On the Topic Of...Contemporary Books

It shouldn't come as a surprise that I've always been a big reader. In first grade I was that kid that kept asking the teacher for more books until she didn't have any more to give me. But that's not really the point of this post. What I really want to talk about is contemporary books and my love for them. 

What really started me reading YA way back in middle school was Meg Cabot. After having seen the movie countless times, I decided one day that I wanted to read the Princess Diaries books. And once I read the first book, I just couldn't get through the rest fast enough...until I got to the point where I had to wait for the next one to come out. And that's when a friend turned me in the direction of Sarah Dessen. The first Sarah Dessen book I read was The Truth About Forever, and to this day it's still one of my favorite books. And, of course, after reading that first one I just kept going back to my library until I had read all the Sarah Dessen books in existence.

For a long time, pretty much all I read were contemporary books, and for the most part, I loved them. But then for whatever reason I started picking up more and more books that weren't contemporary and those contemporaries were sort of left behind. But when I starte blogging, I sort of rediscovered contemporary books, and I am more than happy to have done so. It's those books by Jennifer Echols and Simone Elkeles that reminded me of my love for contemporary books. And from there it wasn't long before I realized that I still love contemporary as much as I did in middle and high school. Yet for whatever reason, I still sometimes forget about those books.

But every so often I just get this urge to pick up a contemporary books and, for whatever reason, am always amazed by how much I end up loving the story. Because despite the fact that all are no supernatural elements to those stories, they are still stories that have so much to them. The realistic quality they have just gets to me in a way that other books can't. This most recently happened with Miranda Kenneally's next book, Things I Can't Forget. While I was reading I just got so wrapped up in the story, in a way that I can't seem to get with those other books. And that's not to say those other books aren't fantastic, because they really are--give some Cassandra Clare any day of the week and I will be perfectly happy. What I'm saying is that I just don't seem to find myself falling completely in love with the genre all over again like I do whenever I read contemporary books--I mean who can really resist the adorableness that are Stephanie Perkins' books (St. Clair & Cricket anyone?). So yeah, I love contemporary stories. 

When it comes to books and readings, I think contemporary is always going to be my first love and the genre I just will never get tired of reading. So what about you: Do you read a lot of contemporary? Do you have a genre that you just seem to always go back to and never get tired of? Let me know in the comments!

Pregnant Pause by Han Nolan

Title: Pregnant Pause

Author: Han Nolan

Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers

Release Date: September 20, 2011

Source: From Publisher

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

Eleanor Crowe has a mind of her own, and nobody gets away with bossing her around. She usually makes decisions based on who she can piss off most, although that hans't always worked out so well. Now she's pregnant and sixteen--and her opinion doesn't seem to matter to everyone who's trying to tell her what to do.

But as Elly's delivery date approaches, she has more questions than answers. Is she being punished for being such a rotten daughter? Does she really love this by she married? And what's she going to do with this baby? Being headstrong got her into this mess...maybe now it can get her out of it. But is that what she really wants?

As of late, I've been reading more contemporary books than I'm normally used to. They are just such a refreshing change from dystopian and paranormal reads. And Pregnant Pause was the perfect contemporary book. I loved reading every page of it and it even surprised me how much I ended up enjoying the book.

Elly ignored the fact that she was pregnant until it was too late to do something about it, in the hope that it would go away. And now, as her delivery date approaches, Elly is still not sure what she wants to do once the baby comes. Now Elly is working at a weigh-loss camp owned by her new parents-in-law and living in a cabin on a mountain with her new husband. Basically, things are just going great, and in her typical fashion, Elly won't do or listen to what anyone says. Because what would be the fun in that? As the summer goes by, Elly discovers that maybe she doesn't have to give away her baby and that she's actually pretty good with children. But as Elly discovers this about herself, she finds out that while she may be ready for a kid, there are other people around her that may not be.

I haven't read all that many books about teenage pregnancy but every time there is something different about the story. In Pregnant Pause, Han Nolan takes the idea of teenage pregnancy and makes it her own. The story she told was an interesting one and it really took me by surprise. I found myself enjoying it a lot more than I originally thought I would, to the point that  had trouble putting the book down. Han Nolan really didn't hold back and said things the way they are and a big part of that was the voice she gave Elly as the narrator.

I loved Elly a lot more than I first thought I would. And I'll admit that at first I didn't really like Elly and didn't really understand her. In all honesty, she even kind of annoyed me because it just felt like she didn't really care about anything. But then she started caring and acting like a real person and I found myself liking her more and more. As for the boys in this book there were very few decent ones. And of those few decent ones, half of them turned out to be jerks in the end. In any other book that probably would have really annoyed me to no end, but this case it just made sense with the story. And my favorite was probably Leo, not just because he was one of the few decent ones, but also because you could tell he genuinely cared about Elly and didn't expect anything in return.

Overall, Pregnant Pause was a great contemporary read, one that I enjoyed reading a lot more than I thought I would. I highly recommend it!