Favorite Books

1. Fiction: Ok, we already know my favorite book of all time is Ender's Game, so I'll pick a different book. Carrie by Stephen King. It was the first Stephen King novel I read and it led me to read only Stephen King for a period in middle school. Except for Nightmares and Dreamscapes, which I kept under my bed because it scared me so badly. It was easy to (sort of) connect with a character that gets picked on and mistreated, who falls for a boy she could never have, etc. And then she turns all evil and gets sweet revenge.



2. Nonfiction: I like memoirs a lot, so this one is tough. So I'm gonna stick with the last memoir that I read that really struck me: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Thoroughly depressing from an adult standpoint, but an excellent portrait of resilience in children. Also it's not an overly "woe-is-me" memoir, as Walls points out the things that were good and happy despite the hard times her family was constantly entrenched in.


3. Autobiography: Errr....I hate autobiographies. But I do have Mark Twain's on my to-read list. Only because he's brilliant and witty.

4. My choice: So a couple of weekends ago I went frantic because I couldn't find these books I used to read in middle school. And gloriously, they were found (in a random box, in a random room) and out of nostalgia I've started reading them again. Before there was Twilight and Stephenie Meyer, there was The Last Vampire by Christopher Pike (6 books) and Secret Circle (3 books) and Night World (9 books) by L.J. Smith. Vampires! Witches! Werewolves! Soulmates! Smith's work tended to be more chaste, while Pike's series dealt with more heavy duty stuff as in AIDS and sex. So yeah, I didn't pick a single book for this option, but each of these books are short enough for several to be read in a single day.

7 comments:

Hazel Designs said...

Ohh, Stephen King! Good one! I've never read "Carrie", but the most memorable King book I read was "It". I read it during a long plane flight and it scared the beejezus out of me - I remember thinking I was glad I was surrounded by people.

I *think* I've read Christopher Pike (his name sounds so familiar) but I can't remember what.

jenifer said...
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Alissa said...

I never read It. My childhood bedroom's theme was clowns. I didn't want to make it any worse.
Pike wrote soooo much, so you just might have.

Hobbs Adventure said...

I *loved* The Secret Circle. A coven of teenage witches in a sleepy New England town? Sold!

Also, revisted another LJ Smith series recently - The Vampire Diaries - which is like Twilight but with less likable characters.

Alissa said...

I also have the Vampire Diaries, and I distinctly remember not liking the story as much as her other works.

Hazel Designs said...

Hmm, Vampire Diaries? I may have to pick this up! But will I feel like I'm betraying the Cullens??

Alissa said...

I have the books somewhere, I think. I can probs dig them up for you to borrow.