Rarely do I read a book a second time, even one by an author I respect as much as I respect Virginia Woolf. I'd read Mrs. Dalloway in college and only pulled it off the shelf this time around because we were heading to London and I remembered that Mrs. Dalloway is, in many parts, a walking tour of London. I thought it would give me a good sense of this city, and it absolutely did. (And likewise, London made the novel come that much more alive to me as well, now that I've been to all the places mentioned.) But what I wasn't prepared for was how well I related to the novel this time around. Specifically, how well I related to Clarissa Dalloway: her "atheist's religion of doing good for the sake of goodness," her conflicted yet immutable friendship with Peter, her perception of people, her preference for roses over politics, and I could go on. At every turn, I found myself gasping at the similarities. (Why didn't I notice these things when I read it before? Was I a different person then, much less like Clarissa than I am now?) This time around, I was absolutely blown away by this novel; not only was I able to appreciate the genius of the writing in a way I hadn't before, but I found myself in a character unlike I ever have before.