A Fan's Playground

SO I just sobbed my way through reading the entirety of From Anna. I...I don't know if I can write anything like a coherent review of this book.

I used to reread this book ALL THE FRICKIN' TIME as a kid but I haven't read it for years and years at this point. And wow I had forgotten how thoroughly I identified with Anna.

This book was exactly the book to speak to me as a child: a book about a girl who was awkward and shy and slow and weird, who everyone saw as standoffish and cold, who felt out of place everywhere. I didn't cry when I read it as a kid, and I didn't think about myself as identifying with Anna. But to read a book about a girl like that and to see her slowly find herself over the course of the book, to see people who genuinely care about her for who she is, to see her growing in confidence in her own abilities and in her worth, to see her find friends and happiness - yeah, I am completely unsurprised my younger self read it so often.

So of course rereading it now as an adult is cause for copious crying. I don't know quite how to quantify my emotions. I still overidentify with Anna, but at the same time I'm apart and looking at her from a distance and feeling hella protective of her (and by extension of my younger self). And I just - idk, FEELINGS. ALL THE FEELINGS. AGH. I'm still all weepy. ANNNAAAAAAAAA. ANNA 5EVER.