#veronica talks

Surprisingly enough, none of the books I had to read at uni are my favorite 😅 Obviously, I had to read the classics (Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights...) and I'm not a very big fan of those. They also forced Shakespeare down my throat for a couple of years and I ended up having a love/hate relationship with his works and his persona lol (I love the town where he was born, tho, it's my favorite town in England). 🤍

I read a lot, and I read a lot of everything. If you ever see my bookshelf you will see stuff ranging from Nicholas Sparks' novels to Stephen King's works (he's one of my fav authors) to some really fucked up stories like We Need to Talk about Kevin or My Absolute Darling (I actually loved these last two).

If you ever want to know, I have a favorite book for every genre. But my absolute all time favorite books are The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, and The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (I literaly cry for days every time I read this one).

The Thirteenth Tale is, most of all, a Gothic novel, and I love all things Gothic. This is definitely my go-to comfort read at any time. It has many classic Gothic elements and it can be somewhat predictable at times, but I was not expecting the plot twist toward the end. I love it for its setting in an abandoned manor and a main character with a quiet nature, who adores books and stories, and is emotionally scarred from childhood trauma.

I would define The Time Traveler's Wife as a romance novel with magical realism, and totally heartbreaking. It's got a touch of sci-fi with the time traveling thing, but it's not exactly what you would expect. I really don't like sci-fi stories and I think one of the reasons why I fell in love with this one is because of the way the author deals with that in the book. To summarize, the story follows Henry and Clare as they navigate life while coping with Henry's genetic condition, which causes him to randomly time travel. The curious thing about his condition is that, when he time travels, he often finds himself meeting Clare at different stages of her life; when she's a little girl, then a teenager, and then when she's an adult and they're married. The first time I read this book, I was a teenager and I found it really beautiful, innovating, and sad. The second time, I had already experienced being in love, so I felt everything between Henry & Clare's relationship on a deeper level, and towards the end, the story gets so heartbreaking that I was crying for days on train journeys, at work, and at home (I have to say that I'm a very sensible person and a crybaby lol).

However, there's also one other book that I read when I was 14 or so called The Wishing Game by Patrick Redmond that I've loved ever since, but its somewhat controversial for me because I fell in love with the 'villain' and was supportive of all his crimes 🫣 I think the reason why I empathized with him was because I read the story while I was in my teenage years, in my glorious high school days, and as most of us, I didn't really fit it, and sometimes I felt really neglected and angry, so I guess it was sort of comforting to read about a boarding school where the bullies start mysteriously dying 😶‍🌫️