One of the Books Read from Canada Reads 2015 – S10E21

I made an accomplishment as I read one of the contending books for CBC’s Canada Reads. The book I read was When Everything Feels Like The Movies, written by Raziel Reid. Other books competing are And the Birds Rained Down by Jocelyne Saucier, Intolerable by Kamal Al-Solaylee, Ru by Kim Thúy, and The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King. All of the books are defended by well-known Canadian personalities, musicians and actors. They are Cameron Bailey (Ru), Kristin Kreuk (Intolerable), Craig Kielburger (The Inconvenient Indian), Elaine Lui (When Everything Feels Like The Movies) and Martha Wainwright (And the Birds Rained Down).

The reason for picking When Everything Feels Like The Movies by Raziel Reid and defended by Elaine Lui was that it interested me as it’s the first young adult book to be entered in Canada Reads. It won the 2014 Governor General’s Literary Awards and not without controversy with the subject matter of the book.

The book by Reid is pretty ambitious and explicit as the themes of homosexuality, sex and loneliness being prevalent throughout the book. It’s quite a tough book to read as there’s profanity and other harsh words being used. Aside from the negative points, the thing that intrigued me with the book was the use of pop culture reference and social media/Internet sites as it bursted a lot of ideas and imaginations in my head. It does bring the notion everything feeling like the movies. It also made me wish that I went back to high school to experience what changes and attitude teens are doing now since the use of the Internet is influencing for the good and the bad. It really opened up an perspective for respecting one another in terms of gender rights.

The competition starts on March 16th to the 19th. Since the announcement of the books back in January, I was having to get a head start to reading Reid’s book but there were some setbacks throughout February from catching a cold and lion dance performances for Chinese New Year. At it’s March and I got myself to finally settle down and read through the book and finish it before Canada Reads airs on various platforms on the CBC.

Here’s hoping for When Everything Feels Like The Movies to either win or last through the few days of the competition. All of the other books are no slouch either. It will be an exciting four days full of mudslinging debates to declare the winner of Canada Reads for 2015. The importance of Canada Reads is to bring awareness in the form of opening to perspectives, changing stereotypes, and generate issues.

From March 16th, here’s the link from Day 1 of Canada Reads. Lainey Lui gave a passionate speech to defending Raziel Reid’s book, When Everything Feel like the Movies. It was a firey speech as it exemplified how Reid’s has broken barriers on the first day.

From March 17th, here’s the link from YouTube on Day 2 of Canada Reads. Craig Kielburger asked if When Everything Feels like the Movies is too graphic?

Congrats goes out to Kim Thuy with her book, Ru and defended by Cameron Bailey, as it won Canada Reads 2015. It was an intense and passionate time for this year’s reality competition. It was good that Raziel Reid’s book, When Everything Feels like the Movies made it to the final.