These three titles guaranteed to inspire

“Everything, Everything” by Nicola Yoon

If you’re looking for a fairly fast read and an entrancing story with a protagonist with an interesting mindset, “Everything, Everything” by Nicola Yoon is the book for you. Although the plotline sounds a bit like something you might’ve heard before, this book, personally, had me wanting to read more than I usually do because I just wanted to keep reading to find out what happens next.

The main character, Madeline, is a girl who has been housebound for almost all of her life due to an illness that she has that makes her allergic to almost everything. Her sickness restricts her from the world, but that all changes when a boy moves in next door and catches her attention.

And before you stop and think, “The Fault in Our Stars” with the sick girl and teenage romance, know now that although both are involved in this book, there is still so much more. In fact, the romance Madeline shares with the boy named Olly is just one of the factors to everything that happens in the book. “Everything, Everything” is full of risks, and even though it’s not a “keep you at the edge of your seat” story, it is a make you want to keep reading kind of book.

“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie

If you’re looking for something that is full of facing your fears and overcoming them, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” is a good place to start. It’s a banned book, due to the language and mature content featured in it, but that just adds to the greatness of the book.

The story is told by Arnold “Junior” Spirit, who is a Native American boy who is deemed as weak because of his many health issues. He lives on a reservation, but it is full of bad lifestyles; the people there gamble until they’re broke, many drink until they die and the people will fight anybody.

Because of those reasons, Junior decides to “leave” the reservation and enroll in a school off the “rez” that’s mainly attended by white people, and because he is in pursuit of better opportunities than he could get on the reservation, this leads to conflicts between him and the people on the rez, which forces him to face his fears and become a stronger person than what many people expected him to be.

This book sheds a light on the struggles Native Americans face, the life on the reservation and the strength it takes to overcome what everyone tells you is impossible.

“Stolen” by Lucy Christopher

If you’re looking for a book with a bit of thrill, suspense and romance, then “Stolen” is a book that will give you just that. It will also make you confused with your own feelings toward the characters, which is precisely what it did to me.

The best part about this book is that it cuts right to the chase; immediately, you’re brought to the plotline, which is that a girl named Gemma, is kidnapped by a man named Ty. But although it’s doesn’t have a slow start, it also isn’t rushed or overdone in any way.

The story of Gemma’s kidnapping is told by her and is written as a letter from her to Ty. He takes her to a place in the middle of nowhere and tries to build a relationship with her to make her love him. The interaction during the kidnapping between Gemma and Ty is just like any other kidnapping book, but Ty’s motives for kidnapping her and the story that unfolds after the kidnapping is what makes this story so much more different.

Reading this book made me question my thoughts and my feelings, and it is most likely going to do the same to you. And whether you like it or not, the books that make you think hard and question some of the things you believe in are almost always the best.