The New Blog
Hello. My name is Olivia Fowler and I’m 16 years old.
So, now that we've got that out of the way, let’s establish
some things about this whole blog experience.
Even though I have come to accept that this may
only be read by my mom and some very kind friends, I will address you all as if
you are a large group of people who are interested in the bookish ramblings of
teenager. I’m pretty sure I used the word bookish incorrectly, but I think you
get my point.
1. Please excuse any grammatical mistakes I might.
There is this thing called Microsoft Word that I depend way too much on, so if
you want to blame someone, blame the program. To be perfectly honest, I've
never had much of a problem with grammar or spelling, so I think that should be
okay. I feel that now someone is going to point out something I did wrong and
say “Ha! That girl thinks she’s a competent writer. She wouldn't know grammar
if it slapped her in the face!” Okay, maybe not. But you know what I mean.
2. Maybe I should have included this in the previous
one, but I thought it deserved its own number. There is a ridiculously good
chance that I will use the word “y’all”. I’m from Texas. Y’all is a real word.
If it bothers you, just let me know. I may or may not do something to change
it.
3. I think those are the main general issues that I wanted to
get out of the way. Now, it’s time to briefly discuss the actual reason I
created this blog: books.
I love to read. In
about third grade, I realized just how amazing books were. In those wonderful,
homework-free days, I would come home, find a book (usually one of my older
brothers’), and devour it in one sitting. That sounded a lot weirder in print
than it did in my head, but it pretty much describes my reading. I could
literally just collapse on the couch and finish a book. This caused two things:
a slight obsession and extreme procrastination.
I’m almost twice that age now. I’ve read a lot of books, and
I have a lot to say about them.
After reaching middle school, I stopped reading books about
dogs going on adventures and started reading more books about romance and “serious
topics”. I still remember reaching the age when my parents stopped telling me
that the books they were reading were too old for me. It was a liberating
feeling, knowing than thousands of books were open to me. Except I quickly
realized that being boring wasn’t the only reason I didn’t like a book, in
fact, it seemed like half the books I picked up were ones that I didn’t want to
finish. And that’s the problem-there are so many amazing books, but there are
so many books that are just horrible. Finally, I got to the point where I had scoured
every booklist my library and Google could provide. I guess I kind of still am at
this point.
I have come to realize something important. Once you get to
this point, the only thing left to do is discover. There is no feeling like
picking up a book you’ve never heard of, reading it, and loving it. It makes
you happy.
So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m here to do
the discovering for you. I find the one good book out of the ten on the shelf
so you don’t have to feel the disappointment of not finishing that novel with
the beautiful cover. I’ll read a lot of genres, a lot of authors, and any books
that you can suggest. And maybe you and I will read something amazing and think,
this is real writing.
One last thing. If a book is extremely popular, I probably
won’t do a review on it unless I love it or hate it. If you want to know what
Divergent is like, you can find hundreds of reviews that put it more eloquently
than I do.
Thanks, y’all. Thanks for taking the time to read this
ridiculous introduction for something that I have wanted to do for longer than
anyone realizes. You are absolutely amazing, and trust me, I mean it.
Love,
A girl who needs to stop talking now.
(Olivia)
