Flashback Friday

I actually intended this to be a Throwback Thursday section, but yeah, that didn't happen.  What I'd like to do is highlight a book or series that still resonate with me.  I could call them my top 10 or whatever, but I have a feeling that once I start digging, I'll find more than what I bargained for.

So the first Flashback Friday Pick is Everyone is Beautiful by the lovely Katherine Center.  This

quote by Maya Angelou sums up this book for me.

"At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel."

It's been years since I've read this, and I remember some of the story, but more than anything I remember feeling like I was reading something life-changing near the end of the book with this passage:

“And here, after all that, is what I have come to believe about beauty: Laughter is beautiful. Kindness is beautiful. Cellulite is beautiful. Softness and plumpness and roundness are beautiful. It's more important to be interesting, to be vivid, and to be adventurous, than to sit pretty for pictures. A woman's soft tummy is a miracle of nature. Beauty comes from tenderness. Beauty comes from variety, from specificity, from the fact that no person in the world looks exactly like anyone else. Beauty comes from the tragedy that each person's life is destined to be lost to time. I believe women are too hard on themselves. I believe that when you love someone, she becomes beautiful to you. I believe the eyes see everything through the heart - and nothing in the world feels as good as resting them on someone you love. I have trained my eyes to look for beauty, and I've gotten very good at finding it. You can argue and tell me it's not true, but I really don't care what anyone says. I have come, at last, to believe in the title I came up with for the book: Everyone Is Beautiful.” 

I have read this paragraph so many times, I have it memorized.  Her book is funny, real, honest, and makes you feel like everything is going to be okay.

How many books give you that feeling?

It's why I write.  It's why I try to give you something that might inspire you ... or at least make you feel like you're not alone in what you're going through in life.

Again, these books on Fridays (or Thursdays :)) are books you should absolutely read if you haven't yet.  So many people ask me what I'm reading, and sometimes I'm not reading anything worth talking about.

It's sad, really.

So I wanted to have a list that are my "go-to" books that should be read.  Perhaps with a nice glass of wine...

Till next time...