Reading has a lot to do with emotions. I'm a big believer in getting into the story and empathizing with the characters, but I guess I wasn't always like this. When I was in high school, I just read books for the sake of reading them. It felt very superficial to me. I liked reading, but it really wasn't an out-of-body experience or anything. I think I matured a lot after high school, so reading this book at that time made all the difference.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was the first book that literally made me cry. I got so caught up with Francie and the her relationship with her father, that I was devastated when he died. I admired that her innocence throughout book made her see the best in her father even though he was a struggling alcoholic, and I connected to Francie in the way that reading books and delving into education were her way of escaping life's struggles. The pivotal scene where she receives flowers from her posthumous father at her new school forever changed the impact books could have on my life.
B is for Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. This book deserves a place in my alphabet because it opened my eyes to a whole new genre. I'm a Christian, but I've always strayed away from "Christian" literature because I always thought it was too preachy or over my head. This summer I grew a lot spiritually, and I began to search for some literature about my beliefs that would also be entertaining to read. I found that in Miller's Blue Like Jazz, and that also opened the door for me to find Rob Bell and Jonathan Acuff.
Blue Like Jazz was subtitled Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality. This made all the difference in my eyes because Miller writes about a time in which he didn't follow the faith, so it was interesting getting the outside perspective while seeing how it changed now that he is a Christian. I've had struggles with my faith throughout my life, but I can happily say I'm where I need to be now thanks to the literature I read this summer.
This book along with Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis and Jonathan Acuff's Stuff Christians Like offered me a chance to read literature about my faith that wasn't dry and boring. It was entertaining, intriguing, humorous, thought-provoking, and addictive. It taught me the truth about that old saying, "Don't judge a book by it's cover."
