Finding Hope In The Pages Of A Book
12 authors, critics, and readers discuss the books they turn to for hope, comfort, and inspiration
A lot of big readers talk about how, when they were kids, they read whatever they could get their hands on. They didn’t discriminate; they’d take any form of the written word they could. The same cannot be said for me then, nor can it be said now. As a child, I gravitated towards two genres primarily: historical fiction and fantasy centered around girls and women who, whether or not they could be characterized as “strong,” nevertheless were survivors.
It was helpful, as a child trying to move on from major trauma, to see how other girls lived through things far worse. These books gave me the faintest hint of confidence that I would survive what I had been through, and that if I had to, I could do it again. For an eight year old who couldn’t even tell her own therapist what she’d experienced, let alone how she felt, it was cathartic to read about characters who could talk about they’d endured, at least in the form of the novel itself (perhaps this is why I love the first person so much more than the third. Huh!)
The trauma we are collectively experiencing will likely not be the last, for any of us. Books will not be the “answer.” But as other people’s stories can portray…
