“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”

I've been getting back to reading recently. I always miss reading and usually only get to do it when the holidays come around, but of late, I've been letting myself read some books.

I like how much a bunch of words can impact me so greatly and in so many ways. One of the best books I've ever read is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It's about 9/11, and things about that day don't usually interest me, because I was too young to share the grief that the world shared on that one day. Other than feeling remorseful for the innocent lives lost on that particular day, I used to feel nothing else for the people.

It was until I read ELIC last year. To put simply, it is a universal story about grief and loss, from the perspective of a young boy whose father had died in 9/11. The book was made into a movie but the book is better, like it always is. It is such a beautiful piece of writing and it has made me feel feelings I never thought of feeling before. I've never experienced any great losses in my life thus far, but the book gave me an idea of how that would feel.

There are so many quotes from the book and scenes from the movie that I like that I can't decide which is my favourite. But this is definitely one of my most favorited books.