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People who grow up avid bookworms have a singular experience of a complex inner world being formed alongside the weird, obscure, random things they read and internalize. When you devour hundreds of books a year as a kid and teenager you end up reading what’s popular or trending at the time, you read stuff way above the age rating you should be reading, and you read the obscure shit you find in your school or local library that you can’t remember the title of or even if you can, is out of print now. These texts become the foundation to your adolescent coming of age, they shape and play through your head during pivotal moments and they become benchmarks against which you measure the life you then get to live for yourself. Here are some of mine and what they say about me. What are the foundational texts to YOUR life?

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Stories about women who are free spirits while having spines of steel have always resonated with me. Reading about the African American experience through Janey’s eyes and in Hurston’s words filled me with empathy and made me think of my own parents’ experience growing up as refugees from Palestine under tyrannical dictatorship in Syria. The language is evocative and deeply emotional and immersive.

Kitty the Werewolf

Like all sci-fi, the real discussion being had here is “what makes us human/people”. Hidden within the unassuming tacky cover and punny title is a melancholy, tender story of Kitty discovering her own humanity as a werewolf. Surprisingly mature and very genuine.

The Time Traveler’s Wife

Uhh so there are criticisms of problematic elements of this book and they are totally valid. That being said, this book blew my mind when I read it. Tender, intense, exciting, sexy, and tragic. This book explores the convoluted life of Henry, who is jerked around through time due to a genetic anomaly. Weaving an exploration of what time means in the story of our lives along with an epic romance, both the concepts, relationships, and writing styles explored are extremely interesting and made a lasting impact on me. A few of these scenes still run through my mind at random times (“What strange ideas you have! I don’t do this with boys.”) and I’ve picked it up countless times to reread a certain scene and ended up reading till the end.

Feeling Sorry for Celia

This book had me giggling and laughing to myself as I read. I don’t know if others would find it as uproariously hilarious as I did? If you have read it or read it off my recommendation PLEASE tell me if you laughed out loud. Written entirely through letters between pen pals, post it notes left on the fridge between mother and daughter, and the various other writing opportunities we get in life, this book managed to charm me with it’s frank and matter of fact observations about life, mixed in with the absolute ridiculousness of the teenage.

A Man for All Seasons

I first read this play in grade 12 in AP English with Ms. Cross. (BEST TEACHER EVER BTW) It had a huge impact on me then as I thought about my own morals and the internal drive behind them. It cycled through my mind again in an ethics philosophy course in university when I was confronted by the realization that so many of my classmates considered doing whatever would benefit them (at the cost of others) as justifiable.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Another sci-fi exploration of what makes us people!! The writing style and format of this one, poetry on one page and a narrative text on the other, make it really emotionally charged. As you and Jenna unveil together the insidious secrets at the edges of her world, you also dive into Jenna’s internal emotional world. The reveal that happens in the book makes that even more poignant, for if poetry is not a sign of humanity, what is?

That Is All: the Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn

This book being written by a man is crazy????????????????? WHO TOLD HIM???? WHO TOLD HIM WHAT TEENAGE GIRLS THINK????? 1) I read this book when I was too young. 2) Finished it at a party and ended up crying in a corner. 3) reread it this year and was IN A KERFUFFLE. Cordelia’s thought process and rumination on her life, art, emotion, sexuality, growing womanhood, echoes so much of my own. It’s not always “politically correct” or in linev with feminist conceptions of gender and sexuality, but to me personally so much resonated. Again, Aiden Chambers, who is telling you this stuff?

Rules of the Road

Again, another one I’m not sure anybody else would find quite as funny as I did. Tender, emotional, hilarious. A frank and funny look at complicated life. Jenna Boller works in a shoe store, and undertakes a road trip to a company meeting with the grandma CEO. Along the way she discovers self confidence, rehashes family drama, and gains a friend. I laughed out lout and cried real tears while reading this.

Hawksong

Oof, this book is a sucker punch of weird sensuality. Maybe it says a lot about me that books written by 16 year old authors about weird hawk and snake people was part of my sexual awakening? The scene with the snake dancer still runs through my mind sometimes LMAO. Amelia Atwater Rhodes, you’re an icon ma’am.

The Golden Book of Faerie

This omnibus started my obsession with Irish faerie lore and stories. I love these characters and their stories, and I lugged around this giant volume multiple times as I checked it out from the library again and again to reread. The finishing book in the series being set around a Canadian immigrant who goes on a very Canadian adventure including Indigenous lore and Quebecoi rower ghosts is a cherry on top as a refugee to Canada. Some of the lessons from this series and that final novel in particular are still a part of my life philosophy. If I’ve ever reassured you that life is like a spiral that revisits the same issues again and again but hopefully with more perspective and tools, this is the novel that first planted that thought for me.

Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie

I reread this book like 50 times. Self destructive hot girls will love this book. Arguably Maggie Stiefvater’s best book. How did Maggie write all the poetry in this book? Nuala represents so much of what is self destructive and lonely and looking for its place in all of us. Watching her bloom in vulnerability is beautiful.

Daughter of the Blood

Oooh boy. Dark sensual fantasy, hard topics, interesting lore and world building. This book/series has a very particular flavour and is unmatched at what it does. The characters are dynamic and captivating, and richly drawn. People don’t write sexy shit anymore, but this series? Dripping. Anne Bishop wields her pen with precision and a wicked edge.

Vorkosigan

Saga

The Vorkosigan saga is a really interesting subversion of the sci-fi hero! Miles, our main character, is physically handicapped. He takes us along with him as he learns about his world, navigates complex political situations, and defines for himself what personhood and humanity mean.

Blood and Chocolate

A classic, obviously. Blood and Chocolate connects with the teenage/new adult angst within us, is a really good human look at life on the margins, and fanaticism. It felt so believable to me through every page, and I was drawn in. I was in Vivian’s skin with her, feeling her smart at the too small border she was given and scratching against the restraints. I felt the temptation of the danger she flirted with, even though I did absolutely hate her nerdy human love interest from his first moment on page.

Lilith’s Brood

Octavia E. Butler is an icon in the sci-fi genre. When people refute sci-fi as “white people” shit or deride it for only speaking about racism and sexism in metaphor I want to scream to them “PLEASE READ OCTAVIA E BUTLER!!”. Before I ever learned about the social construct of gender and the biological range of sex in my Women’s and Gender Studies degree, I learned about them from Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago collected under the omnibus Lilith’s Brood. These books are a masterful exploration of what our society now is built on and a dream of possibility. When I think of what alien life forms and civilizations might be like I internally reference E. Butler.

Please share with us what YOUR weird niche reads are and what informed your worldview growing up! Have you ready any of mine?

Baetoul’s Foundational Reads