By Alexandria Webb
While many college students don’t have as much time as they’d like to read books for leisure, several Grand Rapids Community College students were eager to share their current non-academic book recommendations and discuss the good vibes they get from turning the pages of printed books.
Alexis Carreno, 20, of Holland, recently read the book, “I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter” by Erika Sánchez. Here’s what he had to say about it.
“(It’s) about a Hispanic girl who has issues growing up and I really connected to the book because I am Hispanic. But it’s a story about a girl who’s facing hardships growing up as a teenager in America,” said Carreno, “And not only that, but because she’s Hispanic she gets picked on by the local kids…”
Carreno really connected to the book on a deeper level due to growing up in the same culture as the main character. This made it relatable and enjoyable to read.
“As a Hispanic student it was a little weird going to school and not having those friendships, I did meet a couple of friends of course, and so does the girl in the story,” said Carreno. “The other one of the main primary things about the book was how she was facing these hardships and figured out more and more about her family. Her mom absolutely disliked her because her older sister died and she was kind of like, ‘Why can’t you be like your older sister?’ She was still in grief in the process of that.”
According to Carreno the book explored the common struggles and hardships that come with being a teenager.
“Because she was an early teenager and experiencing changes in her body, a lot of people were looking at her weirdly and not looking at her for her personality and for who she is. And so that kind of struck with me,” said Carreno. “Even though I’m not a woman I can still relate to the character, so that’s kind of one of the things I really enjoyed about the book as well.”
Ginny Stiles, 19, of Grand Rapids shared that the last book she read was “The Boys in the Boat” by Daniel James Brown.
“It is a very good piece of history and a novel, and a great experience for anyone who wants to understand the harder side of rowing as a sport, because it’s not really… in terms of like sports, not taken super seriously, but there is an insane amount of work that goes into it. … You really get that perspective from the book,” said Stiles.
Each person has a reason for choosing the book they want to read, Stiles explains what usually draws her to a book or what makes her want to read it.
“So it’s a lot of the time word of mouth of good recommendations or I read the inside of book jackets a lot, but I’ll admit the front cover of a book. Really it’s like ‘Oh this looks good’ that makes me want to read it, but I’m like ‘Oh this is, you didn’t put any thought into the front cover of your book’ it kind of turns me off,” said Stiles.
Nina Bobrowski, 19, of Grand Rapids, excitedly shared that she had finished “The Housemaid” by Freida McFadden, and is now onto the second book. Brobowski explains what she had learned from the book.
“The Housemaid” kind of made me question relationships with people and kind of doing what’s best for you, not letting other people stop you,” said Bobrowski.
Most college students don’t find the time to read for pleasure and therefore don’t read anything at all. According to the National Library of Medicine, “Reading is an important way for contemporary college students to acquire new knowledge, expand their horizons and improve their skills, which is not only beneficial to their academic progress and quality improvement, but also plays an important role in creating a good cultural atmosphere and playing the function of educating people in colleges and universities.”
Stiles explains why reading is important based on her own personal experiences.
“I read the entirety of ”The Lord of the Rings” and finished it in fourth grade. I am a very avid reader and this helps my vocabulary, helps my speech, understand different cultures, and different parts of the world,” said Stiles. “Reading is really important and it’s kind of sad that people see it as such a forced thing to where they’ve got this negative connotation about it now.”
Reading can teach others life lessons that can be applied in the real world. Even though the struggles might be fictional there can still be real world lessons taught. The most important lesson might be empathy and that’s key to understanding the challenges that people face.
“I feel like random life lessons and just random things, like different perspectives, too. Sometimes there’s different perspectives that I would not have thought about but then reading made me think about it,” said Bobrowski.
Books show readers the beauty in different worlds and struggles that mostly everyone can relate to. Even in the business of this world GRCC students can count on escaping reality through the portal that can be found in between the pages of a book.
