serious adversity, women will stop at nothing to be who they want to be.
6/9Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee
You’ve read To Kill a Mockingbird, right? If not, stop what you are doing, read it immediately, and then put in a request to have your principal talk to your freshman year English teacher. Anyway, Go Set A Watchman is the longggggggggg awaited follow-up to Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book. No one likes spoilers, but let’s just say, this book will really surprise you. Interested? Pick up a copy.
7/9The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Read this book. Then read it again. Now read it one more time. Do you now see that Gatsby and Daisy do not have the kind of love affair you want to seek? Do you now see that Gatsby had a really, really depressing life? Do you now see that money truly — honest to God — cannot buy you happiness? Okay, good. No go tell your friends what you learned. There seem to be a lot of misconceptions about the moral of the story.
8/9Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
If you’ve entered into the online dating pool then you already know justttttt how terrible it is. Swipe right, swipe left, swipe up, swipe down, swipe wherever...nothing seems to matter. The end result is the same: you get your heart broken. Here’s the good news, though: it’s not just you. It’s everyone — even famous people like Aziz. In his book, he acknowledges pretty much how terrible we all are and how, honestly, at this point, we kind of all deserve to die alone because we’re such jerks. Thinks I’m kidding? I’m not. Go out and pick up a copy. It’ll have you doubling over in laughter and thanking the good Joan Rivers about that when it comes to modern dating, you’re not the only lost cause.
