Book Blogger Hop & Follow Friday Jan. 7-10

The Book Blogger Hop is a weekly meme hosted by Jennifer @ Crazy-for-Books. It's a chance for book bloggers to interact, make new friends, and most importantly, share their love of books!

This week's question is:

What book influenced or changed your life? How did it influence/change you?

I have a list. I want to say Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, or Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler, or Entangled by Cat Clarke, but then I'd be talking to you guys for the length of an essay, and I'm sure you don't want that.

So I'm going to go with a few I've read recently: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. Sense a theme? Haha. I'm sure you all know this already, but I'm depressed. Not so severely now, of course, but when I was younger it was really, really bad. I read these two books in high school, and they spoke volumes to my teenager self (they still do). I don't want to get too personal on how these books changed my life, but they gave me hope for the future. They made me realize I needed to not keep things bottled up inside. They made me realize that I wasn't the only person hurting (you know teenagers, self-absorbed). I ended up living a life similar to Susanna's in Girl, Interrupted, and having read it before I was in that situation made me feel more... you know, not crazy.

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Follow Friday is a weekly meme posted on Friday's that is hosted by Parajunkee @ Parajunkee's View. To join, all you have to do is follow the host and the week's featured blogger. Then put your name on the linky, grab the button, and follow, follow, follow as many people as you can! If someone comments and says they're following you, be a dear and follow back -- it's all about spreading the love during Follow Friday! :)

This week's question is:

What book(s) have you discovered lately from someone's book blog?

Well, since Waiting on Wednesday was just two days ago... a lot. :P Like Mercy by Rebecca Lim and Evenfall by Liz Michalski and Burn Bright by Marianna de Pierres. And then there's the Dark Elite series by Chloe Neill. I could go on, seriously. :P Y'all have great taste in books!