3 Books To Read During Quarantine

By Anna Sharudenko on April 13, 2020

So, which three books should you read during quarantine? For us college kids, spring break is just around the corner and many of us are finishing up midterms. A lot of us will have the time to read books. I am an English major, thus I inhale and exhale words. I read books to cope with quarantine, stress, and anxiety. I will not recommend reading Homer, Hesiod, or Shakespeare unless it’s your cup of literature tea. Instead, I want to focus on contemporary literature because it often gets dissed and unappreciated by Literature professors and I feel rebellious.

1. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

This book made me cry. It made me feel for Kya, the main female protagonist, and I was in her shoes as she was gradually growing up, abandoned by her family in North Carolina. Being the youngest, she had to survive on her own from a very young age. The storyline contains murder, love, heartbreak, and betrayal. It is genuine, it is sensual, and it hits you — in a good way. By the end of the book, Owens makes you feel as if you were Kya or as if Kya is your close friend to whom it’s time to say goodbye to.

2. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

This book also made me cry. It doesn’t tackle big concepts like war, murder, or the financial crisis; it’s also not Game of Thrones. You don’t really get action, but what you get is an angry old man who is hurt and lost because he lost his lifelong best friend, his wife. He has a strict routine and plans to take his own life due to immense grief, until one day, a hectic and crazy family moves right across from his house. Ove learns to love and live again and we learn that with him, too.

3. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

It’s not a short book, but you get absorbed in the story and you practically have to finish this book because you can’t put it away. At first, it may be a bit hard to get into, but by page 50, you start to feel comfortable in its rapid pace. You become a part of the protagonist’s family and you begin to think of gender — or what gender really is and isn’t. You see that gender is a social construct. You see many allusions to Greek mythology. You witness rebirth and the parents cutting the child’s wings before they are even born. It’s a book about growing into your own identity. It’s about guilt and it’s about being comfortable with who you are — finally, after a long and tragic journey.

Reading helps during quarantine and books help to cope because they take you out of this world — even if only temporarily.

Follow Uloop

Apply to Write for Uloop News

Join the Uloop News Team

Discuss This Article

Get Top Stories Delivered Weekly

Back to Top

Log In

Contact Us

Upload An Image

Please select an image to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format
OR
Provide URL where image can be downloaded
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format

By clicking this button,
you agree to the terms of use

By clicking "Create Alert" I agree to the Uloop Terms of Use.

Image not available.

Add a Photo

Please select a photo to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format