Must-Read Books

"Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they'll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back." - John Green

To all book lovers, bookworms out there, I'll be listing down Must-Read Books starting this year, but I'll just post at least 10 books once a month. Here's my first blog post for Must-Read Books:





1. Rosalie Lightning: A Graphic Memoir by Tom Hart

An honest, heartbreaking read in which the love of a father comes shining through. Using the form of a graphic novel, Hart tells the story of his daughter’s death, and his wife’s grief. The illustrations will hit you at the gist and it describes his journey to find comfort in nature, philosophy, and art is nothing short of splendid.

2. Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

Due to her condition, 18-year-old Madelline Whittier is allergic to the world. Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID), also known as "bubbly baby disease" made her not leave her house in Los Angeles since she was a baby. The only people she ever see are her parents. But one day, a moving truck arrives next door. She looks out her window and sees a tall, lean and wearing all black guy named Ollie. He catches her looking at her and stares at her. She falls in love with Ollie and is willing to risk everything just to be with him.

3. Hold Tight, Don't Let Go by Laura Rose Wagner

Survivors of the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, two teenage cousins raised as sisters, Magdalie and Nadine must protect themselves in the aftermath of the quake after losing the woman who raised them. The girls are inseparable, making the best of their new circumstances in a refugee camp until Nadine, whose father lives in Miami, wants her to go with him - alone. Nadine makes a promise she cannot keep: to bring Magdalie to Miami with her. Magdalie tries to reunite with Nadine until she realizes her life is in Haiti and that she must embrace its chances for love, friendship and a future.This teaches her to find strength to survive in a chaotic and dangerous new world.

4. Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead

Bridge who loves to wear cat's ears is an accident survivor who's wondering why she's still alive. Emily has new curves and an almost-boyfriend who wants a certain kind of picture. Tabitha sees through everybody's games—or so she tells the world. The three girls are best friends with one rule: No fighting. But on their seventh grade, everything changes, Bridge's story intersects with that of both a new friend and a mysterious teenager, who is dealing with a betrayal.

5. Kissing Ted Callahan (and Other Guys) by Amy Spalding

Sixteen-year-old Riley makes a pact with her friend, Reid to add some romance to their lives and document the whole thing in a secret notebook.

While Reid struggles to adopt a new dog to win over someone's heart, Riley tries to make progress with a guys she's been obsessed with forever - Ted Callahan. But suddenly cute guys are popping up everywhere. With their love lives going from 0 to 100, Riley and Reid realize the results of their pact may be more than they bargained for.

6. The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork

Vicky Cruz who always tries to kill herself wakes up on a cold bed in the Lakeview Hospital Mental Disorder ward. Her failed attempt of suicide pushes her to reconsider her life. She sparks newfound friendships that accept her and makes her happy for the first time ever.

But a crisis forces her and her new-found friends to split up - sending her back to the life that drove her to suicide.

The Memory of Light is inspired in part by the author's own experience with depression. It focuses about living when life doesn't seem worth it, and how we go on anyway.

7. Extraordinary Means by Robyn Scheider

John Green's The Fault in Our Stars meets Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park in this darkly funny story. Two teens with a deadly disease fall in love on the verge of a cure.

Latham House, a sanatorium for teens suffering from an incurable strain of tuberculosis is where overachieving Lane finds himself. There, Lane meets a girl he knew years ago named Sadie. She's saracastic, utterly compelling and fearless.

Her friends, a circle of bizzare troublemakers, fascinate Lane, who has never stepped out from his comfort zone his whole life. As he becomes one of them, Sadie shows him their secrets. Lane and Sadie begin to fall in love but they begin to fall sicker, their petty world threatens to come crashing down.

8. Bookishly Ever After by Isabel Bandeira

If the sixteen-year-old Phoebe Martin's life would be a book, it would preferably be a YA Novel with a magic and hot paranormal love interest. Unfortunately, her life isn't a book
But when she finds out that Dev, the hottest guys in the Clarinet Section has a thing for her, she turns to her favorite novels for advice - changing herself to become as amazing as her favorite heroines to win Dev's heart and keep him forever. But if her perfectly planned scheme fails, can she go back to her happy world of fictional boys? Or will she forget herself after falling in love with the real thing?

9. Starflight by Melissa Landers
              

Fresh out of an orphanage, Solara Brooks is craving for life in the outer realm - lawless, dirty and difficult. Solara is hungry for the world beyond her world. A world who cares less for the grime under her fingernails or the tattoos she has on her knuckles. She's so desperate for freedom that she's willing to indenture herself to Doran Spaulding, Mr. Rich and Popular quarterback who has given her nothing but misery all throughout high school, in exchange for a ride on the spaceliner Zenith—her key to freedom.

10. 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad

Lizzie has never like the way she looks - even though her friends say she's pretty. She starts dating guys online, but backs out when they start asking about what she looks like - believing that no one ants to date her  if they could see her because she is fat.

So decided to lose weight. She starts pushing herself to the extremes to lose weight - counting calories consumed and pounds lost. But no matter how much weigh she loses, will she ever see anything more than an insecure fat girl?

 Mona Awad, defines the true value of inner beauty and skewers the society's obsession with body image.

PS: If you have suggestions, feel free to comment below. :)