AGAIN, BUT BETTER, External Processors and Commonplace Books

                    

Today I'm going to use Christine Riccio's debut novel, Again, But Better, which I finished the other day, as a jumping-off point to a discussion of how we process the books we read and apply that found meaning to our lives.

Again, But Better, Barnes and Noble's YA Book Club Book of the Month for August, is a contemporary romantic comedy about studying abroad and traveling, coming of age, taking chances on relationships and life and experiences, and setting your own standards for success. It delves into difficult familial relationships in the context of near-independence, the tension between dreams and practicality, and a complicated crush. Oh, and Christine threw in a splash of magic for good measure, which Made the story for me.

I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads, and Highly Recommend it, especially to late highschool and college-aged readers.

Shane Primaveri, the leading lady in Again, But Better, approaches life-processing in much the same way I do. There are two kinds of people: external processors and internal processors. Internal processors process their lives and experiences inside their own heads, but external processors, like me, need to take experiences out of our heads in order to process them correctly. 

                                            

Taking experiences outside our heads can happen in conversations, in journals, in blog posts, and even in social media posts and Youtube videos. 

Speaking of Youtube videos. Christine Riccio, the 29-year-old author of Again, but Better was a wildly popular Booktuber before she ever set about to write a book of her own. She started her channel in 2010, and filled it with book reviews, bookish comedy, and much more. She is considered to be both the OG Booktuber and the most famous. Here is her channel.

Here are my three favorite Christine Riccio videos:

How to Read in the Shower
DIY Bookmarks

The Reading Slump Case Study (language warning)

Did you watch them? GO WATCH THEM. Have you watched them now? Okay, you may continue reading this blog post now. As you can hopefully tell, this lady is a Personality. She's also an external processor just like her main character. Shane Primaveri talks a lot, blogs, and journals physically in little notebooks she calls "horcruxes" (a reference to the horcrux/journal Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets).

Throughout Again, But Better, Shane sorts through her emotions and comes to realizations and decisions that drive the story through this process of externally processing her experiences. For me, this is So Relatable. Actually everything about Shane is relatable. She accidentally knocks over chairs when she stands up too fast, she plays Angry Birds, she has a crush on a guy with a girlfriend, and so much more.

                                     

Every time I read a book, I do a little journal entry on it. It's my way of processing my reactions to the story, what thoughts and emotions it elicited, and what my conclusions are on its messages. This practice grew out of something I had to do for all of Dr. Grewell's literature classes: Keep a Commonplace Book.

A Commonplace Book, traditionally, is a personal book of notable quotations taken from other books. It can also include observations and drawings as well as quotes from other mediums, but it is not the same thing as a journal. For my classes, I had to select a notable quotation from each day's reading and comment on it. This, by the way, is a fantastic method of ensuring that your students do the reading. Or at least skim. It was my favorite assignment every semester, which is why I've modified the practice and continued to this day in the form of what I like to call call "Literary Journaling".

Keeping a Commonplace book or Literary Journal is something I highly recommend because it ensures that you don't simply read for blind entertainment, which I tend to think is both dangerous and a waste of time.

I would back up this statement, but I don't think I actually need to. I think we're all quite aware, on some level, that entertainment without thought is a waste of time, even if we're not willing to do anything about it. Some of us need to waste a little time for our general mental health. That's okay. But I think we're also all aware that there are plenty of morally or intellectually dangerous systems of thought out there that we don't want creeping into our minds and hearts when we're not paying attention. I'm talking about stuff like racist attitudes, materialism, demonic influence, religious concerns, and more. I have no issues reading a book with problematic elements, but I'm also going to spend a long time afterward thinking through those issues and landing in a good place in my own mind and heart.

When I do an entry, I tend to identify what bothered me about the book and why, what hit me right in the feels and why, what I found problematic philosophically, what I found insensitive, what shocked me and why, what I found profound, and in many cases, how I want my life or viewpoint to change as a result of what I've read.

Again, But Better for example made me want to write more. It, along with the author's personal writing story, wound up making a poignant case for not letting your dreams go. It doesn't advocate tossing wisdom and practicality out the window in some bid to win the dream-job lottery, but it does argue against choosing a life-path that will cause your dreams to die. It is a solid encouragement to all those artistic souls out there to have the courage to continue doing your art, even if it is just a hobby, and not to value arbitrary definitions of "real life" and "success" to such an extent that you give up everything that brings you joy and makes you unique. The book also has a lot that is healthy and good to say about an appropriate balance between familial wishes, romantic relationships, and success and happiness in life on ones own terms.
Also journaling!

How do you process your life experiences? The books you read? Do you journal or keep a Commonplace Book? Have you read Again, But Better? Leave me a message in the comments section!

Liz and I Embark on a Readathon

                                   

Okay, so I know everyone is just Dying to hear about Jon's and my honeymoon (eh, probably not, but I did promise, so I will make good on that), but I've procrastinated on that too long, and now I feel like posting about the 2019 Reading Rush instead. So, being under no deadlines save the ones I put on myself, I'm going to do that.

What Is The Reading Rush, you ask??

Formerly known as the Booktubathon, it is a seven-day-long reading marathon hosted by Youtube and aimed at their Booktubing community and its fans. (A Booktuber is a Youtuber who makes videos about books. It's a whole community of which two of my favorites are Jesse the Reader and A Clockwork Reader.) The Reading Rush has now grown into a separate organization with its own website. Technically, the readathon started and ended last week, but Liz (my sister, of Out of Coffee, Out of Mind) and I decided to watch the Booktubers do it first, and start ours today instead, on the first of the month, because that felt right.

So how does this thing work?

Each year, Youtube issues seven challenges, theoretically corresponding to seven books of the reader's choice, although many readers choose to complete several challenges with a single book rather than try to read seven books in seven days.

The best way to show you how this works is to tell you which books I've decided to tackle this week, why I picked them, and how they line up with each of the 2019 challenges. Liz and I decided to shoot high by picking out seven books, one for each challenge, but also to cover ourselves by picking books that could fit multiple challenges so that even if we don't complete all seven books, we can conceivably still kill all seven challenges. Now, Liz's picks are almost entirely different from mine, so I'll let her announce her choices on her own blog. Here are mine:

Challenge Number One: "Read a book with purple on the cover."

                                                
See? Purple. I noticed that several Booktubers, including A Clockwork Reader selected one or two graphic novels for the Reading Rush in order to have a couple easy-to-complete titles on their TBR (To Be Read) piles, so I gave myself permission to follow suit. I have been fangirling over this Manga Shakespeare series adapted by Richard Appignanesi and illustrated by a wide variety of artists for about a year now. Macbeth is one of the view available titles I have not yet read in this series, so it's my pick for the first challenge.

Challenge Number Two: "Read a book in the same spot the entire time." 

                                                 
I chose the audio CD version of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid for this challenge because listening to an audio CD book at my desk at work should be an easy way to complete this challenge. I chose this book because it's being talked about a Lot in the book world right now, and I'd like be be able to understand and participate in that conversation. This book could also fill Challenge Number Six.
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Challenge Number Three: "Read a book you meant to read last year." 

                                                    
I definitely meant to read Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury last year, and it's especially fitting in light of my Challenge Number One pick because Mr. Bradbury stole his title straight from Macbeth. I'll be steaming the audio for this book through the Hoopla app on my phone. If you have a library card, you can borrow six titles per month through Hoopla for free. I use my Hoopla allotment to give myself some portable entertainment while cleaning my house. The app also features a sleep timer, so I often set it for fifteen minutes, and fall asleep somewhere around minute 14. This book is supposedly pretty creepy, so I may not do that this time around, but we'll see.

Challenge Number Four: "Read an author's first book."

                                                
I've been wanting to try out Cassandra Clare's writing for some time, and City of Bones was her debut novel, so this worked out nicely. The Mortal Instruments series, which begins with City of Bones is both immensely popular and widely controversial, so I'm excited to be finally developing an opinion of my own about it. I'll be listening to an audio CD version of this book in my car this week. This book could also fill Challenge Number Five, since its main characters only Look human--to those who can see them, that is.

Challenge Number Five: "Read a book with a non-human main character." 

                                                 

My original plan had been to read The Green Ember by S.D. Smith, which came highly recommended to me by a friend, but unfortunately I wasn't able to get my hands on a copy in time for the challenge, so I'm putting this at the top of my post-challenge TBR pile, and I've selected Aurora Rising by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman instead.

                                                  
Aurora Rising doesn't fit the challenge nearly as well as a book with rabbit main characters, but one of the Aurora squad is an alien, and this book has been sitting unread on my shelf for months, so it'll do. If the The Illuminae Files series is any indication, I won't regret having to go with my second choice.

Challenge Number Six: "Pick a book that has five or more words in the title." 

                                                  

How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found by Sara Nickerson fits this challenge perfectly. This is a mid-grade novel which I (appropriately) read in middle school. It's mildly creepy, and I remember only bits and pieces of the storyline. I just know Liz and I were blown away by it back in the day, but subsequently lost access to the library where it lived. Years passed, and the title, author, and most pertinent details of the plot Disappeared Completely from our minds Never to be
Found until, after years of searching, making queries online, and even writing to Scholastic, Inc., I finally found mention of it in a thread on Goodreads begun by someone else who was also trying to track it down. I am So Excited to finally have this book in my hands again (a beat-up used copy since it's out of print) and to finally be able to reread it! Sidenote: I may write a blog post at some point about how to relocate books you loved in your childhood, but subsequently lost to time.

Challenge Number Seven: "Read and watch a book to movie adaptation." 

                                                   

This is the only challenge for which Liz and I selected the same book. We were neither allowed to read the book nor watch the movie as kids (for some good reasons, I think), so now, as adults, we've decided to tackle it and discuss it and enjoy the movie together as a mid-marathon reading break.

That's my Reading Rush 2019 TBR everybody!!

IN SEVEN DAYS I will post again with either an announcement of my victory or a confession of my defeat. I will include a mini-review of each of the titles I manage to complete as well my thoughts on the experience as whole. If you want to do this challenge with Liz and I, feel free to start any day you wish, and let us know what books you pick and how it goes!