For the better or for the worst, which book actually affected you. I’ll start, The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. Such an amazing book, well written and suprised me.
[SPOILERS]
The blurb on the back stated that each Lisbon sister k1lled themselves one by one. What I was expecting was throughout every 3 or so chapters, a Lisbon sister would kill themselves. But actually, 85% of the book, was only 1 Lisbon sister dead and the other 4 alive until the end when they all k1lled themselves. If I was told that the large majority of the book was just about the Lisbon girls life through the eyes of teenage boys and then eventually in the end they all k1ll themselves, I would probably be less interested in the book. But this book was hard to put down, it was so well written with amazing vocabulary and it spent the right amount of time explaining things (instead of using 12 pages to describe a staircase or only 3 sentences to describe a plot etc). It kept me interested and also with it being on a slightly alarming topic (suicide), it gave the book an eerie feeling which filled me with a strange comfort.
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I love this thread - keep 'em coming. So many gems discovered that I would never have found out by myself.
This book absolutely. I have read it so many times. The movie is amazing as well.
Book 4 of the stormlight archive near the end cause I don’t want to spoil anything but it’s very emotionally cathartic.
Still Alice - Lisa Genova hit hard. It left me just sitting with my thoughts & staring at nothing when I finished and it left me feeling so sad for days after
edit:wording
1984 - George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four
I had to read it about 10 times because I was ‘translating’ it into Newspeak, and the ending was just so sad, every single time…
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
I recently finished Jodi Piccoult’s Mad Honey. I didn’t cry but I couldn’t put it down, and it lived rent free in my mind for weeks afterwards. It’s one of the only books I’ve read and walked away from feeling like it was a truly important book. It changed my perspective on so very many things. A subject that I accepted but never really felt comfortable with now makes so much more sense, and I see things in a new light.
Replay by Ken Grimwood. I read it every few years and every single time it changes my perspective on my view of my personal timeline.
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. Such a beautiful friendship between Owen and Johnny, and Owen is such a unique, compelling and tragic character completely realized. Add in a memorable supporting cast like Johnny’s mother and grandmother, and you have an unforgettable story.
Slaughterhouse 5 resonated with me on a “someone else gets it” level, especially with things falling out of order and happening all at once, the passively resigned motto of “so it goes”, the avoiding the point for as long as possible until you can’t anymore.
The vimes disc world series is a comfort go-to, though I don’t know that was the intended emotion.
The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. The vocabulary was hard to follow at times, but you’re right there with the characters in every emotional beat. It also captured the “dragon rider” concept in a way that most high fantasy just fails to do for me.
The Catcher in the Rye. It was part of our Man In Conflict class and my 16-year-old mind just took Holden on as a long-lost brother. 56 now and I keep a copy in my backpack.
I can’t remember the exact title, but when I was roughly 9 years old, I read a biography of Annie Oakley and afterwards I was WRECKED. I remember running to my mom, sobbing my eyes out and her telling me that sometimes that happens with really good books.
Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese was definitely a very emotionally powerful book. A general fiction book that deals with complicated family relationships and consequences of Canadian colonialism on families. The main character, Franklin, is a teenager living with an adoptive father. He gets news that his estranged biological father is dying and wants to see him one last time. Highly recommend it.
Andy Weir’s The Martian and Project Hail Mary make me feel like I can build a rocket with a box of scraps. Something about the process of
Problem -> Plan -> Execution -> Repeatplot structure he uses just turns on all the lights in my brain.Don’t think this a widely known book but seraphina more specifically the second one. shadow scale by Rachel hartman
Spoiler?
finished reading it in my math class last year, when she killed off my favourite character with no warning, and I couldn’t react because I didn’t want to seem weird