65 Books to Read in Your Twenties

14. The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri

Whenever I’m asked who my favorite author is, I’m neverquite sure what to say. I can list off my favorite books without a second thought, but I’ve never really found an author whose overall writing style and capabilities I admire. I’ve read a lot of great stories by a lot of great authors, but I didn’t truly understand what it meant to fall in love with an author as opposed to a story until I read Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake.

The Namesake details the life of the Ganguli family’s eldest child, Gogol, whose life and identity is a juxtaposition of traditional Bengali customs with modern American ways. Stuck with a “pet name” instead of a traditional Bengali name, the majority of the novel details Gogol’s desire to define himself amidst his cross-cultural upbringing. It quickly becomes clear to both Gogol and reader that Gogol’s name does not fit in with either Bengali or American culture, which causes him much confusion and resentment towards both his parents and his peers. He spends much of his young-adulthood looking for ways to evade his family’s expectations while simultaneously struggling to find companionship with someone who understands his woes.

The way that Lahiri navigates through all of the twists and turns of Gogol’s complicated life is superbly done. Lahiri is one of those authors who can take something mundane and turn it into a passage that is not only enjoyable to read, but is actually captivating. I spent the entirety of the novel enthralled by the way Lahiri told her story, and found myself wishing I could manipulate words in the same smooth and beautiful way. The Ganguli family narrative is only half the reason I enjoyed The Namesake; the way Lahiri tells their story is equally wonderful. 

It’s easy to see why The Namesake made it onto Buzzfeed’s list. Gogol’s search for self-definition is something that most readers can relate to in one way or another, and is especially applicable to 20-somethings. Our 20’s seem to be a time of reflection, when we look back on our past and forward towards our future, wondering how one will shape the other. We seem to constantly be grappling with who we’re expected to be, and who we want to be, and who we are, just like Gogol. I also think that Gogol’s story connects with anyone who wishes they could change something about their family and/or the way they were raised. Gogol’s story is the perfect depiction of our search for individuality, and teaches us that even when we think we’ve become our perfect selves, our goals and desires will remain ever-changing.

39. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, by Toby Young

When I first purchased How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, I was really excited. I was heavily involved in various types of journalism throughout college, and reading about a professional New York journalist’s misadventures sounded awesome. Not only was the book about my desired future career, but it also appeared to contain quite a bit of the self-deprecating humor that I tend to enjoy. All in all, it seemed like a great book.

Unfortunately, I was left disappointed. It’s not that the book was bad, it was just incredibly...average. It had funny moments, but was not terribly interesting overall. Now, I’m sure that many people have read this book and liked it, but there’s just something about Toby Young’s general attitude and interests that I didn’t connect with.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People details the two years that the author, British journalist Toby Young, spent in New York working as a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. Young becomes obsessed with the New York lifestyle, and spends most of his time trying to figure out a way to climb to the top of the celebrity A-list. If you’re someone who is really into celebrity culture, you’d probably enjoy this book. I, however, couldn’t care less about how Hollywood’s finest spend their time, so Young’s obsession with celebrity culture was lost on me.

Moreover, Young has the worst work-ethic of anyone I’ve ever heard of. Young spent his entire time in New York trying to find a way to get invited to exclusive celebrity events, which wouldn’t be so bad if he hadn’t shirked all of his work responsibilities in the process. It turns out that Young contributed very little to Vanity Fair, and spent most of his time pissing off his co-workers and VIPs alike. In fact, the book eventually developed a very predictable rhythm: Young would screw around at work, complain about his inability to get invited to celebrity events/get a New York socialite to sleep with him, upset his boss, and then talk about how he’ll lose his job if he doesn’t stop screwing around at work. It was actually quite infuriating; Young certainly did not make himself out to be a very likable character.

46. Wild, by Cheryl Strayed

I am so incredibly impressed with Wild. At first, I was skeptical. The description on the back cover sounded super cheesy, and I definitely found myself thinking, “What if she didn’t actually do any of this? What if this is just A Million Little Pieces, but set in the outdoors?” Yet with the Wild movie release date fast approaching, I knew that I had to get to reading, and fast.

Which, as it turned out, wasn’t a hard thing to do. Once I picked the book up, I couldn’t put it down.

Strayed’s story is inspiring in a number of ways. There’s the obvious “turning your life around” element, where after infidelity, a divorce, and a heroin addiction Strayed decides to reclaim her life by hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. It’s also impressive that Strayed’s ability to hike the trail came from sheer willpower. She quickly admits to never having backpack before her trip along the PCT, and if the fact that she was able to get up every morning, put on her monstrously heavy backpack and hike doesn’t make you want to get out there and try something new, I don’t know what will.

But it’s not just Strayed’s story that draws you in, it’s her writing as well. She has that rare ability to really make you feel what she’s feeling. Wild was definitely one of the more intense books I’ve read, as Strayed details everything from her mother’s battle with cancer to the death of Lady, her mother’s beloved horse, with a disturbing amount of clarity and detail. The sense of sadness, shock, and sometimes even horror Strayed was able to convey through her writing was something I found incredibly impressive. The only other author I’ve come across that can evoke such intense emotions is Suzanne Collins. Wild may not be a thriller like The Hunger Games, but there were definitely times when it left me in a state of total shock.

I think that, in the end, what makes Strayed’s story so special is that it’s the ultimate story of “getting through it.” Wild shows us that recovering from a tragedy isn’t fast, and it isn’t pretty, but eventually life does go on. And, if you’re patient and willing, there are good things waiting for us just down the road.  While this book is applicable to the life of a twenty-something in many ways, I think that the best lesson learned is one we need to remember after our twenties are far behind us. At some point in our lives something awful will happen to us, something we can’t control. For Strayed, it was at the age of 22. But if we believe in ourselves, and believe that we are worthy and capable of happiness, eventually things will get better.

61. How's Your Drink?, by Eric Felton

I didn’t know what to expect when I opened How’s Your Drink? for the first time, but it certainly exceeded any and all expectations I had for a book about cocktails. When I saw it on Buzzfeed’s list, I thought it would essentially be a cocktail cookbook of sorts—recipes on one page with brightly colored pictures on the other. However, you don’t have to look at the book for very long to realize that Eric Felton is a bit classier than that. What Felton managed to do was write an incredibly tasteful book about the history of cocktails and drinking, while weaving recipes in along the way.

Nobody ever thinks about the history of cocktails. You walk up to the bar, say a name, and hope that a) the bartender knows how to make it and/or b) it tastes good. Maybe this is just from the perspective of someone who has never really enjoyed cocktails, but it seems like you really need to know your stuff in order to avoid ordering a drink that isn’t either incredibly generic, or brightly colored and made up of six different types of liquor. For that reason, I must say that I admire Felton for his knowledge of “the art of drinking well”; the fact that there is someone out there who actually took the time to research the history of drinking so thoroughly is pretty impressive.

It wasn’t until after finishing How’s Your Drink? that I realized what an intellectual read it was. Not only did Felton clearly do a lot of academic research on the history of cocktails, but he also references items from pop-culture, such as the James Bond films. It’s astonishing that one man can not only understand the topic of cocktails so thoroughly but also that he is able to write about it in such an interesting and engaging way.

All in all, How’s Your Drink? is a great book. It’s not every day you find a history lesson, recipe book and social guide all between one cover, so I’d highly encourage anyone who finds this review even remotely interesting to pick up a copy of Felton’s book. I really wasn’t expecting much when I started reading, and I was incredibly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. And this is coming from a girl who is “strictly a beer person.”

35. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins

There is one very clear thought that I had while reading Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and it is this: Tom Robbins is a man who not only thinks about sex every seven seconds, but who also apparently felt the need to write these thoughts into his novel at completely random intervals. Now, this is not my way of saying that sex in literature is inappropriate; when timed well, sex does an excellent job of furthering plotlines or aiding the author in making his or her point. I have read some excellent novels that had their erotic moments. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is not one of those novels.

However, these innuendos, while somewhat uncouth, were not the strangest part of this novel. The novel’s entire plot is centered around Sissy Hankshaw, a beautiful girl with abnormally large thumbs, who spends much of her youth hitchhiking back and forth across the country. Her adventures also include becoming a model for a line of feminine hygiene products, befriending Bonanza Jellybean and her band of rascally cowgirls, and marrying a man who clearly wishes she were a Stepford wife. Nothing about this book is ordinary, and yet it was also a little too strange for my taste.

Hidden somewhere in the non-linear craziness of this novel, though, is a message about being true to yourself and following your dreams. Sissy hears her uncle tell her father that he thinks she would “make one hell of a hitchhiker...if she was a man”, and Bonanza Jellybean strives to change the seemingly universal thought that only boys can actually grow up to be cowboys. The thing that I didn’t understand though, was the way the book promoted gender equality—and then spent the majority of the novel sexualizing women. The book portrays all of the cowgirls as being over-sexed and kind of stupid, and creates some sort of unrealistic fantasy that I wasn’t terribly excited to be privy to.

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is by far one of the best trilogies I have ever read. A problem that I commonly find with trilogies is that the first book is very distinct and well written, and the next two books seem like the author thought to his or herself “Actually, I’m going to turn this into a trilogy,” leaving readers with two books that pale in comparison to the first one.

But The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass are different. Namely because the plot line does not focus heavily on the concept of good vs. evil, as so many trilogies are wont to do. Instead, the novels are about growing up, making your own decisions, and making great sacrifices in order to keep your promises.

The Golden Compass (originally named Northern Lights) was by far the best of the three. I only had to read the first few pages of the novel to be totally captivated by the story, and it was often very hard for me to put the book down (which is saying something, since I read it while traveling through Europe). All of the characters were fantastic; each one had a distinctly different personality that captivated me immediately. I was charmed by Lyra’s stubbornness and Lee Scoresby’s kindly manner. But my favorite character was, hands down, Iorek Byrnison. This is probably because, in my youth, I was charmed by the character Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Aslan and Iorek are similar in their sage wisdom and matter-of-fact demeanor, but Iorek is more...how do I say this? Awesome. I mean, he’s a giant talking polar bear with impenetrable armor, is unbeatable, and is basically one of Lyra’s best friends. And while I’m sure most people are still riding the Game of Thrones I-wish-I-had-a-dragon train, I cannot even begin to describe how awesome I think it would be to have an armored bear for a best friend.

The Golden Compass ends with Lyra and Pan walking into another world through the portal that Lord Asriel has just created, a clear indicator that there is much more to come. However, the transition into The Subtle Knife is a bit awkward because it starts out by focusing on a new character, Will Perry. Because of this, it was hard to get into the book at first. I couldn’t keep myself from wondering where Lyra was and worrying whether or not I’d ever get closure on what happened to her. Fortunately, that feeling didn’t last long.

One of the things I appreciated most about His Dark Materials was that the trilogy wasn’t strictly about good vs. evil. Was there a war breaking out between two opposing forces? Yes. But Lyra and Will seemed much more concerned with doing what they personally thought was right than they did with doing what the adults told them was right. I appreciated that both characters were so free-thinking, and was happy that the trilogy didn’t spend the entire time focusing on what the adults were doing.

28. Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis

55. Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris

David Sedaris and I got off to a bit of a rocky start. After hearing great things about him as an author and seeing my professor use Sedaris’ work as an example in my professional writing classes, I had some pretty high expectations for Me Talk Pretty One Day. While these expectations were somewhat realized by the end of the book, it took me about 100 pages to get over the joke Sedaris made on page eight about female genital mutilation. I understand the need for a strong metaphor just as much as the next writer, but there are some things you don’t joke about...and female genital mutilation is one of them.

In fact, I was so taken aback by the joke that I was tempted to close the book, ship it back to Amazon.com and write a blog post that read, “David Sedaris is a horrible person. Do not read this book.” However, knowing that this wouldn’t be fair to either my readers or myself, I pressed on.

Eventually I was able to move past Sedaris’s “joke” and enjoy the rest of the book. While I couldn’t quite relate to Sedaris’s stories about his family life, I found his stories about his addiction to crystal meth in his 20s very interesting. Sedaris admits that he knew that crystal meth was the drug for him the first time he tried it, an idea that I found absolutely fascinating. I was aware that this happened in some cases of substance abuse, but to see it written so plainly in a book of funny essays made me really stop and think about how one single sentence encapsulated an experience that I couldn’t even imagine.

However, I didn’t truly connect with the book until Sedaris began to talk about his experiences living in France. Sedaris’s way of describing all of the language-barrier predicaments he encountered was hilarious, and I felt like I finally understood his voice as a writer, and therefore, his humor. This was also the first time I found Sedaris truly relatable, which finally allowed me to actually laugh at some of his stories. While Sedaris’s writing might not have been as sound at the beginning of the book, he certainly came through in the end.

37. Bossypants, by Tina Fey

Oh Tina Fey, you wonderful, wonderful woman. How did you manage to write a book that is both insightful and hilarious? How do I transfer your amazingness from your book to myself so that I can find my dream job and an awesome gal pal like Amy Pohler? Here I am thinking that since I’ve already read Bossypants, I’ll probably end up skipping all of the sections I can remember, when really your book is one of those special few that I could probably reread for the rest of my life and never get bored.

I’m sure that most of the people who pick up Fey’s book are doing it for a good laugh, and she certainly won’t let you down in this regard. However, I think the best aspect of Fey’s writing is how down-to-earth she manages to be. Whether she’s discussing body image, work struggles, or her personal life, Fey manages to share her experiences while staying firmly grounded in reality. Bossypants is the first memoir I’ve read where the author takes time out of talking about his or herself to remind us that while this is their book, there are a lot of people in this world that deserve just as much credit for their lifetime accomplishments. Fey never makes herself out to be some huge celebrity; just a woman who is trying to do what she loves.

Fey came from humble beginnings, starting her career in show business as a high school student selling tickets at a summer theater camp. She toured with The Second City in Chicago after graduating from college, and eventually applied to become a writer for SNL. Fey talks about becoming a writer for SNL like it was something she just decided she wanted to do; she didn’t spend days and weeks preparing for her interview, stressing about whether her ideas would be good enough, she just went for it, and it ended up working out.

Bossypants is really perfect for people in their twenties because Fey has a very “go with the flow” attitude when it comes to career moves. As a student who is about to graduate from college, I can safely say that there is nothing that stresses me out more right now than the idea of trying to find a post-grad job. After weeks of scanning Craigslist, worrying that I’m not going to get my applications out fast enough or that everyone else applying for the position will be more qualified than me, I’ve decided to take the Tina Fey approach and just relax. Things work out in weird ways, and I think Fey’s book is the perfect example of that.

8. Lucy, by Jamaica Kincaid

Lucy is what Buzzfeed’s list said it would be: a growing up story. And while that’s all fine and good, I think the story is a little immature for readers in their twenties. While the novel has some interesting themes and ideas that are still pretty relevant to today’s culture (the novel was published in September 1990), the novel’s harsh tone did not make it terribly enjoyable to read. Lucy also seems to be very set in her ways and does not grow very much as a character, which is disappointing.

Lucy has all the characteristics of an angsty teenage girl: Angry with her mother? Check. Generally displeased by the people around her? Check. Has a best friend who is seen by others as a “bad influence”? Check. Spends a lot of time with boys she hardly knows? Also check. While many of the reasons behind her angst are totally valid, her constant anger and cynicism makes her a not-very-fun character to spend time with, and I couldn’t help but walk away from the book feeling a bit angry and cynical myself.

The one thing I did really appreciate about Lucy was the fact that she sees the world in black and white. While in the end, this ultimately stunts Lucy’s growth as a character, it is somewhat refreshing to see a character who is brutally honest about every aspect of life. Lucy is uncompromising in her beliefs, and refuses to change her opinions or attitude out of social courtesy. She has a very strong sense of right and wrong, which I appreciate in a character.

I also appreciated the strong feminist themes in the novel. Lucy’s one desire throughout the book is to be independent. She gives up on studying to become a nurse (something her mother convinced her to do) because she feels that it is a job that it too stereotypically female, and wonders why no one ever pushes her to become a doctor. In fact, much of Lucy’s anger towards her mother is because she feels that she was not given the same opportunities her three brothers were, and while her parents adamantly talked about having three doctors in the family some day, the highest aspiration they could imagine for her was working as a nurse. This is a very blunt observation, but it is one that we don’t quite realize as often as we should.

24. Pastoralia, by George Saunders

This novel turned out to be something completely different than what I expected it to be. I was misled by the deer on the cover, and believed that it would be a story about finding oneself in nature, or something to that extent. What Pastoralia actually is, is a collection of short stories and a novella about incredibly average people leading dreary lives. In each story, a protagonist struggles with unhappiness, feelings of inadequacy, and/or loneliness, and while each character dreams of making their lives better, none of them ever actually succeed.

It took me a while to realize that I didn't really like this book. Shortly after beginning to read, I would begin to feel sad, and while at first I thought it was because school was starting and I was worrying about various things, I soon realized that it was the stories Pastoralia that was affecting my mood. While this wasn't surprising (I've always developed strong emotional connections with my books), it was slightly unexpected. Why was reading about people going about their daily, albeit unhappy, lives affecting me so much?

 It's because every story contains an element of sadness. George Saunders is very good at putting readers inside the characters' heads and describing the emotions that they are feeling. I found it easy to relate to each character, even if I had never experienced the things that they were dealing with. Saunders makes readers think what the characters are thinking, and feel what they are feeling, which is a gift that not all authors possess. By tapping into readers’ brains to make them think what the characters think, Saunders is able to make the many of these unrealistic situations seem totally believable.

That’s the other thing about this collection of stories: most of them are unrealistic. In the first story, “Pastoralia”, the protagonist lives in a man-made cave pretending to be a caveman as part of some sort of historical zoo. In another story, “Sea Oak”, the main character’s dead aunt comes back to life and begins bossing him around before completely falling apart. While these stories do a great job of demonstrating the depths of Saunder’s imagination, they are not necessarily about the most pleasant topics.

43. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, by Nick Flynn

Every once in a while, a novel comes along that acts as a cathartic release for your soul. It removes you from ignorance, refocuses your thoughts, and makes you take stock of your life. Most importantly, it reminds you that everyone falls on hard times, and when you see your troubles mirrored in the narrator’s experience, you remember that you are not alone. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City is one of these books, with a title that reminds readers that sometimes life is going to suck; what matters is how you get through it.

The novel is the surprisingly poetic memoir of Nick Flynn, who tells the story of his life in unison with the life of his father, and how his relationship with his father has affected him. Nick’s father Jonathan is an alcoholic, a former criminal, and for part of the novel, homeless. This poses a particularly difficult situation for Nick, because he works at the men’s homeless shelter that his father begins to frequent. Yet Jonathan professes himself to be a poet, and while Nick never admits it, it seems that he and his father are almost drawn together by some sort of kindred spirit.

I could never imagine writing a memoir of such a personal nature. Flynn details very intimate and traumatic events, such as his mother’s suicide, his working for a drug ring, and his constant struggle with alcohol and drug abuse. His ability to be so forthright about his life’s struggles is something to be admired in and of itself, seeing that most people go their entire lives without revealing their family hardships.

The thing I think I appreciated most about this novel was that it wasn’t about change, or anger, or trying to hold his father accountable for all of his unhappiness. Instead, it was about acceptance. Acceptance that until Jonathan was ready to help himself, the best Nick could do for him was check in every once in a while to see how his father was doing. In the end, Nick seemed to realize that his father would probably live out the rest of his days as an alcoholic, and instead of abandoning him or trying to forcibly change him, Nick worked to emotionally support his father in any small way he could. I think that this really speaks to the idea that at the end of the day, people won’t change unless they want to, and the best thing we can do is just to try and accept that. Especially because it’s not worth losing family over.

Flynn’s memoir also did a really excellent job of shedding some light on homelessness. The line that struck me the most was when Flynn explains, “Sometimes I point out that eighty percent of the homeless are invisible, like the proverbial iceberg, that when I walk through the city now every other person I see is someone I know from the shelter, but if you didn’t know you’d think they were on their lunch break, enjoying a little sun” (185) because it reminded me that really anyone can be homeless, its not just the people I begging on street corners. Moreover, Flynn reminds readers that many homeless people aren’t looking to be obtrusive; they simply want a place to sleep and the ability to mind their own business. While most of the people that Flynn worked with at the homeless shelter had some sort of dependence on drugs or alcohol, not all of them were aggressive or harmful. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City provides readers with a lot of perspective, and helps us determine the difference between the stigma of homelessness, and what homelessness actually is.

22. The Group, by Mary McCarthy

Before I discuss the novel’s actual plot, I just want to take a moment to say that The Group had some of the most egregious grammatical errors I have ever seen. I’m not talking about a misplaced comma here or there, I’m talking about finding a sentence that read, “None of the other Vassar girls was going”. I understand that this book was published in the 1960’s, and maybe these errors are just a sign of the times, but considering the fact that this novel has been in print for so long and is the basis for Candice Brushnell’s culturally significant novel Sex and the City, you would think that some publisher somewhere would have the sense to go back and correct all of McCarthy’s errors. I’m sure one could make an argument for neglecting to correct McCarthy’s errors in the interest of “historical preservation”, but considering that bad grammar is a mockable offense these days, some edits should be made in the interest of preserving McCarthy’s reputation as a writer.

The plot of the novel follows the lives of a group of eight women, all graduates of Vassar College, class of ’33. The novel begins just after their graduation at the wedding of Kay Strong and Harald Petersen. From there, the novel provides snippets of important moments in the other group members’ lives, all interwoven in one way or another. The novel ends seven years later, under surprisingly different circumstances than which it began. 

The novel featured a very mixed bag of women, which I really appreciated. There were women devoted to their jobs (Libby MacAustland and Polly Andrews), women in pursuit of finding a husband and starting a family (Kay, Dottie Renfrew, and Priss Hartshorn), women who chose independence over marriage (Helena Davidson and Elinor “Lakey” Eastlake), and the few odd ducks that stand out because of their lack of social cognizance (Mary “Pokey” Prothero and Norine Schmittlap). I liked that McCarthy tried to create a character that everyone could relate to in some way, especially since the novel now exists in a society where various aspects of the 1930’s are no longer familiar.

I have very mixed feelings about this novel. Knowing that it was based in the 1930’s, I was curious to see the author’s take on what life was like back then. Turns out that life in the 30’s was really, really boring and kind of awful. It seems that being a socialite woman meant that you had no job, your husband was a jerk, and you were done having kids by the age of 30. People’s opinions meant everything to you, and because of the lack of medical knowledge, everyone had very strange beliefs about health and safety. Furthermore, almost all of the details pertaining to these women’s lives were trivial and boring. I found myself irritated whenever one or more of the characters were being nosey or shallow--which was incredibly often. I’ve never really been interested in conversation about domestic daily life, so many of the lives these women were leading did not appeal to me. However, somehow the ending of the novel made all of these annoyances worthwhile. While the book’s ending was quite different from what I expected, I was left with the wonderful image of the group coming together, seven years later, to do something thoughtful for a friend. I was left with a sense of satisfaction and closure that I don’t think McCarthy would have accomplished had she ended the novel in any other way.

7. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is, in my opinion, one of the most unique books I have ever read. The novel tells the story of a Dominican boy named Oscar who, according to the books’ back cover, “is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto...who dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkein”. But while Oscar is a rather unlikely protagonist, what makes this book so special is Diaz’s writing. Diaz works to create a sense of emersion into Dominican culture in the novel by including some Dominican history, footnotes, and Spanish words and phrases all throughout the book. This gives his story a liveliness unlike anything I have previously encountered, which made my reading experience all the more delightful.

 I think the best part about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the narration. The story isn’t told by some bland omniscient narrator, but by Yunior, a young Dominican man who ends up befriending Oscar. Yunior’s narration offers a unique look into the norms of Dominican culture, and gives us knowledgeable insight about Dominican history. I think what impressed me most about Yunior’s narration was that he is able to logically lay out the reasons why Oscar’s family is cursed in the way it is understood by Dominican people. This puts readers in a mindset that allows them to truly believe that all of the misfortune that has befallen Oscar’s family is because of the curse.

 Something else I found really interesting about this book was the way sex and relationships are thought of/discussed. It seems to be that Oscar’s biggest day-to-day worry is that he will essentially die a virgin, and is constantly falling in love with women that are out of his league. Oscar is defined as a nerd, not just because he loves fictional fantasy and video games, but also because he is virtually incapable of attracting a woman. Furthermore, even Oscar’s friends and family seem to be invested in his inability to “get laid”, which I found especially strange. I have never once met a person in real life who was as anxious about losing his or her virginity as Oscar, so I thought it was interesting that Diaz made such a big deal about it. Perhaps he uses this fixation to illustrate Oscar’s nerdiness, or maybe it plays into the idea of Oscar never fully becoming a man. Or maybe still, Diaz builds Oscar’s romantic endeavors up in an attempt to make the tragedy at the end of the novel that much more depressing.

25. Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

This book was absolutely amazing. I was captivated by the plotline right away and it kept me totally enthralled until I reached the last page. Not only does Ernest Cline manage to create a fantastic storyline, but he also manages to evoke a sense of nostalgia in his readers, as well as a feeling of concern for the world we might be creating. I couldn’t put it down, shirking all responsibility in celebration of the end of finals. Ready Player One has it all: video games, romance and 80’s pop culture all set in a dystopian future that is not terribly different from the society in which we currently live.

The novel takes place in 2044 and follows an 18-year-old boy named Wade Watts (also known by his username Parzival) as he searches the massive multiplayer virtual reality of OASIS for an “Easter egg” worth billions of dollars. This amount of money is particularly significant because most of the world has been thrown into poverty due to a massive energy crisis, caused by the carelessness of previous generations of humans. Wade’s quest begins when the creator of OASIS, a recluse by the name of James Halliday, dies, leaving his entire fortune to the first OASIS player who could solve a series of riddles and clues. These clues would lead egg hunters (referred to in the novel as “gunters”) to three keys and their corresponding gates, which would open up to reveal Halliday’s carefully hidden fortune. Throughout a series of plot twists, dramatic turns, and the threat of an evil corporation taking over and privatizing the OASIS, Parzival and his fellow gunters Art3mis, Aech and Shoto use their knowledge of 80’s pop culture to go on the most epic quest in video game history.

The world that Cline creates with the OASIS is very diverse in the sense that it is both fantastically awesome and totally practical. The OASIS is more than just a place for users to play games; it offers players job opportunities and even gives children the ability to enroll in its online schools. The OASIS essentially provides any service that normally would only be available to us in the outside world without players ever having to leave their homes. As videogame technology becomes more and more advanced this concept begins to seem very possible, which made me question whether humans will eventually get to the point where we prefer a virtual reality to actual reality. I think it’s the fact that this idea is so realistic that makes Ready Player One so fun to read, as it creates both an interesting and frightening image of our future. Add to this the very real possibility of running out of fossil fuels, and you have one eerily possible future.

And let’s not forget the joy of the quest narrative. The novel was fast-paced and superbly structured, and I thought it was really wonderful that Cline was able to create characters that were so relatable and fun. He even made it impossible for me to pick a favorite character, although I will say that I was happy to find a fellow blogger in Art3mis (who happens to be Parzival’s cyber crush). I was compelled to hold my breath not only as Parzival and his friends looked for the egg, but also as they worked to protect themselves against the evil corporation looking to use Halliday’s fortune to take over the OASIS. And who couldn’t resist the hopeful suspense of whether Parzival and Art3mis would end up together at the end of the novel? It was just too good.

I think this book was on Buzzfeed’s list because it allows readers to feel like kids again. When you reach your twenties it’s easy to feel like your years of fantasy fiction have passed, so I think Ready Player One is a great way to liven up your reading list. This book as absolutely perfect for anyone looking to join a new fandom or is just looking for a good science/fantasy fiction novel to read (of which I am constantly looking to do both). The writing is suspenseful yet lighthearted enough so that it captivates readers without making them feel extreme amounts of stress. I honestly haven’t seen this type of story since my Harry Potter days, which I guess you could say makes it the hidden Easter egg of literature. Ready Player One is the perfect place to lose yourself for a while, yet keeps you close enough to make you think about what our future might actually look like. It’s a pretty great book...

10. White Teeth, by Zadie Smith

It is difficult for me to begin to talk about this novel without feeling like I sound ignorant, so I guess I’ll start off by saying that Buzzfeed descried White Teeth as “being perhaps the ultimate 20th Century British immigrant novel.” That being said, I really admire the diversity within the novel, and how Smith manages to use this diversity to touch on a wide range of topics. Smith covers religion, politics, science, animal rights, teenage angst, body image, marriage, and psychological issues all within 542 pages, told from the perspective of first and second-generation immigrants and British natives.

Smith breaks her novel up into four segments, beginning with the story of Alfred Archibald Jones. Archie is an “average Joe” who decides to turn over a new leaf in his middle age when he meets a young Jamaican immigrant named Clara. The book then jumps to Archie’s long-time friend Samad Iqubal, an immigrant from Bengal who struggles with instilling a sense of tradition within his second-generation sons, Magid and Millat, and gaining respect from his wife, Alsana. Finally, the third and fourth segments focus on Irie, the daughter of Archie and Clara, and Magid and Millat, who are all deviating from the paths that their parents had imagined for them. This segmentation allows Smith to highlight the broad differences between the second-generation children and their first-generation parents.

Out of all of the characters, Irie is probably my favorite. While she originally starts out as a very self-conscious girl with a very negative image of herself, she eventually morphs into a woman who is confident enough to not only know what she wants from life, but is actually brave enough to take a stand against her family to get it. I found this very relatable, as it seemed to mirror the struggles that I personally had faced when I was Irie’s age. I remember going through the phase of feeling uncomfortable with the way my body looked (although I never had ammonia put on my scalp in an attempt to straighten my hair) and arguing with my parents when I wanted to travel abroad and they felt that I wasn’t ready. I also relate to Irie because, in the end, she is able to find her voice and the power that comes with it. Probably my favorite moment of hers is toward the end of the novel, when she finally gets fed up with the Jones and Iqubal families’ bickering and essentially tells them to shut it and start acting like “normal” families that don’t constantly argue with one another. This moment is especially powerful because Clara tries to chastise Irie for speaking in a disrespectful manner, but Irie disregards it and continues to voice her opinion. While this may have initially seemed like Irie was being disrespectful to her mother, what this moment actually demonstrates is that Irie has grown into an educated woman who has thoughts and opinions that deserve to be heard. Basically, Irie Jones kicks ass.

White Teeth shared a lot of valuable insight into the thoughts and everyday lives of families whose culture I knew nothing about. My family, while technically descended from German and French immigrants (and probably something else, but since my dad is adopted I’m not sure that I’ll ever know what) has always had fair skin, light eyes, and accents that have been filtered out from many years of living in the U.S.; not something that really gets looked at as “different.” Therefore, I’ve never experienced the kind of discrimination or alienation felt by most of the characters in the book. Being put inside each character’s mind gave me a valuable lesson on perspective and the importance of valuing my family history. Each immigrant in White Teeth knows the history of the family they came from and use it as the defining element of their lives. This supports Smith’s idea that immigrants are forever unable to escape or forget their history. While sometimes this inability to forget their heritage is a burden for the characters in the novel, it also prompts moments of pride. Samad spends the entire novel talking about how he believes that his great grandfather was a war hero, even though most evidence suggests otherwise, and Irie and Clara identify the strength in their lineage by the fact that Clara’s mother was born during a powerful Jamaican earthquake. This appreciation for the past seems to diminish with each new generation of Americans, which I’m sure is why many Americans today know very little about their family history.

19. Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go was by far one of the most unique novels I have ever read. On it’s most basic level, it can be described as a dystopian science-fiction novel, but the way Ishiguro connects his readers to these characters makes if feel like it is so much more than that. It’s going to be difficult to talk about this novel without giving anything away, but I’ll give it a shot.

The book is narrated by Kathy, a “carer” who is going through a significant life change, and is centered around her and her two best friends, Tommy and Ruth. The novel is broken into three parts that detail the trio’s childhood, young adulthood, and lives as carers/donors. As we begin part one, we listen to Kathy’s describe her time at Hailsham, a boarding school for “special” students like Tommy, Ruth and herself. Ishiguro is very good about only allowing the readers to learn as much as Kathy does at any given time, which adds a great deal of suspense and mystery to the entire plotline.

What we learn fairly quickly about Kathy and her classmates is that they are not “special” in the way we might imagine. Instead of being exceptionally gifted human beings, we discover that they are actually not quite human, or at least not considered to be. Their sole purpose is to serve science in a way that, while vital to mankind’s wellbeing, is incredibly messed up. Some people I’ve talked to say that once they found out the Hailsham students’ real purpose, they started crying. Thankfully, due to my incredible foresight I was able guess, which helped to weaken the blow. As Ishiguro’s dystopian universe unfolds, we see just how bleak the students’ existence becomes more and more bleak.

One of the things I found most interesting about the novel was the tone that Kathy uses as she narrates the events going on around her. It is a kind if bluntness that seems to soften the blow of many of the otherwise highly emotional events in the novel, keeping readers from realizing just how unjust Kathy’s situation is until after they have finished the book. Kathy’s disposition also plays into the idea that because of her situation there is no point in feeling certain emotions, because at the end of the day, her feelings don’t matter/won’t change anything. In fact, carers and donors do not even use the word “death.” Instead, they refer to a donor’s passing away as “completing”, which is probably the most technical and awful idea the book presents.  I know that some of these vocabulary words sound strange right now, but trust me, once you read the novel you’ll realize how insensitive this vocabulary is.