I need to geek out about my favorite books for a hot second (fiction edition)

Since we discussed the BROKENNESS of required reading last week, it only seems appropriate to talk about the books I DO like.

Did you know I read a lot? If you’ve reading this blog for a bit, I think you probably figured that out by now. And like any reader, if you give me half a chance to talk about a books, I don’t shut up until long after you’re filled with regret and you have moved into the “I’m going to die here” stage of being stuck in this particular conversation.

Which made me think I should probably take some time to talk about my favorite books!

I’ve written posts about books before. Previously, I even read a top 10 for 2021 new reads. But this is a post of some of my favorite books that I basically can’t ever stop thinking about and therefore can’t ever talk enough about. This is part 1 of a 2 part series. This week we focus on fiction. Nonfiction we’ll dive into next week.

Brace yourself! The nerdy reader monster is about to emerge.

The Raven Cycle and its spinoff Dreamer Trilogy by Maggie Stiefvater (currently 6 books, 7th upcoming)

This is my go-to answer for the question, “What is your favorite book?” If there was one book I can recommend, it will ALWAYS BE THIS SERIES. I’ve gone so far as to beg someone to read it. I’m a sad, desperate reader who just wants to talk about this series all the time.

I apologize in advance.

The Raven Cycle series, which starts with the book The Raven Boys, is about five teenagers (Blue, Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Noah) on a quest to find a dead Welsh king. Yes, really. The story takes place in rural Virginia in the town of Henrietta and is WAY more than meets the eye. The opening chapter is all about how Blue, for her entire life, has been told by every psychic that if she kisses her true love, he will die.

Sounds like YA, right?

It’s funny to think about now, but I almost DNF’d (did not finish) the first book in the series at about the 45% mark. But then I kept going and fell in absolute love. I can’t imagine the alternate reality where I did decide to DNF this book. That sounds like a worse timeline.

But like I said, this book series is wild. It has it allll. Fast expensive cars which irresponsible teens street race! Psychic mothers! A magic forest! A pet raven! A private all-boys school! Violence! Romance! A hitman! Lots of bad decisions!

Yeah, it’s wild.

This series is wonderful and is my favorite obsession. I met Maggie Stiefvater while she was on tour for The Raven King (the fourth book in the series) where she stood on a table in Barnes and Noble and proceeded to tell an audience about her fainting goats and her previous career as a portrait painter. And her peculiar way of looking at the world (that I love) is all over the pages of this wonderful series.

If there’s one book on this list you put on your TBR (to be read list), please let it be this one (well, seven).

Vicious and Vengeance by V.E. Schwab

Vicious and Vengeance are part of the same series. V.E. Schwab is planning to write a third as well, and I’m already excited, even though the book doesn’t exist yet. The best way I can describe this is as a supervillain origin story. It’s a dark, often violent series (want to be honest so you know what you’re getting into) that is absolutely extraordinary. It’s a completely different take on the origins of superheroes and you’ll find yourself rooting for the villain of the story (though, to be honest, most characters are villains in this story).

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab (yes, she gets two entries on my list DEAL WITH IT)

Yup, V.E. Schwab gets to be on the list twice. She is one of my favorite writers. I love learning about her process, since I relate to it a lot in my own writing. In fact, I was already a fan of hers and followed her on social media when she was working on The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. It was a story idea she’d had for a long time and only recently had the tools she needed to get it written. And wow, it was worth it.

Addie LaRue is deathly scared of dying in the same town she was born in and prays for something greater. However, after praying in the morning and the afternoon and pretty much every other time of day, she makes the mistake of praying after dark. And a dark entity—very possibly the devil—hears her prayer. She agrees to a dangerous deal: to live forever, or at least until she no longer wishes to. But it comes with an inconvenient hitch she learns later: no one can remember her. The moment they look away, she’s forgotten. Nor can she make any mark on the world—the written word is not something she can create. All in all, a very poetic nightmare.

The story is moving and beautiful and just the right amount of magical. It’s stuck with me to the point that it still drifts in the back of my mind, even though I read it two years ago.

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia

I get very invested in the books I read, to the point that I think my favorite books are a good indicator of who I am as a person (let’s pretend we didn’t just go over the fact that one of my favorite books is a supervillain origin story…). But even though I get very invested in books, I very rarely cry when reading. I did during The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and The Fault in Our Starts by John Green (be glad you weren’t in the theater next to me when I went to see that movie). But the book that brought me to tears that has stuck the most with me is Eliza and Her Monsters. Not because it’s sad. But because it was wild to feel so incredibly seen in a story.

In this book, Eliza is the writer and artist behind a viral webcomic…but no one knows. She keeps her online persona separate from who she is. But then she meets the most popular fan fiction writer from her own fandom when he moves to her school. It’s a book that explores the significance of fandom. Which was a critical part of my own childhood but not often depicted in any media ever. This book made me feel seen and I cried with the joy that this book exists and the wish that it had existed when I was a teenager.

The Mara Dyer trilogy and its spinoff The Shaw Confessions by Michelle Hodkin (currently 5 books, 6th upcoming)

In case it wasn’t already clear by the inclusion of Vicious and Vengeance in this list, I’m a fan of dark books. In fact, the first time I read The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (first book in this series), I was somewhat overwhelmed by how the twists in the book kept taking the story to a darker place. In fact, like with Vicious, this series is also often referred to as a supervillain origin story. The main difference is that these books feels like they shouldn’t be creating a supervillain. It’s YA but it still goes to dark places.

If you like scary things that don’t quite go into horror, this is a great option. Also, not gonna lie, I love Noah Shaw in this series. He might be the main reason this book series makes the list.

The Shadow and Bone trilogy and its spinoff Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo (there’s another spinoff series as well…I just haven’t finished it yet)

You may have heard of Shadow and Bone before but not know from where. I am here to tell you that you probably saw it while scrolling through Netflix because this amazing book series also has a Netflix series! Watching the show isn’t a substitute for reading the books, though.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t watch it. I loved the series. It’s a fantastic adaptation. Enjoy both.

I actually read the spinoff series Six of Crows first, and only went back to the Shadow and Bone trilogy after I read the spinoff duology. They exist in the same world but they stand on their own beautifully.

Shadow and Bone stars Alina as she discovers her supernatural abilities as a Grisha and how those abilities might just be what saves the world. I read the first book in the series and was immediately obsessed.

Six of Crows, though, is the one that stuck me with me more, maybe just because I read it first. This is a supernatural heist novel, in which a team of Kaz, Jesper, Inej, Nina, Matthias, and Wylan take on an impossible job breaking into an unbreakable prison. I loved this series so much that I literally named my cat after the protagonist (I figured my little black cat would be as mischievous as Kaz Brekker). If that’s doesn’t prove a love for a series, I don’t know what does.

.........

And because I don’t know when to stop, I wanted to share a few honorable mention books.

Honorable Mentions:

• With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo - Cooking that’s basically magical! Learning how to navigate being a mom in high school and managing a relationship with your baby’s father! I loved reading this book. It was so hopeful and warm.

• A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness - For someone who keeps insisting I don’t cry a lot when I read, I keep showcasing books that brought me to tears.

• Invictus by Ryan Graudin - TIME TRAVEL! Like, really REALLY well done time travel. Need I say more?

Basically, there’s a lot of books that I’ve read in my lifetime and a bunch that will stick with me for a lifetime. I hope you can find books that do that for you too and maybe one or more of these suggestions of mine give you a good place to start!

And next week: the nonfiction!

Time to rant about the concept of “required reading”

Is this my favorite topic? My least? It’s certainly one of my more practiced perspectives. And when I say “practiced,” I mean to myself. In my bedroom. In front of a mirror. Sometimes while throwing things. More-so when I was in high school.

These days, I don’t throw things.

Just to make sure we’re straight on our definitions here and we’re all on the same page, the “required reading” to which I’m referring for the sake of this post is the assigned reading you’re given in school, especially middle school and high school in my experience. Both summer reading books and during the school year reading of which your teacher might have a classroom set of books to pass out. And all of it was the bane of my existence when I was in school, to the point that I’m still mad about it. And I graduated high school ten years ago.

If it isn’t clear from the fact that I’m a novelist and the fact that I’ve written about it in prior blog posts, I love reading. I read a little bit of everything. Science fiction, fantasy, YA, maybe some literary fiction. Nonfiction on topics ranging from big data to race to memoirs from just about anyone (even people I’ve never heard of). Also manga and graphic novels (anyone who tells you that doesn’t count as reading is a killer of joy and can safely be ignored). I pick up new recommendations from friends from time to time and pay attention to social media for cues of what might be a new book to pay attention to. Or I just scroll through the library catalog and request more books than I can reasonably read in three weeks (but I can’t dare miss!).

And I hated required reading.

I was assigned a wide variety of books to read in middle school and high school. To name a selection of those I remember:

• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

• My Antonia by Willa Cather

• Beowulf

• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

• A BUNCH of Shakespeare (Othello, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet…)

• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (3 DIFFERENT TIMES - 8th grade, 10th grade, and junior year of college)

And a bunch more (I’ve got an actual list on Goodreads to track them if you’re interested). I feel like the list above doesn’t do justice to all the plays I read but we don’t have all day. The gist of this is that I read a lot of books for school.

A lot.

of very

old

books.

…

*sigh*

Look. I get that they’re “classics.” I get that the books are on lists of “books to read before you die.” I even get that some of them are really solid! I learned through all this reading that I really love absurdism in plays (The Zoo Story by Edward Albee and Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett really intrigued me).

But here’s the problem: I had to spend so much time reading these books that I didn’t care about, which meant I couldn’t read the books I wanted. Which created a very problematic cycle that continued on into my adulthood.

I’ll explain.

Dozens of critiques have been written about how required reading kills the love of reading in kids so that, as adults, many don’t read as much as a book a year. It’s a component of what I want to talk about but it’s not the whole thing. So for the sake of this explanation, I’m going to focus on my personal experience.

I’d also like to start off by saying this: I really did read these books! I know there’s a lot of discourse around the “books you were assigned to read in high school but never did.” I read every. Single. One. Even Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, though the reading was due the same day as local scholarship essays and the scholarship essay site was so broken that I had to retype every single one of my 20-ish essays and it took until almost 2 in the morning for me to finish the reading (and I got up at 5am to get to school on time) even though I’d actually paced my reading pretty well over the two week assignment. That’s not to say I remember all of the required reading. But I did truly read all the books.

And I am saying, at 28, that this was largely such a waste of my time.

I knew it would be, even at fifteen. But no one listens to an overtired fifteen-year-old girl. Because, well, sexism and ageism and the absolute denial that a 5am wake-up time for a teenager is fiercely unreasonable. And I know I’m not a teacher and there’s probably a very real reason these books are included in the curriculum that I don’t know.

Needless to say, I hated required reading. I hated the way I spent hours pacing around the house just to stay awake as I paged through Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad which had almost no paragraph breaks (I just wanted to take a break!). I hated how Wuthering Heights taught me that human beings are selfish and awful and the world is nothing but darkness.

I hated how I wasn’t given The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins as an assignment but other students were.

I was in the gifted program in school, as I’ve mentioned before, and in the advanced English classes once gifted transitioned onto that path. While sometimes the two tracks of English classes read the same books for class, sometimes those tracks diverged. And I still remember that while my freshman year I had to read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and (most of) Mythology by Edith Hamilton, two years later, the freshmen in the “not-advanced” track were given The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

That year, I decided to put off my summer reading and read The Hunger Games before I completed the reading I was “supposed to.” I didn’t know a lot about the book; only that it was one I wanted to read. So I planted myself in the living room and cracked open the book.

The first time I looked up from the book, it was to cry.

Now, I very VERY rarely cry while reading. I can count the times on one hand, maybe two. But The Hunger Games broke me. I sobbed. And I loved that I cried.

I felt so very seen in this book in a way I rarely did. I was already a writer by this point, plotting what I didn’t realize was a dystopian novel, and this book made me feel not alone as a writer. Not to mention not alone as a teenage girl, something that society seemed determined to make me feel. And I felt hope. Because even in this bleak future, I saw a spark. I saw light. I saw love. This was the kind of book I needed to read.

And because of required reading smothering me, I almost didn’t.

But the impact of required reading didn’t end there. I read so few YA (young adult) books as a teenager, even though it was what I wanted to write as an author, because I simply didn’t have the time. On top of all the required reading of books I didn’t really care about, I had so many other assignments. Plus drama club! A musical or play too! Show choir practice, anyone? I hardly slept. Reading was a luxury I was rarely afforded.

Once I reached college, I could breathe a little (which is VERY BACKWARDS but not the point of this post so let’s shelve that one for another day). But this finally meant I could pick up the YA books I missed. The rest of Gallagher Girls by Ally Carter! The Mara Dyer series by Michelle Hodkin! The Fault in Our Stars by John Green! And soooo many others.

Thing is, I read them and was angry.

I read these books and the 16-year-old girl in me felt seen. I learned about hope. I learned what it feels like to hurt and who to trust with that hurt. I learned what it meant to be uncomfortable in my own skin and scared of being in a world that judged me. I felt unalone.

But that 16-year-old girl was nearly 20 now. And she was playing anthropologist, trying to figure out what the world wanted from her because she never learned.

And then the articles came out about how adults should feel “bad” about reading YA.

These articles shouldn’t have broken me. Why should I care about what some stranger on the Internet thinks about me? But I was so tired. When was I supposed to read these books then? These books that allowed me to be known and unalone? Not when I’m a teenager, when I have all this required reading to complete. Not when I’m a young college student, when I should feel bad for reading these “less than” books. And I was so tired of always being so much less.

Required reading has a significant impact on our society. And I would venture to say that it’s certainly not a good one. Today, the only good all the required reading has done for me has been on Buzzfeed quizzes and trivia challenges. Sometimes I recognize a motif or reference in Doctor Who a little better. But that’s all. Young adult fiction, on the other hand, allowed me to find characters like me. And those unlike me! And realize the similarities between us are greater than the differences.

I’m fortunate in the fact that I didn’t let drowning in required reading assignments kill my love of reading. But it does for a lot of people. And that’s more than just a sad truth; I’d go so far as to say it’s probably a negative for our society at large.

Reading teaches us empathy. It teaches us how to get along with others. It teaches us to think critically and consider all the data before us before we make a decision. If required reading is supposed to be teaching us to become lifelong readers, it’s failed its job. And if it’s trying to instill values in us, it’s fallen short on that as well.

I know that ranting about the concept of “required reading” won’t change anything. I sincerely doubt required reading will ever go away. I recognize that this type of reading challenges readers and introduces readers to complex ideas. I also recognize that it’s easier to offer summer reading with few options because a teachers need to be capable of creating assignments. There are practicality considerations. And frankly, reading widely and picking up books that aren’t necessarily in your niche can be incredibly healthy.

But we need to recognize that these decision we’ve made have sprawling impact throughout our society and all of our lives. For me, personally, it made my teen years very isolating, since I didn’t have time to pick up the books that would have assured me that I was not alone.

And now, all we can really do to fight back is to read. Read whatever you like. Manga! Comics! Audio books! Picture books! All of it counts. Hardcore science fiction? Why not! Did you actually rather like those classics in school? Awesome; there’s plenty more to check out!

Just…keep reading. Keep learning. And keep knowing you are not alone.

The drive of creativity

Since I was a child, I always wanted to be considered “artsy” and creative. When I was young, the options presented to me always appeared to be analytical or creative, and analytical held zero appeal to me. Scientist? Mathematician? No, thank you, I want to be an artist. I had this romantic idea that I would always be surrounded by pencils and paints and ink stains on my fingers. I can’t imagine that’s unusual for a child. After all, we are offered finger paints and construction paper and told to create snowflakes and comic strips once we move on from drawing a violet crayon across the entire page of a coloring book (ignoring any rules the lines on the page may dictate).

Now that I’m an adult, I still feel that drive inside me, though it’s changed since then. I don’t fashion myself a painter or a sculptor or a digital artist, though I spent my limited elective hours on such things when I was in high school. I don’t draw any more, though the fact that I have a literal portfolio of my work from my teenage years makes that an unexpected result. I consider myself an artist in my writing, in the way I craft worlds and interactions between characters I have only ever met inside my head. In the way that I string together poems like songs that swell and bow with pain and want.

But as I participate in art in this capacity, I also maintain a day job in an analytical field. There’s art to that too, but that is perhaps a conversation for another day. What I mean to say is that because I participate in an analytical field, I also am privy to paying attention to how all types of people navigate the world. Which makes me further analyze how I navigate the world. A bit like Batman, with a secret identity, as if I’m only a writer when darkness falls over the world. This led me to pay attention to how similar creatives might navigate the world.

And by that, I mean I started enjoying unusual creative ventures.

I’ve discussed some of these ventures in previous blog posts. But let me explain what I mean, in case you’re not familiar.

I love watching streamers and video game “let’s plays.” I’m a huge fan of Achievement Hunter and Squad Team Force at Rooster Teeth. I also will jump on YouTube to enjoy GameGrumps and Outside Xbox/Outside Xtra or head over to Twitch to watch Chilled Chaos, DooleyNotedGaming, or others.

I love analog horror, though I watch it through GT Live and experience the odd wonders of the Walden Files, Local 58, and The Backrooms through the eyes of MatPat.

Give me your unusual podcasts. Throw me more games like the beauty that is Gris. Or content creators like the Good Mythical Morning family or other fun shows at Rooster Teeth. There are so many creative ventures to enjoy. So often, I think we limit our understanding of what creativity amounts to. Do you write? Do you create film pieces? Do you create art? What about music? But there’s a grand world of creativity out there.

Which led me to the thought…what is this drive of creativity within humanity and why does it drive each of us in the unique way it does?

Why do some people decide to become game streamers? Or Instagram poets? Especially when there’s no promise of finding an audience. While there are more forums than ever to create all different types of creative content, that also means that you are nothing more than a drop in an ever growing sea of options.

In fact, this entire thought process was inspired by a single song that I discovered completely accidentally while listening to music (content warning for language here): “An Incoherent Meditation on a F***** Up Year” by What After This? It’s an absolutely beautiful piece of music devoid of lyrics that came up on my Spotify through the algorithm. According to Spotify, this artist has 19,404 monthly listeners (as a comparison point, Taylor Swift has well over 52 million).

I adore this piece of music because I cannot fathom how it was possibly created. And yet I feel like it understands me.

Understands me. Not the other way around.

As I listen to this beautiful piece of music and it drives me toward the itching of tears in the corners of my eyes for a reason I don’t entirely understand, I think about how someone was inspired to create this piece of art. The thoughts in their head translated to keys on a piano that built into a small orchestra. While I can rationalize how a feeling deep within myself can be translated to words on a page and a story to be told, I am unable to grasp how someone else could do the same with music.

So I wonder the same about content creators. What drives the translation of thought and emotion into the creation of video games? Of analog horror? Of a gaming stream?

Why do we create? Especially when we are a small mark on a bigger world. Especially when the art we produce we put out into the world for free. Especially when we’re lucky if even one person is listening.

I mean, why do I write this blog? This tiny thing that takes hours upon hours of my time?

And I think back to that little girl with her hands covered in marker markings and elbow deep in glitter. I think back to that little girl who spent hours at her desk, painstakingly copying pictures that I liked in order to learn how to draw. I think back to clay under my fingernails. And the reverie I feel overwhelm me when I walk into a craft store or book store or office supply store, if I’m being honest.

And as is the case with most complicated questions, this one doesn’t have a simple answer. But I will try my best.

The way I see it, we as humans are constantly seeking to be understood. And so we put ourselves out into the universe in whatever way we can and ask the universe to accept that version of ourselves. The things that bring us joy, the things that bring us pain, we just ask you to see it and not turn away. Sometimes, that thing we offer is our darkest traumas. Sometimes, we simply wish to share our joy with another person. We extract our hearts from our chests and hold them out in front of us to say, “Here. Please don’t hurt it.”

Our creativity is a translation of ourselves. That is our mark on the world and the portion of ourselves that we have the capability to leave behind. Our creativity is our effort to matter, even if it’s only to ourselves.

Sometimes, that creativity leads to fame and fortune, for better or worse. Sometimes, it leads to irrational controversy. I think of banned books, the way someone’s creativity makes us face a truth we might be uncomfortable with. And sometimes, it leads to basically nothing. A piece of art we bury in a drawer never to be uncovered. What then? What’s the point then?

It’s the pouring out of ourselves. It’s the desire to understand who that person is. It’s the pressure in a pipe building and building until it threatens to burst so you turn the nozzle to release a slow stream. We need that whether or not we are paid for our efforts.

And so we all keep creating. We keep putting pieces of our own souls out into the world. And for the entirety of our lives, we will always be blessed to be those children covered in glitter, hands sticky with paste, exploring what makes us who we are.