-posted by Micah K.
These books have diverted me from my ever looming future. Maybe you’ll find some solace in them, too?
1. Wet Dog by Sophie Gamand
Need a pick me up? I can’t imagine a better way to shake off ennui than looking through this beautiful coffee table book full of dogs fresh out of the tub.
2. Ms. Marvel: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson
A comic book starring a Pakistani American teenage girl? Heck yes. Kamala Khan gains superpowers when she’s 16, but who is to say there isn’t still hope for you?
3. Wool by Hugh Howey
I know being an adult is scary, but at least we aren’t living in an underground silo because humans have made the planet toxic and unable to sustain life. (Yet…)
4. A Safe Girl to Love by Casey Plett
This collection of short stories feature young transgender women (and a talking cat) living through the sticky parts of life: romance, sex, addiction, family, and hunger. Plett’s characters will woo you and distract you from your own mundane niceties with their own.
5. Fledgling by Octavia Butler
In Octavia Butler’s final novel, the main character, Shori, wakes up one day and is unable to remember much of her life. She soon discovers she’s a vampire being hunted by her own people. Talk about a quarter-life crisis…
6. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The year is 2044, and protagonist Wade Watts not only has to navigate the crumbling world around him, but also the immersive virtual reality where he attends school, works, and hunts for clues to win the fortune left behind by the virtual reality’s creator.
7. Octavia’s Brood edited by adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha
Fall in love with this collection of short stories written by social justice activists about the worlds they have envisioned–free from oppression and full of love.
8. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.
If you haven’t read this book yet, do it. I can’t imagine a better way to escape from the malaise of being a twenty-something than reading about the connection between two teenagers, Hazel and Augustus, who meet at a support group for youth battling cancer.
9. Partials by Dan Wells
The human species has almost become extinct in 2076 after a war with genetically engineered super soldiers and their release of a weaponized virus. Kira, a 16 year old medic-in-training, is determined to find a cure to the virus that continues to kill all infants hours after they are born.
10. Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
There is more than meets the eye at this bookstore. The customers are few and far between, and as far as Clay Jannon, the new bookstore clerk, can tell the odd customers that do come in only borrow books. Curious, he digs deeper to figure out what the customers are searching for.
Shelf Talk 