It’s time we start getting our book recommendations from the real world — not TikTok. Remove yourself from an echo chamber of trends and instead, directly engage with your community. Talk to clerks at bookstores, ask your friends what they are reading, go to your local library and scour the shelves, observe the books strangers are holding on the subway. Or here, I will make it easy for you: Read the newspaper.
‘The Body’ by Stephen King
The king of horror is an obvious choice for the season, but if you happen to be anything like me and avoid stories you know will keep you up at night, I would suggest picking up “The Body.” This coming-of-age novella follows four boys on the brink of adolescence as they take off from home on a mission to find the body of a boy who disappeared in the woods. If you think this plot sounds familiar, it might be because you have watched its film adaptation, the 1986 movie “Stand by Me.” But, like always, the book is better. There is a lot to appreciate within its short stature, but the narration is at the top of the list. Decades after the summer of 1960, Gordon Lachance — now an accomplished writer — looks back on a boy terrified of the future, on his friends who were not afraid of anything and on the beauty and brutality of humanity they uncovered in those woods all those years ago. Gordy’s meditative voice transforms this otherwise simple story into a soul-stirring experience for anyone sentimental about their childhood. And are we not all nostalgic, in some way or another?
‘The Starless Sea’ by Erin Morgenstern
This is one of the few books I have read more than once. I have actually tackled its 570 pages three times, and with each read, it has only gotten better. There are a lot of narratives within this story, along with layers of moving parts and details that seem trivial until they all weave together in the end. It is this careful design that makes giving this book your full attention so rewarding. Zachary, the son of a fortune teller, comes across a book at his university library in which he unmistakably finds himself as a character. Not just in likeness — the printed story is the exact retelling of an event he experienced over a decade before. Desperate to make sense of this discovery, Zachary uncovers a series of clues that lead him to a place far below the earth, unimaginable to most of its inhabitants — a buried home for stories and their guardians, a place of lost cities and seas, a backdrop to a love story that spans across fate and time. “The Starless Sea” is a must-read for any fantasy lover.
‘Writers and Lovers’ by Lily King
This might be the most mainstream book on this list. If you have already seen it on BookTok, forgive me. I wanted to include something for the romance readers, and because it is not penned by Emily Henry, Taylor Jenkins Reed or Colleen Hoover, I would still call it underrated. Here we have an introspective, intimate story of a struggling writer who is $70,000 in debt, grieving the loss of her mother, living in a glorified garage and still writing the same novel she began six years ago. Casey Peabody is at an all-time low, and it does not help that her romantic life is in shambles too — still nursing a breakup, she’s deciding which of the two new men in her life might be “the one.” But the thing about a story beginning at someone’s rock bottom is that the only direction left to go is up, and this particular climb happens in a heartwarming, sometimes maddening and anything-but-linear way that is so incredibly enjoyable to read. I have a special place in my heart for stories about writers as someone aspiring toward that life for myself, but I think anyone, whether an artist or not, would enjoy a glimpse into Casey’s creative process in all of its chaotic glory.
‘The Darkest Minds’ by Alexandra Bracken
This one is for all of my young adult (YA) dystopian series fans out there (and I know you are out there). This series kick-started my love of reading in high school, and I have told everyone in my path about it since. To me, this trumps “The Hunger Games” and “Divergent” — it is just that good. As any YA dystopia begins, the youth of the world are targeted, this time by a deadly virus, leaving only a few survivors who develop extraordinary cognitive abilities. And — all too reflective of our current reality, I might say — society fears these powerful minds and attempts to restrain them. We meet our protagonist, 16-year-old Ruby, at a rehabilitation camp where every living child has been confined. Her escape leads her to a group of teenagers on the run from the government, who begin to realize they are not searching for safety, but the chance to create change. Because is it not always a teenage girl who leads the rebellion that saves the world?
