10 Books I Read Because Someone Recommended Them to Me
This series was recommended to me by Erika, my friend and fellow moderator over at
Addicted to YA. We actually met at camp many years ago and bonded over our shared love of reading. The Mortal Instruments was one of her favorite series of all time at the time of our meeting, and I quickly fell into this series. City of Fallen Angels kind of shook me off the series for awhile, but I actually just finished it this year! I have a copy of Clockwork Prince waiting for me to pick up as I type this post.
Percy Jackson was recommended to me in a less traditional sense. I was raised in Connecticut, where every year we had the Nutmeg Book Awards. Leading up to this award being given, all students were encouraged to read the nominees. These books were all over school reading lists and public libraries. If you read enough of the nominations, in April you got to vote on which book actually got the award. The Lightening Thief was a Nutmeg Nominee when I was in 4th grade and I fell in love! I almost always read all of the Nutmeg Nominee's, and definitely always enough to vote. The Lightning Thief was our winner that year!
This book was recommended to me by an ex-boyfriend (boyfriend at the time). He would make references to it a lot that would fly over my head and one day I picked it up and... was not impressed. There didn't seem to by any plot driving the narrative and without one the whole experience just felt kind of pointless. This was a total flop for me.
The Pendragon series was recommended to me by my friends Drew and Graham in 6th grade. While my friendships with them faded after we stopped being in the same classes, by love for this series only grew. It has fantastic world building and complex characters with compelling motives. I'd highly recommend it!
This recommendation came from my older cousin Kayla. I received this book, as well as several other Joan Lowery Nixon books from her has 'hand-me-downs.' Each one is a spooky murder mystery that I couldn't put down! This book and others by Nixon are so nostalgic for me and were some of my very first young adult mysteries. This was my graduation from Nancy Drew.
This is, I think, many people's first introduction to manga. It's a great first-dive into the manga stylization, the way that you physically read a text, as well as an easy combination of slice-of-life narration that peaks into myth and dark secrets as you proceed through the series. When I entered high school, my mom said I had to join an after-school club and I joined anime club. Having never seen a single anime or read a single manga, this is what the club president Jordan recommended I start with.
This book was recommended to me the way a lot of books are: as required reading in school. I was in 10th or 11th grade, taking french, and this was my teacher's way of having us practice. She picked a relatively easy book for native french speakers, but it was a bit hard for my classes and there were several sections that required assistance to understand. Of course, there are english translations available as this work is world-famous, but translations never quite fully grasp the original intent of the author. This work was life and philosophy changing for me and I used a page for my senior yearbook quote. I would highly recommend this experience!
Unwind had already been on my to-read list, but I picked it up recently because it had been recommended in my undergraduate Creative Writing course in 2019. Shusterman creates an alternative reality where abortions have been banned. Life is inviolable from conception, but between the ages of 13 and 18 parents can choose to 'unwind' their child, meaning that all of their bodily parts would be taken apart and used for transplants. Even in 'death' their life would not technically end. It was a crazy read!
This book was actually gifted to me by an old boss of mine and I'm really grateful for it. For many, it can be really easy to see what we fail at and only focus on those failures. It can be really hard to focus on what we do well, and this skills might even be hidden to us. So when we inevitably get asked in job interviews, "what are your strengths?" what do you say? This book came with a very comprehensive quiz as well as explanations of each strength as well as strategies for applying them. This book highlighted for me things that I didn't even realize might be strengths and gave me new confidence in myself.
I took a Technology and Empire graduate course, a couple years back now, and this was on the syllabus. Language as power, language as technology was truly thought provoking. This is one of my favorite books of all time and it really challenged me to look at perspectives that I had previously seen as neutral.
