By Eileen Daniel
Books of My Life with Rossland City Councillor, community organizer, and graduate student, Maya Provençal.
Maya, who was born and raised in Rossland, now lives here with her fiancé, their dog, and two cats. When she isn’t working, writing papers, or walking the dog, you can find Maya watching the latest reality TV show on Netflix.
Name the last book that made you laugh.
An “Absolutely Remarkable Thing” by Hank Green. As a bisexual Gen Z whose favourite things are the internet and being the centre of attention, I found the protagonist, April, both unlikeable and relatable in the most hilarious way.
What books might people be surprised to learn you love?
Young Adult Literature.
I think people who don’t know me well would be surprised to know that my favourite genre is young adult literature. I used to pretend that it wasn’t. For a long time, I thought that I had to read sophisticated books to prove my intelligence. If I had a dime for every ‘classic’ I read during my late teens and early 20s, I could probably buy myself a book. In hardcover.
Not to get too political or whatever, but I think this was rooted in some kind of internalized misogyny (because something that a teenage girl would like couldn’t possibly be cool or interesting, right?) and an overwhelming desire to be taken seriously by the people I looked up to.
In the last two years, I’ve fully embraced my love of the genre. It started with a gender studies course that I took in the last year of my undergrad, which looked at themes of diversity and inclusion in YA lit. We read some great books in that course, including “In My Own Moccasins” by Helen Knott and “The Poet X” by Elizabeth Acevedo.
What book are you dying to see a movie version of?
“Red, White, and Royal Blue” by Casey McQuiston. It is such a fun YA story that does ‘frenemies to lovers’ with a twist: it follows two young, gay political figures living in an alternate timeline where a progressive Democrat won the 2016 US presidential election. This book offers a reprieve from the current state of U.S. politics, and I think a movie adaptation could do the same in a very beautiful way.
What is your earliest reading memory?
My Grandma read “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” out loud to me when I was very young…SUCH a creepy story!
Where do you prefer to read?
In a coffee shop or a park. In some ways, books are a lot like clothes. They are a form of expression for both the writer and the reader. When I am reading in public, I feel like I am sharing a part of myself with the world.