Lifestyle & Culture Viewpoints

Books can provide escape, lessen stress

By Autumn Turner

Jordyn Oksenstein, 16, sticks a blue Post-it on each page of author Emily Henry’s “Beach Read” which marks a favorite moment for January Andrews, the main character of that novel, one of the 13 books Oksenstein expects to read this year. That character, a romance writer, loses her faith in love after her father dies.

“I didn’t want to feel these things. It wasn’t fun anymore …”  

That quote, marked by a Post-it, jumped out at Oksenstein because it “illustrates the moment where having feelings for someone becomes painful, when everything has gone wrong and you feel them [slipping] way … [It’s] the pain that’s felt from that.”

Reading a good book, Oksenstein said, lets her imagine she’s in the same world as those characters she reads about. Reading is comforting, she said. And that probably is true for other readers. From June 2020 through June 2022, U.S. sales of audio and paperback books increased but sales of hardback and e-books declined, according to Statista. The same report said American book-buyers spend more than $100 a year on books, with printed ones the most preferred form.

Kim Win, 27, said she’d read 30 books by early July 2023. Her favorite was “Crying in H-Mart,” author Michelle Zauner’s novel about a Korean woman whose grief over her mother’s death makes her break down in tears while shopping in a Korean market. “Food is, like, a big part of my relationship with my mom, so I saw a lot of my life in the book,” said Win, who puts her phone in do-not-disturb mode when she reads.

So does Okenstein. “I find a big chunk of time when I do read … It’s, like, when I’m stressed out or when I don’t want to talk to anybody … ” Oksenstein said. “Reading slows down my mind.” 

It helps her to calm down, process things and de-stress. “If something is bothering me, socially, I pick up a book and read however long I need to.” 

“People We Meet On Vacation,” also by Emily Henry, is another of her favorite reads this year.  The book is a nice  “The author herself. There are some sentences I read that are just, like, ‘Wow! I relate to her.’” 

The author wrote about the character January’s troubles in maintaining good mental health. Oksenstein also has gone through mental health issues and reading about a fictional character’s troubles let Oksenstein know she should get help. 

A quote that touched Oksenstein from “Beach Read” is, “Sometimes good or at least decent people do bad things and sometimes they’re actually doing what’s right.” 

Some readers read to become better people, especially during tough times.

Win said, “I use reading as an outlet because it allows me to be positively influenced, unlike social media.”