I like to read a lot, and I highly recommend it to everyone. When someone tells me that they don’t like reading, I just assume they haven’t found the right book, or that they’re content with being stupid. There is no excuse not to read; it expands your world view, opens you up to differing opinions (or provide you with support for the opinions you already have, if you know how to look). That said, here I have, in no particular order, some of my all time favourite books:
Love is a Mixtape by Rob Sheffield makes me cry, every single time. It’s a life story and a love story told in songs. The author begins every chapter of his life with a tracklist from a mixtape from his past, and not only is it wildly emotional and imaginative, it’s funny and keeps you engaged the whole way through. A great love story but not simply that. Great for fans of Rachel Cohn & David Leviathan.
Candy by Kevin Brooks is not just good. This book is so unbelievably and irrevocably unreasonably unfathomably good that I'm using far too many adjectives simply because I can't explain how good it is. It is visceral it is mind blowing it is too good to explain. Read this book. Go to the bookstore, the library and get this book then read it in one sitting, you will thank me later. Candy is a love story and manifesto against modern society and what it does to children. It covers addiction, love (as always), and bullying in a way that doesn’t make you want to claw your eyes out from cliche overload.
The Gospel According to Coco Chanel is a fun take on the typical memoir. I’ve always been a fan of how-to-books and the tongue in cheek way Karen Karbo applies Coco Chanel’s personal rules for personal behaviour is flawless. To say that the book was fantastic would have been an understatement. Beautifully written with wit and charm, the book holds the personality of Coco herself; snarky, elegant and ever so intelligent. My only criticism being Karbo's holier than thou attitude towards the end of the book where she tackles Coco's romantic entanglement with a Nazi, though that may just be my bias towards the blind nature of love. Conclusion: go to your nearest bookstore and purchase this book this very instant - it's a work of art.
Pretty Little Dirty by Amanda Boyden faultlessly captures the life of two best friends experiencing a very severe adolescence. It’s honest and does a fantastic job of peeking inside the mind of a young girl. It expertly touches on the existential crisis of young adult hood and the complexities of human relation as well as the chasm between how we see people and how they really are. Too good to be dismissed as just another young adult novel. Its language is visceral and real and the storyline is honest, one of my favourite coming of age novels since the Catcher in the Rye.
The Gingerbread Series by Rachel Cohn were the books that made me fall in love with young adult fiction. Fun, whimsical and extremely quotable, it’s a silly love story about the Goth bastard (do we still use this word?) daughter of a millionaire and a Vegas dancer and a tiny surfer dude in San Francisco. It reads like Juno in book form (was Juno a book?). I promise, it’s way better than it sounds. The last book in the series, Cupcake actually shows growth in the main character which was something that really caught me off guard, so there’s that to look forward too with this series.
The Torn Skirt’s Rebecca Godfrey's style reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson in that it's so gritty, but it's that same grittiness that makes it so believably adolescent. It's main character is actually pretty perfect being that she's the perfect blend of confused teenager and profound philosopher (my favourite kind of teenage character), and the first person narrative lends the book a necessary point of view, allowing her run ins with urchins and prostitutes to be seen through her naivety (not to mention that without it, the storyline would have been too confusing to manage). That being said though the storyline comes across rather dreamy or as I like to say rather Virgin Suicides-y, it's executed very well. If you’re not a fan of poetry you’ll probably get annoyed that the story line is probably the least important thing about the book, the point being a feeling - the feeling of being a teenager and experiencing the world in a new way for the first time. Imagine the Rum Diary but Paul Kemp is a teenage girl and you’re picturing The Torn SKirt.
I like memoirs. Like, a lot. So the second one on this list will be Wasted, by Marya Hornbacher. Wasted is a chronicle of Hornbacher’s personal experience with eating disorders that she dealt with the entirety of her life. It is vivid and honest and for those with reservations about nonfiction, it does not read like a biography but rather a fantastic first person narrative exploring the ups and downs of her life and how her demons followed her through them.
See what I just said about memoirs? Here’s another one. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen you might know from the movie starring Winnona Ryder and Angelina Jolie - which I recommend 100% as well. You will probably leave the book wondering if you suffer from the same mental disorder as the writer/storyteller, because, as the book explores, most of her symptoms just seem like growing up, or rather, they seem very understandably human. Fans of American Horror Story: Asylum will feel right at home with the imagery (it’s set in a psychiatric ward). One of my all time favourite books, my journals from four years ago are filled with quotes from it; “razors pain you; rivers are damp; acids stain you; and drugs cause cramp. Guns arent lawful; nooses give; gas smells awful; you might as well live.”
The Count of Monte Cristo is my favourite book + movie of all time. That’s it. It is the greatest story ever told as far as I’m concerned, and it is so quotable that I literally find something new to fall in love with every time I read the book or watch the movie. If the unabridged novel is too dense for you, the 2002 movie is so great that it can stand in for it. I’ve been, since childhood obsessed with it (which might explain a lot about me - this story is messed up), and it’s so universally applicable because it’s themes, love, betrayal, revenge, money, power, they are eternal ideals that have always and will always affect us as individuals. Bonus points: Richard Harris (the first [good] Dumbledore) played the priest (one of the best characters !!!) in the film & Fernand Mondego is one of the most unapologetic villains that you can’t help but enjoy his epic selfishness and self involvement. Did I mention Napoleon Bonaparte is in this? Literally everything about this story is fantastic. I almost tattooed “We are all kinds or pawns of men” on my forearm, this book is revolutionary.
I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell by Tucker Max; you saw the movie. Read the book. Laugh hysterically. Have a beer. You’re welcome.
Like Water For Chocolate is freaking beautiful. Laura Esquivel is a wordsmith if I ever encountered one, her first novel reading like an epic ballad with vivid imagery. It’s rural setting also lends itself very well to the Belizean imagination, that is to say that our collective memory holds more images that could be applied to the books landscape, which, for me, made the vivid imagery that much more rich. This book feels like drinking hot mayan chocolate, and my favourite part of it, the first time I read it was that each chapter begins with a recipe. My summer plans include rereading it, this time cooking along as the story progresses. Laura Esquivel is quite honestly, a creative genius (the Law of Love from her also comes highly recommended).
Jodi Picoult, very famously wrote My Sisters Keeper. Now I’ve never read that (saw the movie) but if it’s half as good as the Tenth Circle, I might have to. Set in Alaska, the state with the highest suicide rate in the US and it follows three different stories at once - the disintegrating marriage of the parents, the crisis (spoilers) of their daughter and everyone’s eventual descent into hell by way of the fathers graphic novel (which is included in the novel as a way to further the story!!! Can you says ‘multimedia piece’?!” about the Inferno which incidentally is the topic the mother character teaches a class at the local university. It looks at family in a very interesting light and it’s just plain cool.
Last book on the list is the Virgin Suicides, a book and movie that I use to explain the mood of other books (re: the Torn Skirt). The Virgin Suicides was quote possibly the most interesting book I’ve ever read which is, in all likelihood caused by it’s bizarre format. It is written from the collective perspective of a group of grown men, that, from their adolescence, were obsessed with the Lisbon girls. It reads like idol worship, with their near religious devotion to the physical items they have, over the years collected from parts of the girls’ story. It’s floaty and ethereal and otherworldly. Possibly set in the same town as Donnie Darko, which, quite frankly, explains a lot.
Notable mention: I came very close to including these books, but because of their widespread popularity, I decided to leave them off the list. Everyone knows what John Green’s Looking for Alaska is about for example, so no point reviewing it. It and the rest of these, however, are some of my all time favourite books, and still come widely recommended. Wintergirls (tw: eating disorders, self harm), Perks of Being a Wallflower (tw: sexual abuse), The Great Gatsby, the Prince, the Art of War, the Luxe, Fight Club, the Bell Jar, My Booky Wook (tw: drug abuse), Lolita, The Hemming Way, How to Climb Mt. Blanc in a Skirt: A Handbook for the Lady Adventurer, Animal Farm, everything by John Green really, and Crime & Punishment (which I don’t really recommend unless you can handle really dense nonfiction). Lastly, some of my favourite philosophers are Kafka, Sartre, Nietzsche and Camus from which I recommend anything.
There’s obviously a lot more, and another time I’ll make another list, but for now, happy reading.
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