On Her Nightstand: Courtney Sexton

By Wendy Stein

Courtney Sexton is a 28-year-old HR Professional working at a Manufacturing company. In her free time, she plays soccer, plays the French Horn in the community band, volunteers on the Girls Scouts of Northern Indiana-Michiana Gold Award Committee, and teaches sailing and canoeing to Girl Scouts. She has almost finished her goal of reading 40 books this year.

What’s your favorite genre?

I tend to gravitate towards Utopian books. A Utopia is impossible, so most people now refer to this genre as Dystopia. I read Brave New World, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and The Giver for schoolwork. One of the features I use frequently on Goodreads.com is their book suggestions and lists other users create. After reading The Hunger Games, I started reading more young adult dystopia novels like Matched, The Uglies, The Maze Runner series, The Selection series by Kiera Cass, Delirium by Lauren Oliver, The Lunar Chronicles, Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, and the Divergent series. Unfortunately, I never finished the 3rd book of the Divergent series. I rarely quit reading a book after getting more than halfway through, but the 3rd book’s narrative was hard to follow and could not hold my attention. The final book of The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Adam Douglas will forever sit in my “Currently Reading” category on Goodreads. It also became too hard to comprehend.

The other genre I usually pick up is murder mystery or crime. I love the suspense and trying to solve the mystery.

What fictional land would you like to visit?

I first thought of this when a tv series mentioned it. The characters answered with the fictional lands they liked but discussed how difficult life would be in certain worlds. So without the danger, I would love to visit the Shire or Rivendell, Narnia, Hogwarts, or Pandora from Avatar. I also wish The Magicians by Lev Grossman were a reality. Within The Magicians world, they have their own version of “The Wood Between the Worlds” from The Chronicles of Narnia where you can jump between realms. That sounds ideal if it includes all the fictional worlds one can dream of. Those worlds have a sense of wonder to them.

Is there a book everyone loves that you secretly hate? (Or vice versa)

Last summer, my “Quarantine Book Club” selected books with a central theme around carnivals or circuses. Something Wicked This Way Comes is considered one of Ray Bradbury’s best-known and most popular books but I hated it. The writing style made it difficult to keep track of what was happening and the main characters spoke as if they were 70 years old, not 10. It feels like the author focused more on the poetry when he should’ve focused on keeping the narrative going. The poetry turned into nonsensical gibberish trying to pass as profound ideas. a