RTW: Fond Memories

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.


  This week’s topic:  What book brings back memories? 

The entire Harry Potter series brings back a lot of memories for me. Sorcerer's Stone is one of the earliest books I truly remember reading. My cousin -- a year older than me and a somewhat avid reader at the time -- recommended it to me and let me borrow it. My mom declared that she would read it first and then let me read it if she deemed it "appropriate." 

She read it and while I she really enjoyed it, she wasn't a huge fan but she was okay with me reading it. We were living in the apartment at the time. In the living room, there was a couch and next to the couch we had a side table, one of those with the moveable glass tops so that you could hang a sheet down to cover the legs and then put the glass on top. The day she told me I could read it, she left the book there sitting on that side table. I remember coming out of my room, walking over to it, and feeling the pages underneath my fingers. I started reading it immediately and the rest is history. 

Deathly Hallows also brings back fond memories. I remember the surge of excitement as I coerced my mom into driving me to the bookstore to get it the morning of its release. I remember standing in line at the bookstore and feeling like I would never get to read it, my desire to pull it out of the bag and start reading as we walked out of the store, how I did so the moment I got into the car. I remember curling up on my bed while the pages flew beneath my fingers, laughing, sobbing, trembling with excitement, and the supreme feeling of sadness and satisfaction when I turned the final page at midnight, twelve hours after I'd walked out of that bookstore. I also vividly remember the feeling of connection with people I'd never met as I walked around for the next week and caught sight of people reading it.