As I read in the book "Bad Feminist," Roxanne Gay, a brilliant, African-American feminist who seems to find the gender discrimination to every piece of literature and pop culture, I was taken back by her essay about a book series she reflects on.

The series was called Sweet Valley, and she talks about how much she loved reading them when she was younger. How it was a world revolving around two blonde, "perfect' twin girls. She talks about how she read it when she was older and although she was almost repulsed by how prejudice, unrepresentative and cheesy the writing is, she still yearned for that world that her younger-self was so invested in.

"Nostalgia is powerful. It is natural, human, to long for the past, particularly when we can remember our histories as better than they were. Life happens faster than I can comprehend. I am nearly forty, but my love of Sweet Valley remains strong and immediate. When I read the books now, I remember I'm reading garbage, but I remember what it was like to spend my afternoons in Sweet Valley, hanging out with the Wakefield twins...The nostalgia I feel for those books and these people makes my chest ache."

When I read this paragraph, I know the exact feeling Gay described, and I know it well. She describes the way I feel about many books and series of my youth - the drama of the Hollywood stars in Lauren Conrad's L.A. Candy series, the dramatic love and glamorous life of the Upper-East Side in Gossip Girl, and of course the luxurious, charmed, caddy teenage girls in the iconic series The Clique. All series that I don't know if I could even read now, but my younger self lived for.

The predominant series that came to mind, though, is The Summer I Turned Pretty series by Jenny Han. It's about a young girl, Belly, and her summer at her beach house filled with both her favorite people and fondest memories. The book takes you into through her summer at the beach house - the summer she turned sixteen - as well as many other memories made after growing up at Cousins Beach. I remember the love I had for Jeremiah, the young athletic fireball of a boy. For Conrad, the mysterious, older hunk and even for Susannah, the mom of the boys, the best friend of Belly's mom, and the shareholder of the house. I remember being feeling like I was living through Belly, understanding every dilemma and contemplation she talked about.

I still give The Summer I Turned Pretty credit for getting my young self started with reading. It was the first time I read a book and couldn't stop reading. I devoured that book and cherished it with all my heart. When the rest of the series came out, I bought them in an instant, I couldn't wait to hear about what happened at the beach house the next summer. Opening a new book was like stepping into the beach house on the first day of summer, ready to see what memories awaited me.

I made it a tradition to read the books every summer. Like Gay said about going to Sweet Valley, I would spend my summers going to Cousins with Belly and Conrad and the rest of the crew. Maybe I was so fond of these books because I read them in the summertime, when I was always a little tanner and happier. I want to say I yearned for Belly's life, but I don't think I did. It was like I already got to live it myself when I flipped through the page.

My nostalgia for those books was strong. I was emotionally wound up in every aspect of them. I was attached to the descriptions of the beach with a cloudy sunset in the sky, the silly memories from the annual carnival, and the flavored lipgloss Billy only wore special occasions. I was invested; The Summer I Turned Pretty was so much more than just a book for me.

If I read back through The Summer I Turned Pretty, I'm sure would see it in a whole different perspective. Maybe I'd think Belly relied too much on males or that the book does nothing to mention any minority or it's all cringey and unrealistic. But I think, like Roxanne Gay said, that despite my knowledge now I'd still love the books. I think I'd still melt right back into the familiar warmth of summer at Cousins Beach.

So I finally started to understand how Roxanne Gay, the African American super-critiquing feminist could be so enchanted by Sweet Valley. Nostalgia. Nostalgia for this different world that we were so invested in during a much younger, simpler version of life. A time where we didn't read too far in between the lines.

I hope this article, or Gay's quote made you think of your favorite book. Or maybe not even your favorite book but one of your escapes from reality growing up. I hope that, like her quote did for me, it just makes you smile and reminisce on that time.

Gay, Roxanne. Bad Feminist: Essays. New York: HARPERPERENNIAL, 2017. Print.

Han, Jenny. The Summer I Turned Pretty. London: Penguin, 2013. Print.