It's no secret that I'm a book connoisseur. (*cough cough VIRGO*) If I could pick a perfect day to have, it would probably consist of me sitting with a book by a rainy window devouring it from cover to cover.
Growing up I was super shy, so books were a way for me to feel like I had a group of people to talk to. Especially considering I was a little kid dealing with bouts of social anxiety. There's so much liberation one can find in
I think books are always a place of comfort for me, so in this time in the world of social distancing, I've been doing a LOT of reading. Like...way too much maybe. (1,000 page books in only a day? Very much possible if you're me.) So here are a few of my favorite books I've read recently or returned back to. Feel free to leave your recommendations below!
1. Shameless: A Sexual Reformation by Nadia Bolz-Weber
This book made me feel SO VALIDATED. If you're someone that grew up in a toxic, Christian environment this is totally a book for you to pick up. Bolz-Weber is now a Lutheran pastor/activist that analyzes the Bible through a queer/POC/shameless/etc. lens. She even pulls out references from the Bible in the book directly and challenges them. So so important and amazing!
**trigger warning for substance abuse, sexual abuse, and queer/POC violence
2. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
This book was on my bucket-list of reads for who knows how long. I FINALLY finished it recently and I can't begin to recommend it enough. Murakami is known for his magical realism in his books, so this one being over 1100 pages long and three books in total, its completely jam packed with it. While at times super disturbing and surreal, I think the overall message this story is trying to convey is one of importance. If you don't think you can tackle something this long, I would start with one of Murakami's shorter novels like Kafka on the Shore. I think Murakami teaches us something really important about how we can perceive the world around us, and thinking about that in terms of my own life has shifted so many things.
**trigger warning for intense/illegal sex, violence, suicide, sexual confusion!**
3. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
This is a classic you probably read in high school. I had a pretty non-traditional history of English teachers growing up, (we're talking like a whole year of Existentialism) so I never got around to this one. I just read it recently and I think it has a lot of important things to say about fragile masculinity, childhood, and it's relationship to violence. It's also a direct commentary of how we all organize ourselves in society, and it was impactful for me to take a step back and view the world differently.
**trigger warning for violence, fat shaming, bullying**
4. A Court of Thorns and Roses Series by Sarah J. Maas
OKAY FINE, YOU CAUGHT ME.
This is my guilty pleasure for sure. I've been following this author for so long and I've read every single book she's published. (Like seriously though with the following, I went to a book signing and met her.)
You kind of have to take everything here in this series with a grain of salt, but if you just need an escape into a fantasy world with faries, you're in luck.
This series in particular is a radical retelling of Beauty and The Beast, so it's super compelling and does a complete 180 throughout the several books. It also focuses a lot on the redemption of getting out of an abusive relationship and really confronts a lot of unhealthy troupes in young adult literature when it comes to relationships!
It's a pretty heterosexual heavy series, which is unfortunate that there isn't more queer representation, but if you're into that this is totally for you!
**trigger warning for lots of sex scenes with weird descriptions, abusive relationship themes, and torture, war violence. **
5. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
This is one of my favorites for sure. If you've watched the really popular movie starring Christian Bale and enjoyed that, you'll really appreciate the depth Ellison put into this novel that extends far beyond the film. It's another Existential-esq book that confronts the patriarchy and white/hetero/male power. It's easy to look at this book and think "wtf how could anyone write something as messed up as this," but I think that's a device used to look at how men in power are functioning in the world.
The language in this book is super explicit, with slurs and really violent depictions, so steer clear of this if that's a problem for you!
**trigger warnings for rape, violence, racial/queer slurs, intense sex, depression, suicide, etc.**
And that's all I have for you now! Let me know down below what your reading recs are and if you've read any of these books, feel free to give me your review even if you hated it.
Happy Reading!!!
xoxo caro
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