Today we'll talk about surviving fictional worlds. We all know that sometimes, the worlds we love in fiction can be dangerous. Which fictional worlds would you want to live in? Which worlds do you never want to dive into? Which worlds are you content to stay behind the glass, so to speak, rather than wishing to dive through the page? And once you get there, what would you do?
Hey guys! Welcome to Day 3 of ABEA! Today's topic is one that I'm super hyped for: surviving fictional worlds!
I've never really had a home. Yes I've lived in houses, apartments, and even homeless shelters, but God knows, those places certainly aren't home.
I guess that's part of why I read. To find a home. I get swept up in the words, in the worlds being built, I slip into a character's shoes, and suddenly the places and people they call home are mine too.
It's easy to think a fictional world is better than the real one. The grass is always greener on the other side, right? We've all wanted to jump on the train to Hogwarts or hop through the wardrobe to Narnia.
But sometimes, we get so caught up in the magic of literature, that we blind ourselves to the fact that often these fictional worlds aren't so great. Example: This totally happened to me with Veronica Roth's dystopian Chicago, especially the Dauntless sector. Who wouldn't want to live a reckless life of jumping on and off trains and zip lining through the city? Um, probably people who actually want to, oh, you know, keep their life!
I think about the beautiful world of Sara Raasch's Snow Like Ashes...and then think about the oppression that happens there. I imagine the gorgeous settings of Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone...and then remember that those settings are actually a warzone. Conflict happens in every novel and, more often than not, it makes the world in which the novel takes place a pretty ugly place to be in. So in this way, novels also remind me that I'm thankful for the world I live in, no matter how messed up and warped it can be.
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