my favorite books throughout my life
telepathic little girls, televised propaganda, and interdimensional love letters
My summer goal has been to get back into books. So far I’ve read about two and a half books, one of which was a reread, but that’s still more than I’ve read in months.
I’ve spent my entire life being a bookworm. I remember the exact moment where I realized I could read a picture book by myself. It was a silly story about a dog with stinky breath and I couldn’t stop smiling as I flipped the pages.
In a very self-indulgent post, I wanted to revisit my favorite books throughout my life. I’m restricting this to fictional novels because if I included poetry and comic books, the list would never end. My hope is that I can look back at this list and remember how it feels to be completely in love with a story. Maybe that feeling will inspire me to pick up one more book, to try and find one more novel to add to this list.
matilda by ronald dahl.
“These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.”
My aunt gifted me a copy of Matilda when I was visiting her and the rest of my extended family. I remember being in awe at the chapters. 21 of them — longer than any book I had read before.
I still have that copy sitting in the broken bookshelf in our bonus room. Its pages are yellowed and its cover is ripped; signs of a well-loved children’s book, I think. Matilda was the first character I really saw myself in, inspiring little me to spend hours sitting in my bedroom trying to move things with my mind. While I never succeeded, I was happy enough to share her quiet nature and love of the library.
the secret garden by frances hodgson burnett.
“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”
The Secret Garden was my first “classic” novel. Granted, it was a children’s classic, but that still counts. I loved the story and the scenery and found Mary absolutely insufferable (first brush with an unlikable main character?), but by the end I loved her, too.
I’m surprised we didn’t see a resurgence of this book’s popularity when cottagecore aesthetics started trending again. This book was cottagecore. I would have done anything to listen to the robins and play in a secret garden; I’d still do anything.
the warrior cats series by erin hunter.
If you’re unfamiliar with Warrior Cats, the series is about a civilization of feral cats living in the woods. It had everything: romance, bloodshed, betrayal, cat heaven and hell… I fear I remember every little detail too well.
I’m cringing just thinking about how into these books I was. As ridiculous as it is, they had a huge impact on the person I am now — you could say they were my first taste of fandom. I’m going to choose not to divulge more than that.
Side comment: if you ever played Warrior Cats Roblox circa 2014, we probably crossed paths. I apologize for making every conversation about my original character’s intensive lore. Clearly, I knew who I was from a very young age.
the harry potter series by j.k. rowling.
“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
I spent years doing everything I could to withstand the pull of Harry Potter. My aunt (the same one who gifted me Matilda, actually) and my cousin were both completely obsessed with the series, so I naturally had to be different and never touch it.
I gave in eventually. It turns out they were right all along — like most nerdy kids, I was completely obsessed from the first page. There is some magic in this story that completely captivates everyone who picks it up. J.K. Rowling, I wish it was written by anyone other than you.
the hunger games trilogy by suzanne collins.
I promise, I won’t list all the popular middle school fiction books here — we already have Harry Potter, so I’ll resist the urge to throw in Percy Jackson and The Maze Runner and every other dystopian/fantasy world — but The Hunger Games deserves a spot on this list because, of all the books here, this series is the one I still think about the most.
I love The Hunger Games. I have since I picked up the first book at too young of an age and became absolutely obsessed. I cannot even begin to explain how much I think about these books. They’re incredible. They’ve not only held up to the test of time, but they’ve become more relevant every day. Granted, I wasn’t aware of that on my first readthrough (I was much more focused on being staunchly team Peeta), but now that I’m on what’s easily my tenth, I can love not only the characters and storyline but the prevalent messaging throughout it.
I was going to write a Substack piece reviewing Sunrise on the Reaping, but it fizzled out because I had too much to say and too little time. One day, I’ll properly yap about these books.
radio silence by alice oseman.
“I stayed silent because I had nothing to contribute, which was nothing unusual for me around my school friends, but it felt weird, because I'd forgotten that this was how I normally behaved.”
Matilda was the first character I really saw myself in. Years later, I met Frances Janvier.
Radio Silence is one of Alice Oseman’s lesser known projects — you definitely recognize her name from Heartstopper, if nothing else — but it’s my favorite of everything she’s worked on. The story follows Frances, a quiet student with a hidden fangirly obsession with a podcast that her neighbor, Aled, secretly creates (Aled was cut from the Heartstopper show and I’m still choosing that to mean we will get an adaptation of this book). Frances and Aled are the reason I believe in platonic soulmates, and the reason all my standards for friendship are too high.
Radio Silence makes me cry and it makes me laugh and the dialogue feels real without being too cheesy and the characters are cringy without being unbearable and it’s just perfect. My copy is annotated through with the ways I connected to Frances. It’s been about five years since I’ve touched that book, and now I desperately want to reread it.
six of crows by leigh bardugo.
“I would have come for you. And If I couldn't walk I'd crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we would fight our way out together-knives drawn. Because that’s what we do, we never stop fighting.”
I read Six of Crows at the suggestion of my eighth grade ELA teacher. She has no idea that she changed my life.
If Warrior Cats was my first introduction with fandom,
Grishaverse was my complete delve into it. This duology was my obsession for all of eighth grade through high school. I have three copies of the book right now, one of which is signed. I can recite whole passages from of book from memory. I screamed when I saw the official Netflix announcement and screamed again when Netflix responded to my (multiple) comments of excitement. I drew so much fanart that the cast liked, commented and shared multiple times and even sat on a Zoom call with other fans to chat with them. I’m still mad that the adaptation was mediocre at best and we’re never getting a Six of Crows spinoff.Shadow and Bone is okay and King of Scars is good, but the Six of Crows duology remains one of the best fantasy series I’ve ever read. I would do anything to relive my experience smiling to myself, giggling, crying, and even throwing my book across the room as I read through those pages for the first time.
a woman is no man by etaf rum.
We’re jumping from eighth grade to twelfth because, if it wasn’t clear, Six of Crows dominated the time in-between. A Woman is No Man is the debut novel of Palestinian-American author Etaf Rum, and it’s a genuine work of art.
The book weaves together the stories of three generations of Palestinian women and the way their lives have been impacted by the patriarchy. It’s not an easy read — look up trigger warnings — but it’s worth the heaviness.
I read this book for AP Lit and finished it in one night. My mom did the same the night after. We both sobbed and we still discuss it frequently because it’s the type of story that you never really put down.
this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar and max gladstone.
“I love you. I love you. I love you. I'll write it in waves. In skies. In my heart. You'll never see, but you will know. I'll be all the poets, I'll kill them all and take each one's place in turn, and every time love's written in all the strands it will be to you.”
And we’re here. Today. Even though I read this book for the first time in 2022, no book has compared yet.
This book is hard to explain. Every time I try, I start rambling. Its written in prose that feels more like poetry, primarily in the form of love letters between two multidimensional beings fighting on opposite sides of a neverending war across all space and time. If you’re also a fan, please let’s talk about it forever and ever.
Every time I see this one in the wild, I can’t help myself to point and say “that’s my favorite book ever.” But I know it’s not for everyone — it’s a story that focuses so deeply on the characters that you just need to understand that you won’t ever fully understand the world around them. So I bite my tongue after that and gatekeep it, because I’d be so heartbroken if someone I loved read it and didn’t love it as much as I do.
I believe that reading someone’s favorite book, like watching their favorite show or listening to their favorite song, shows you a bit of their soul. This book is what I wish mine looked like. I’ve never written a love letter, nor have I received one, but I desperately hope that one day I do and it’s even a quarter as beautifully composed as these are.
There are more, of course.
Little Women and The Idiot. Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Boys series and Emily Henry’s Book Lovers. Countless more stories where, if you came to me at a specific time on a specific day in my life, I’d tell you were my absolute favorites.
But these are the really special ones.
Here’s to finding more favorites!
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