When I was a teenager, people didn’t like me very much, so I spent my time reading. (That’s really okay, though, ’cause I was a little shit and even my so-called grown-up self wouldn’t like me.) I also wasted whole weekends away reading instead of studying, but that’s another story for another time. Anyway, here are my top three favourites:
3. Holes by Louis Sachar
Synopsis: Like so many books, I picked it up in the library and started reading. It begins with Stanley Yelnats, a fat boy from an immigrant family who is cursed with bad luck. He is so unlucky that the police find him with a pair of shoes that belongs to basketball star Clyde Livingston. Thinking he stole them, Stanley gets shipped off to Camp Green Lake, where he has to dig a five foot hole (why can’t Americans use metric?) every single day. He finds out why he is cursed, and the story behind Camp Green Lake and why it is the way it is.
Why It’s Topshelf: From a writer’s standpoint, it taught me a lot about foreshadowing — a term I didn’t learn until very much later — and placing clues all throughout the book so that the reader could solve the mystery of Camp Green Lake and Stanley’s family’s curse. The prose was also simple and the characters in it were not white, which, for me, was a pleasant surprise. The author also wrote a paragraph explaining that Stanley wasn’t white, and that most people read books assuming that characters are white — teenage me was also guilty of this. It really did make me think about books and representation, a topic that lots of blogs are discussing now.
I’ve read this book many times since and I still love it.
2. Singing The Dogstar Blues by Allison Goodman
Synopsis: Joss Aaronson is a university student who got into a programme that lets her study how to time travel. She gets paired up with this alien called Mavkel, who is part of an alien race that pair up and stay bonded for life. Mavkel’s partner dies but his elders revive him, and he and Joss have this strange connection to each other. And yes, you guessed it — time travel lets them figure out why they have a special bond, and why someone is trying to kill Joss. (Cue suspenseful music.)
Why It’s Topshelf: I like this for the same reason as Holes, actually, blah blah, with all the foreshadowing and clues and how everything comes together in the end, you know the drill. But that book opened up a genre for me — science fiction, and I realised how cool it was to imagine a future where you can time travel, interact with aliens, and imagine the future of the human race.
I’ve read this book four times and I know the plot by heart.
1. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Synopsis: Melinda Sordino is shunned because she called the cops at a party during the summer. She doesn’t tell anyone why, and she spends the rest of the year in school shunned and ignored. The only solace she finds is in Mr Freeman’s art class, where she is able to express herself. She slowly reveals that she is raped, and tells Rachel, the girlfriend of her rapist. Rachel breaks up with her boyfriend, and he hunts Melinda down.
Why It’s Topshelf: I’m also going to be honest and say that I related to this protagonist so very much, since I was disliked and despised, albeit for different reasons. This was the book that kept me sane throughout my crazy teen years, and I didn’t want to return it to the library at all. I think all of us have dark thoughts and go through dark periods of time, and this shone a light on it and lit the way. Also, the prose was beautifully written and expressed exactly how I felt.