Novelist Chloe Aridjis on Losing Adolescence and Retaining Imagination

A subtly crafted novel about disenchantment and the innocent sense of wanderlust that incite our rashest decisions, Chloe Aridjis has poetically recreated the world of the estranged and the isolated in her new novel, Sea Monsters, set to be released on February 05, 2019 by Catapult. Author of Asunder and Book of Clouds, Aridjis carries readers into magical landscapes of suppressed fears. Sea Monsters is a hypnotic exploration of an overcast youth entrapped in the dusty and nostalgic traces of the past. Mexican history and childish imagination come together to following a young girl’s quest for the unknown, and for herself.

Arranged by the publicity team at Catapult, I spoke to Chloe about the effects of history on identity in the novel, the decadence of youth, and the intoxicating curiosity that surrounds art. Characterized as a narrative “out of a central episode of my adolescence,” ahead, Aridijis brings readers into the poetically mysterious, romantically transcendent world of Sea Monsters. 

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12 Books Like The Hate U Give | elle.com

I recently published my very first article for elle.com. As a Young Adult reader/fan girl/enthusiast, I follow trends and enjoy anticipating new releases both from The New York Times Book Review, Goodreads, as well as from some of my favorite book bloggers. 

YA Under Trump

Since Trump has taken office, close to two years ago now, our world, the world of the next generation has undergone changes that we, as a nation, had believed we’d already passed. In a nation pretty much developed from immigrants, Trump wasted no time in closing the US border to entrants from several nations, most being majority-Muslim nations in the midst of their own revolutions. White supremacy and issues of racism that we thought we have overcome have suddenly reemerged, no doubt having some correlation with the leader of our nation. Our youth, the next generation of entrepreneurs, engineers and supreme court justices are growing up in a time of change and societal unrest. And we are not the only ones affected or who care about this. I may not be a teenager, but I still read Young Adult books, but it is not how I remember it. YA as a genre has changed and is now a reflection of school shootings, racial inequality, gender inequality, sexual abuse, political corruption, internet privacy – everything that we have grown so accustomed to to the point that we look at it as the new norm in our nation. 

Books To Remind You How To Never Stop Being Sad

Dear fellow Babblers,

There are several coping mechanisms and treatments out there whose sole purpose is to ease people out of their pain, suffering, sadness – all the pessimism infesting their lives one way or another. There is electric shock waves for the most extreme cases and some Hershey’s Kisses for the light, blue devil tears. One morning feeling like fresh sunny D and by evening aching for that cigarette ? Absolutely. That is what Power Yoga is for. And for those whose sadness turns to seething, rippling anger ? There is that $150 Equinox membership. For the poor souls grieving a loved one comes group therapy. And for the unlucky ones, unfortunate enough to crawl through life in a hazy blur of their own tears, day in and day out there is Prozac, Fluoxetine, medical Marijuana – the whole nine yards. Everything comes to how to be happy. How to live the most fulfilling life possible, hurting the least amount of people in the process of flying ourselves towards self fulfillment.

Sadness has existed in multiple forms and has been addressed and dealt with in countless ways,regardless of how one’s culture may choose to address and identify it. As a book blogger, my main area of interest and concern is on the treatment of mental illness by authors and how they use characters as victims of this serious, yet somehow overlooked illness, how plot is used to unravel and explore all the little yet detrimental symptoms of a mental illness and the ways in which an author’s writing and descriptions of their characters speaks, in and of itself, on mental illness.

As a blogger, writer, editor, academic, active reader, I have met and had several relationships with characters and have, throughout the years have been left with the scars, marks and, in conclusion, love and a certain intimacy with certain characters, their stories and the voices from which they were told. Here below I’m sharing with my readers not the books that I feel are therapeutical and relieve readers of their gloom. Instead these books are what I like to call “How To’s On How To Never Stop Being Sad.” Each and every one has touched my heart in one way or another, never fulfilling it, more often than not emptying it bit by bit. No one is ever in search of sadness but when they, or at least I, find it in between pages it is not a sort of sadness that breaks but rather one that bends, making the heart all the more stronger. 

Top 10 Tuesday: Sensory Reading Memories

Dear fellow Babblers,

Hello there and happity-dappity Tuesday! Today has been a wonderfully humid day here in New York but that is not to say that it has not been a day filled with wonders, blessings and hope. I moved here less than twenty four hours ago, having arrived at JFK Sunday evening, heading straight to Upper Manhattan. Between then and now I have visited the greater half of Brooklyn, Harlem, Queens and much of Manhattan in search of an apartment. Being a first timer in New York the areas and neighborhoods as listed online meant nothing to me. It wasn’t until I found myself sitting in the subway watching the turns, entries, and exits through different parts of the city that the anxiety and suddenly realization would kick in that I had absolutely no idea where I was going and where I would end up. Just when I was at my wits end, pulling my hair out, screaming in my pillow, very near tears last night I found my new home. I moved into my cozy little room early this morning and since then have gotten to know my neighborhood and even found a job not even a two minute walk from my bedroom window.

Officially now living here in New York, thinking back to a little over a year ago when I graduated from UCLA and everything that I have seen, done and felt since then feels like many moons backwards. Between getting through emotional hardships, making difficult career decisions and living out of a suitcase, as of lately I have been reminiscing upon my life: childhood, adolescence and early adult and while all that I have mentioned peeks into my mind, I can’t help but also connect many of my memories to some titles that I have read whose story continues to live on within me. And that is why today I am here, after this very long introduction to take part in Top Ten Tuesday hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl which discusses all things bookish, bringing together book bloggers from all over the world. I usually don’t do these memes as I like to keep each of my posts original and just, you know, stick with my own vibes as my writing always reflects what is going on in my mind and life regardless of it is a book review or life update. However, feeling the way I am at the moment, nostalgic and dozing off to another time, this week’s topic seems just what I need.

The purpose of today’s Top Ten Tuesday is to bring back to conscious those special titles that gave you all the feels, evoking your sensory emotions, becoming a part of who you are, keeping a special place in your heart. Whether it be books read repeatedly during adolescence, those you read once during a road trip but made you feel a way you never had before, or even those you read during an airplane ride thinking you were just trying to escape the blabber mouth lady sitting next to you. Whatever the time, place and reason, these books are, in and of themselves proof of the life a book can take in each and every one of us.

Delphine’s Life Through Book Quotes

Dear fellow Babblers,

Halfway through yet another week. I just finished reading The Time Traveler’s Wife, have been jogging everyday since I got back home, and have been incessantly daydreaming about where my life is going next. It’s not like I’m unable to live in the here and now or whatever them zen gooroos say. It’s just that I’m always somewhere else in my mind. This is not something new. Ever since I was young in grade school I as always the child looking out the window, coming home with marks on my report card saying “needs to get out of ‘la la land’, and enjoying every school trip to the library. Books have from childhood into my young adult life fed into my imagination and given me somewhere to go in my mind. Novels, short stories and poems have given me another world to enter and often after finishing one book I would find myself reacting to situations and making decisions based on what my favorite characters would do. Books have affected and influenced my life both internally and externally from the way I see myself and others to how I’ve lived my life throughout the years.

So, for today’s post, I thought I would share some of my favorite quotes from some of the books that have either affected my views of life or for no other reason than they are just beautiful. 

Author Interview: Auriel Roe

Dear fellow Babblers,

I recently interviewed debut author, Auriel Roe about her book,  A Blindfellows Chronicle, about her life as a writer, the thoughts, feelings and processes behind her debut novel. My discussion with Roe has been empowering for myself and I hope the same can be said for anyone out there – writers, artists, athletes whose grasp is torn between logic and passion. 

Babble To Señorita Babbler About Whatcha Reading On This Monday

Dear fellow Babblers,

Wake Up. Sound the alarm. Put your overalls on. Don’t forget Señor Bus Pass and Señorita House Keys. And lezzz-gooowww…. It’s Monday y’all! Get your cozy little tushy outta bed and out into friendly and dusty ‘ole reality!

Oh yeah – don’t forget to air me a big smoochie kiss down below ! Wait… whah?! ?!
Das Right – Señorita Babbler – or shall we call her lazy bikini bottoms – has used her America, the Beautiful as an excuse to call off work an cuddle up with her furry little man, Haruki and dive in on her July TBR.

Say “Bonjour” Señor Lazy Love-Bug, Haruki ! 

So while you, my dearest fellow book-a-freaks are ringing up customers at the grocery store, pretending to listen to your smelly breath calculus professor train you on the derivatives of the evil tangent line – whatever is keeping you from gravitating from reality into the fiction world – I am here with, no, not more Murakami, at least not yet – on the TBR though (for my full July TBR visit my last post here)! I’ve been so excited about my reading plan for the month that choosing where to start proved to be the hardest part. So what more appropriate an occasion to utilize the good ‘ole ‘Eenie-meenie-minie-mow’?