Emil H.

Jury's still out on whether or not Jonathan Safran Foer's experimentation and sentimentality really work for this story or not, but I loved this as a teenager, and it was the first time a novel really taught me about how to use form to tell a story in a more interesting way.

Another classic you just can't go wrong with. Strong characters as expected, an epic scope that actually begins to feel more involving the longer you read, and a plot twist that made my jaw drop as if I was watching it on the big screen.

Scared the living hell out of me. My first-ever dream job was to become a horror writer, and this totally took me to school.

A Series of Unfortunate Events is a little hit or miss with its quirkiness for a while, but by the time you get to number 12 out of 13, you begin to realize that you crossed the line into seriously messed up territory a while back. Real tragedy and a sense of loss I really struggled to come to terms with as a kid; rare to be able to say that about most YA fiction, honestly.

This book did NOT have to go so hard in middle school. Just great young adult fiction with real characters who feel cut directly from reality, and such a fascinating world that has something real to say about how we treat kids, especially those belonging to minority communities whom we think of as delinquent.