Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel about a group of boys stranded on an unknown island. They elect their leader and are forced to create a new society without any parental guidance, which turns out to be a complete failure. Bumps in society lead to violence and lots of drama; kids mysteriously disappear or perish. The kids are stuck with finding a way to escape the island, with no help but each other.
Compound Fracture follows our main character, Miles Abernathy, as he dives deep into the rotten history of his West Virginia mining town, and how it ties with his family. When a ghost shows up, Miles takes on the task of trying to break free from the wicked blood cycle of the town– but at what cost? This is truly a different work from Andrew Joseph White, wholly unique in premise (as always), but fundamentally different from his other books.
Teen Hazel Grace Lancaster has cancer. Having to constantly live, imagining that she might not wake up the next morning, is hard. Nevertheless, she tries her hardest to have as typical of a life as she possibly can. While at a cancer support group, Hazel Grace meets Augustus Waters who has his own troubles… and it’s love at first sight. This book follows their romance and their humanity.
Film student Steve Harmon is on trial for murder. He claims he didn’t do it, but does the jury believe that? Monster narrates his experiences as an African American seventeen-year-old from Harlem in the judicial system, and the apparent biases/stereotyping from his jurors. How does it all end? Find out!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Love and Gelato, written by Jenna Evan Welch follows Carolina (nicknamed Lina), a young girl who loses her mother to pancreatic cancer. Upon her death, her mother sends her to Florence, Italy to live with her supposed “father”, Howard. When she arrives, she is unpleasantly surprised to learn that she will now live in a graveyard. With everything seemingly going wrong, she plans to run away until she finds a journal her mother left behind that changes everything.
