Ananda

Books you should read, A to Z.

A is for Allison Hewitt is Trapped, my favorite teen zombie novel.

B is for The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. Alan Watts‘ essays are the reason I question the nature of reality.

C is for Chicken Soup for the Soul. The editions for teenagers are full of wonderful and heartwarming stories.

D is for The Moth Diaries. There is something mysterious about this novel that places it on my favorite list.

E is for Eat, Pray, Love. Elizabeth Gilbert has written the only hetero/cis love story that I can actually abide.

F is for A Little F’d Up, a beginner’s guide to feminism.

G is for My New Gender Workbook this book brought me to question my identity and confirm it all in the same sitting.

H is for Harry Potter and the…, seriously how have you not read all of the Harry Potter books?

I is for It’s Kind of a Funny Story. When I first realized i was mentally ill, Ned Vizzini’s 2006 novel made me feel accepted and understood.

J is for Jane Eyre, we all need a classic.

K is for The Impossible Knife of Memory, Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel tells an important story with very realistic characters.

L is for Looking for Alaska, because even though I‘m not always here for John Green, I still enjoyed this book.

M is Mister God, This Is Anna. I’ve read this book three times and each time I learn something new and take something different away with me.

O is for The Outsiders, a book we were made to read at school but that I will remember forever.

P is for The Perks of Being a Wallflower, because I felt a connection to the protagonist Charlie.

R is for The Rookie Yearbooks—all of them…Do I really need to explain why?

S is for Speak, another novel by Laurie Halse Anderson telling a story that it was important for me to read.

T is for The Christmas Mystery, a Norwegian novel by Jostein Gaarder. It is my childhood in a nutshell.

V is for The Vagina Monologues. I haven’t read Eve Ensler’s Obie Award-winning play yet, but I intend to!

W is for Thirteen Reasons Why we all feel hopeless at times; Jay Asher’s book helps me move past that feeling and see people for who they are.

Z is for Z for Zachariah by Robert O’Brien. Identifying with a character who exists at the end of the world is strange but still, there it is.

I know what you’re thinking, Ananda, where’s N, Q, U, X, and Y?

Well, I’m not perfect, OK? I can’t think of everything. ♦