When I was in the seventh grade I was convinced that my family was the last family in America to not have a microwave oven. But I was pretty sure we were the first people to have HBO.

Do you guys have any idea how many times JAWS was shown on HBO in the early 80’s? About a bazillion. I wasn’t allowed to watch it. But I did. And I cried at a slumber party because I was afraid for my parents who were taking a weekend trip to the beach.  And sometimes I was afraid to sit on the toilet because I thought a head might float out of the tunnel to the surface. (Cause that happens in a boat in JAWS, but not in a toilet.) I was a scaredy cat.

Have you guys seen these shoes?? Are they not the BEST? They belong to my friend Bryan.There is even bloody tissue paper in the box!  I.Just.Can’t.Even.

Another movie in heavy rotation on HBO was Watership Down. I laid on the couch one night after supper thinking I would watch that cartoon movie about the rabbits. You know, just chill for a while before I went to bed. Uh….that little rabbit movie was a little disturbing, and it had me feeling all dark inside. Brrr…chills….not what I expected.

Fast forward to my freshman year of college. A friend of mine was majoring in English and I saw that she was reading Watership Down. And I’m like…”Oh, it’s a book!” I tell my friend about the movie and make a mental note to someday read it.

Fast forward fifteen-plus years and I’m watching LOST. (No!! Really??) And there’s Sawyer, walking up out of the ocean, talking about the book about bunnies. And I’m like, There’s that book again! 

Fast forward one more time to 2011. LOST has been over for a year and I’m in TV mourning. I’m making out my summer reading plans and thinking about all the books featured on LOST and I make the decision to finally read Watership Down.

I read it and I swear that book stayed with me the rest of the summer. It’s like it was the book I was always meant to read. I thought about the rabbits and how they bared such close resemblances to the characters on LOST. I thought about their plight and how sometimes you’re called to be the leader, even when you don’t want to be. And I thought about whether or not there is a right time to steal. And there was just so much to ponder about survival, adventure, prophecy, rest and the after-life. I don’t know, it just worked for me. All I can do is gush about it. That is all.

This week I have committed to post five reviews for #weekofreviews. I’m focusing primarily on books from the LOST list that I read but never got around to blogging about. Ya’ll stick around, it’s going to be fabulous!  Up next: The Brothers Karamazov.