z

Young Writers Society


12+

Books and Music Saved My Life

by janecontraire


Though I have read (or, I should say, experienced) a plethora of incredible books in the 98,476 weeks of my story so far, the best moments were the ones I spent reading “Looking for Alaska” by John Green. Nestled between loneliness and melancholic emotions, John's books always found a way to make the pain go away. I was able to ignore myself for a few moments, hours if I had no other obligations, and disappear into pages so sincerely, beautifully imperfect in the most perfect way. My thoughts were erased, forgotten, and replaced with someone else's fictional-but-feels-so-real love, death, and every other beautiful thing in between.

There are music people, and there are book people; I am both, and they've saved my life more times than I can hope to repay them for. If you aren't one of the two, or haven’t found the one thing that makes you want to love this hateful world, I can’t explain in words how sorry I am for you. Reading and music voice the way I feel in times when my own words wouldn't dare try.

In Can You Feel My Heart, Oliver Sykes of Bring Me The Horizon screams, “I'm scared to get close and I hate being alone. I long for that feeling to not feel at all. The higher I get, the lower I'll sink, I can't drown my demons, they know how to swim.”. How could I even attempt to express the same thing in any other way? I would be disrespecting my own emotions to try.

In Looking for Alaska, I was dropped into a world that was a thousand times more beautiful than my own, until the last worn pages of the book when a beautiful girl and a hopeful chance at love ended simultaneously. Looking for Alaska is beautiful. I’m usually quite literate, but when it comes to explaining my own feelings about music, books, and other art, I am completely speechless. I steal from My Chemical Romance when I say “ that the world is ugly but you’re beautiful to me”.

There aren’t many things I can sincerely describe as “beautiful”, because I like to keep the strongest words paired with the strongest emotions. When I talk about Looking for Alaska, I say “beautiful” far too much (or maybe just enough). I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you, it’s just that beautiful. I can’t express my love for it in my own words or summarize it in less than 100,000,000 characters, but I can plead you to read it and experience it’s magnificence for yourself. If everyone read this book I feel the whole world would understand each other in a whole new, beautiful way. Some things are better left read.

Note: You are not logged in, but you can still leave a comment or review. Before it shows up, a moderator will need to approve your comment (this is only a safeguard against spambots). Leave your email if you would like to be notified when your message is approved.







Is this a review?


  

Comments


User avatar
56 Reviews

Points: 4997
Reviews: 56

Donate
Mon Jul 02, 2018 4:11 am
aulyasela3597 wrote a review...



Since music is such a large piece of our lives, It touches us and impacts our mood.

Music not only touches on what sort of mood we may be in, but we also possess a propensity to choose music towards the moods we are already experiencing.
We can focus our thoughts with certain kind of music and so we continue to choose that genre throughout our thinking.

Another case is the example of our feel good songs. Each time we have a kind of deviation we try to listen to those songs which provokes our desire and holds us. The same with emotional songs close to us which actually is a reflection of period we went through or we desired.

Thank you for writing this piece! :)

Warm regards,

Aulyasela3597




User avatar
508 Reviews

Points: 11170
Reviews: 508

Donate
Wed Sep 18, 2013 4:15 pm
dragonfphoenix wrote a review...



Quick comment to your piece: I am a 'both-er' like you are. Music is what ties me back to my books, stirs my imagination so deeply at times that the images are pouring in faster than the beat can roll out (and I've listened to some pretty fast-paced music).

Now, for the actual piece itself, I felt you had this a little misplaced. The title tells me you want to talk about your experiences with music and books, and how they've made your life a better place. However, I finished this thinking, "Wow, this is little more than a book review of 'Looking For Alaska'", and I could retell your entire review by saying you thought this book was awesome. I was a little disappointed as well how little you actually talk about music. Other than to tell us how you react to music, you do nothing in that department. So I would suggest delving in a little further, such as talking about a piece that reminds you of Looking For Alaska or creates the same feelings as Looking For Alaska (but doesn't have to "fit" the book or be reminiscent of it).
Hope this helps!






Yeah, I tend to rant on and go off on tangents in essays. It was an essay on "your favorite book" for english class and I always turn it into something different in a sneaky way if I'm not interested in the topic too much. That's probably why it seems like i only touched a little on the things I talked about. But yeah, thanks for the input c:



User avatar
17 Reviews

Points: 192
Reviews: 17

Donate
Wed Sep 18, 2013 9:53 am
View Likes
Yuka wrote a review...



This is really nice.
I'm a music person and a little book person as well. Music is something that people sometimes use to express themselves and its also used to convey feeling to one another.
Books are written by novelist so they can write the things they cant say and so that they can write stories of people, themselves or make they're own world.
What you wrote here is really nice and i really like it.
Keep up the good work!






Thank you c:
I'm glad you like it.




Be the annoying goose you want to see in the world.
— Welcome to Night Vale