Starr Carter, the protagonist of The Hate U Give just wanted to live a normal life free from any huge troubles. However, her dreams of normalcy are shattered when she witnesses the shooting death of a childhood friend. Starr is torn between speaking out and keeping it to herself, but as challenges in her community grow, Starr realizes sometimes, you have to be brave to cause change.
Black Sun, by Rebecca Roanhorse, is a high-stakes fantasy epic inspired by a solar eclipse. With interesting and rich worldbuilding, Roanhorse makes a darker and more adult take on the classic hero’s journey story, turning it on its head, as the main character is really more of a villain, a cultist hoping to usher in an age of darkness for a crow god. If you like fantasy, high stakes, magic, and a sprinkling of adult themes, this book is for you.
The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead, is a book about justice. The main character, Elwood, is a teenage boy who believes in the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. and is sent to reform school for a crime he had nothing to do with. He resists his oppressors time and again to rise above the constraints placed in him by society. Elwood’s reform school, the Nickel Academy, is inspired by the real reform camps of the segregation era and the horrors that would go on in those schools.
Power Play, by Joseph Finder, is a book full of a very specific charm. The strong male protagonist uses his ingenuity, wit, and determination to save the day and rescue the damsel and takes the reader for an engaging and suspenseful ride along the way. The story explores social politics and dynamics in the business world, as well as what bigwigs do when the lives they play with suddenly get a little too close to their own.
Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer, is a stylistically incredible story of survival. The novel follows a Biologist, thrown into an anomalous environment that seems to have a mind of its own. She is set to discover the source of the anomaly along with several other specialists with dubious motives. With a rich exploration of the Biologist’s mind, an environment that falls perfectly into the uncanny valley, and undercurrents of mystery, distrust, and unreliability, VanderMeer creates an incredible and engaging story.
Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, is a classic work of literature almost as well-known as Shakespeare’s other great work Romeo and Juliet. While many have heard of it, fewer know its true depth. Known as Shakespeare’s masterpiece, Hamlet is a complex play about revenge, madness, and love that causes the reader to question what they would do in the characters’ circumstances.
Who Was Mother Teresa? tells the story of a kind woman known for helping poor, sick, and homeless people. She was born in Albania and became a nun. Later, she moved to India, where she saw many people who needed help and decided to take care of them. She started a group called the Missionariesof Charity to help people in many different places. Even when things were hard, she didn’t give up.
Don’t Let the Forest In is a mind-twisty horror/dark academia story about a boy named Andrew and his best friend Thomas. The summer break has just ended, but not everything is normal when the two come back to their boarding school. Thomas won’t tell Andrew anything about Thomas’s missing parents, or the blood that was on his sleeve, and Andrew’s sister, Dove, won’t talk to him like they used to. So ensues a magical world of what happens when the monsters from our stories wake up, and how we can fight them.
Catching Fire is an amazing second book in The Hunger Games series. It shows Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark’s victory tour and their struggles with being a “fake couple” for the media. It shows them returning to their homes in District Twelve. Katniss later has a forced meeting with President Snow. He says he doesn’t like the trick she pulled with the berries to show her defiance from the Capitol, and it’s starting an uprising.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is a thrilling dystopian novel about a sixteen-year-old girl named Katniss Everdeen and her journey to survive the Hunger Games. Katniss lives in the broken, North American country of Panem, which comprises twelve districts and one Capitol. Each district produces a different good, such as coal or fish. These goods are later sent to the Capitol for them to have, and the districts are left with barely any food or money for themselves.
