The Single Diaries Summer Reading List 2014
Tag: Single Girl Reads
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Single Girl Reads | Summer Reading List
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Single Girl Reads | Mother’s Day Book Report
A gift guide of books for the mothers on your list
PHOTO: PBS. My love of books no doubt stems from my parents. I had my first library card before I started school (my “signature” definitely looks like I had just learned how to write my name). Some of my fondest childhood memories include my mom bringing me to the library and letting me peruse the children’s room for hours. When I started reading more substantial literature, my mom encouraged me to inscribe my name and the date I finished each book on the inside cover. What a charming way to look back years later and consider your “journey” when you first read a novel! Unfortunately, I fell out of this practice once reading for pleasure was a thing of the past (read high school and college required reading lists). I think it’s time to bring it back. Mother’s Day is such a special time to honor the women in your life, and I find there’s no better gift than just the right book. A personalized note is just as extraordinary an inscription… and a beautiful reminder of where the book came from. Here are six of the latest titles to consider for Mother’s Day.
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Single Girl Reads: Divergent
“Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again.”
It’s a triology. It’s about a “dystopian” society that’s taken over Chicago… one that’s divided into organized groups based on human qualities that rule individual mentality: Abnegation (the selfless), Candor (the honest), Amity (the friendly), Erudite (the intellectuals), and Dauntless (the brave). Despite the outward similarities with the coming-of-age strong female lead and the ability of the protagonist to outwit the central dictatorship, The Hunger Games this is not. With a slow start and elementary literary features, Divergent lacks the depth that attracted me to The Hunger Games. With that said, I did enjoy the read and am looking forward to the release of the film starring Shailene Woodley next Friday, March 21st. Don’t let the 487 pages scare you; you can finish the novel in the next week if you start this weekend!
At the age of 16, every citizen takes an aptitude test that reveals to them where their qualities will help them most succeed in their society. Each citizen considers their results and at the Choosing Ceremony publicly declares where their mind and heart has led them. Many choose to stay within their own faction, but others choose to “abandon” their families and the ideals they were raised to uphold and switch to another. Any decision to leave is often seen as a betrayal to their family and to their faction, and they believe that you can never return home afterward. Each 16-year-old becomes an initiate that goes through a process of training into the new ideals of their adulthood and sometimes new faction before they undergo a test that accepts them into their new faction… or doesn’t.
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Single Girl Reads | Beginner’s Guide to John Green
A book report on four of John Green’s novels
If you haven’t heard of The Fault In Our Stars, now is the time to crawl out from under your rock. The film adaptation starring Shailene Woodley (I’m going to call that she’s this year’s break-out star with Divergent coming out in March and Fault coming out in June) releases this summer, so get on the waiting list at your local library now if you know what’s good for you. I read this novel for book club and subsequently read two other titles by John Green. I am a fan.
Don’t let “Young Adult” fool you. Like the writers of Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Divergent, John Green breathes life into the category with dynamic characters, imperative themes (such as that of needing to matter), and evocation of real emotion (I have both laughed out loud and cried my eyes out over his writing). Since he is not a series writer, here’s the run-down on four of his titles to get you started on your path, with help from a fellow John Green-fan Kate Jones.
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The Rules | A Single Girl’s Reinterpretation
The Single Diaries Decodes The Rules Dating Wisdom
A few weeks ago we posed the question, have you ever heard of or read The Rules? The Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right was published in 1995 by Ellen Fein and Sherries Schneider, a dynamic duo with the guise that they had this whole dating thing figured out. The golden rule upon which their dating bible was built is the simple premise that men must be the aggressors in a relationship. The Rules is essentially a 35-point action plan to carry this out. Fast forward almost 20 years and The Rules may feel a bit archaic.
With guidelines such as “Don’t Talk to a Man First” and “Don’t Talk Too Much,” The Rules seems a far cry from the Lean In culture today’s Single Girl has embraced. With good cause, women are being prompted more than ever to be more aggressive in claiming ownership over the course of their lives. Want to be CEO of a big company one day? Fight your way to the top! Want to marry the man of your dreams? Buy the ring and ask him yourself! The message is coming across loud and clear: “the rules” are changing.
With all of that said, The Rules continues to survive even in a Sheryl Sandberg world. In addition to having been a best-selling book at the time of release, the authors spawn new versions of The Rules every few years and continue to find themselves attracting publicity. This had me wondering, is there something about The Rules that defies the test of time? As crazy as they might initially seem, do they actually work?’
Having read the book myself, my short answer to the question is “Yes, I believe in The Rules.” BUT (of course there’s a but), I also believe they only work so much as today’s Single Girl is able to pass them through the filter of the present realities. The key is to be smart about The Rules and to reapply them in a way that makes sense. To give you a better sense of what I mean, I’ve taken 15 of The Rules suggestions and decoded them into a set of practical guidelines that I believe actually make sense for our Tinder, Twitter, Insta, Chatting worlds. Read on for The Single Diaries take on The Rules.