By Isabella Ladao

People say that reading is knowledge, and knowledge will inevitably create a new mold for society. A revolution. But reading has become a necessity for what I have to be. Over time, I realized the characters I read in these novels are what you will meet if you encounter me walking down the street. These actions have become unconscious. Small, developed habits; spontaneous style changes; new, outmoded lingo; all absorbed from “the protagonist of the day.” Fear creeps over my shoulder on the days where I fail to find a new character. Because who do you become when you take the best parts of others but don’t even know the primal parts of yourself? Eighteen
years alive, and I am still unaware of what my heart truly looks like. Unaware of how to differentiate what genuinely are my deepest desires, wishes, and thoughts, or what was simply absorbed from the words on those pages. Unaware if any of those thoughts that I create are even truly mine.

Isabella Ladao is pursuing a major in communication sciences and disorders. She is usually found binge-watching Disney movies, reading cliché YA novels, or adding to her countless Spotify playlists.