Literature Books That Challenged/Impacted You?

[mindheist]

[QUOTE="Vices and Virtues]Wiesel is a brilliant writer. Night made me bawl. I had to read it for school last year.

[/QUOTE]
I read it while listening to "Vogel im Kafig" in the background. I cried but it was well worth it

 

[ghostling]

it's YA, and i first read it when i was, maybe 12?? but the chaos walking trilogy by patrick ness has stuck with me since the first reading. the universe & characters grabbed me by the heart & never let go - i devoured the first book, and then although there was a bit of a gap where i wasn't reading much due to,, i guess school or whatever, and waiting for the sequel to come out, once i got hold of the rest of the trilogy i devoured it. i must've been between the ages of 12-14 as i was reading them and i was faced with so much i'd never seen before despite having always been a pretty big reader. a whole new kind of writing, world-building, moral issues i'd never really come up against at that age. i've since re-read the trilogy a couple of times & each time i feel like i love it even more, no matter how much older i get. i also really enjoy seeing how my perspective changes on the issues involved each time i read. like, the first read through as a young teenager, my opinions on the characters and situations were generally pretty black & white.. reading again as an adult there are so many more subtle nuances and grey areas to pick up on. idk !! but i still recommend those books to everyone i possibly can, lol, so. also the first time i read through them, when i finally finished the last book, i cried my way through the entire last chapter & then for a good 10 minutes afterwards. partly from the sheer emotional impact of what was happening, partly just because i adored the books so much i didn't want them to end ;v;


also, the curious incident of the dog in the night time by mark haddon. read it when i was a bit below the target audience. as far as i know it was aimed at adults, and i must've been again about 12 or 13. really i guess eye-opening, read it several times over, became one of my favourites for a while. oh also trainspotting -- but if i get started rambling about that i'll never shut up. and i've definitely rambled enough here already ahhhah

 

[Hellfire]

The most challenging read I have ever had was Moby Dick. I tried reading it in 5th grade, but unfortunately i just couldn't finish it. I got about 3/4 of the way through. That was my most challenging read.


The reading that impacted me the most was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I was very impressed with her way of writing and expressing the creature and how man shoud not defy god. There are some things man should never understand.


I also liked the creature, only wishing for another of his kind to have company with. When he is not given his wish, he decides to makes his creator's life as miserable as his own.


A classical book, and a very good read.

 

[Tronethiel]

house of leaves by mark z. danielewski: for me, it really broadened what literature could do even as a static medium. it also made me realize my love for batshit mind-boggling metafiction. like holy crap. i still get chills thinking about it.
the little prince by antoine de saint exupery: i think this book captures the kind of innocence, wistful nostalgia that people spend their entire lives chasing after once it's gone. it's also one of the two books that've ever made me cry. fucked me up real bad, my dude.


let the great world spin by colum mccann: probably the biggest influence on my writing style. the prose is exquisite and the characters are treated with such a tenderness. i want to write like this.


the road by cormac mccarthy: i fell in love for this hellish, desolate setting when i was in the 7th grade, and it's made a huge impact on my writing, imagery, and even my preferred genres for quite a while. also showed me that less in writing can also be more.

Looks like there are some fun titles in here. I'll definitely be taking a look. I own The Road, but the others seem interesting as well.

 

[ghostling]

holy shit. i love you for mentioning this. i found the first story, Guts, online, read it, felt sick, then immediately bought the whole book the next day. i'm not done with it yet but those short stories are incredible. it's dark, disgusting, challenging, but also hilarious.

holy shit i just read Guts. good fucking lord. think i might just buy it too.

 

[pavelius]

holy shit i just read Guts. good fucking lord. think i might just buy it too.

yessss i love the writing so much. even if i was mortified by what was happening LOL


if you read the reviews on amazon i think it's pretty accurate— the frame story itself is kinda weak but the short stories inbetween are so good. exodus and guts are my favorites

 

[ghostling]

yessss i love the writing so much. even if i was mortified by what was happening LOL
if you read the reviews on amazon i think it's pretty accurate— the frame story itself is kinda weak but the short stories inbetween are so good. exodus and guts are my favorites

same -- i loved the really sick humour hhah it's kind of a rare find. i mean i guess humour about... that... is a pretty niche field. but i'm for sure gonna check it out

 

[Wishfully]

Ruby Holler, by Sharon Creech:
I picked this book up during summer break, during middle school. I'd just gone through intensive surgery, and I was practically under medical house arrest, until I fully healed. I was already an avid reader, at this point, but it was just normal children/youth books. I had never read something that truly made me think outside of my own little shell.


This books follows Dallas and Florida, a set of twins who'd been in and out of foster care, as they are taken on by an older couple and move in to Ruby Holler. I can't exactly pinpoint it, but Creech's writing is phenomenal. She was able to take a child reader on an emotional adventure. I felt so many things.. sad, happy, angry, terrified, and even somewhat disappointed that it had ended so soon. It definitely awakened an understanding in me, that there are children out there who are terrified, or living in fear, of doing just a minuscule thing wrong in fear of getting hurt or reprimanded.


For being a kid when I read it, the book has really stuck with me. I thought back then, "When I get older, I'll foster kids and show them kindness and loving; a place for them to belong." Even to this day, at twenty-five with two kids of my own, I still want to foster later on in life.

OHMYGOSH this book, yesss!


I read it so many times when I was in middle and high school, and I still pick it up and read it every now and then. It has a thrilling sense of fantasy even though it seems set in reality. I agree that the perspective offered is/was unlike anything I had really experienced before in literature, with the seemingly odd pairing of the old couple and the foster kids who caused trouble- not because they were bad kids, but because they couldn't really trust anyone besides themselves. Creech's books that I've read have all bee quite good- I like Heartbeat, Walk Two Moons, and especially The Wanderer.


Someone mentioned The Great Gatbsy, and I have to agree. That and an essay called The Fourth State of Matter had a pretty big effect on me for similar reasons, showing how fragile life can be.


M Butterfly, Gem of the Ocean, and How I Learned To Drive are a few a plays that I enjoyed which made me think about race, sexuality, culture, and gender.


I haven't read The Golden Compass or the His Dark Materials trilogy, but I took a Religion and 20th Century Fantasy Lit class that covered those, Narnia, LOTR, and Harry Potter- looking at those books critically in that class challenged me to think about religion and what I believe.

 

[Karlore]

I'd have to go with a non fiction one, the communist manifesto. It really changed how I view the world. I think the principles of communism by Friedrich Engels is a better intro to Marxism but I read TCM first so I'll have to go with that.


As far as Palahniuk goes I've only read pygmy and dammed, both of which I recommend. They weren't exactly life changing for me but they were fun reads.

 

[Little gasmask]

The book that impacted me was Shadow children: Among the hidden (and also) Among the enemy. The story is that there are so many people on earth that there is not enough food and like in China there is a 2chils policy for the whole world. It is how "Shadow children lived" and how they avoided the population police. I never left a single french fry or a single grain of rice after that book (series there are 7 I think).

 

[Tronethiel]

[QUOTE="Little gasmask]The book that impacted me was Shadow children: Among the hidden (and also) Among the enemy. The story is that there are so many people on earth that there is not enough food and like in China there is a 2chils policy for the whole world. It is how "Shadow children lived" and how they avoided the population police. I never left a single french fry or a single grain of rice after that book (series there are 7 I think).

[/QUOTE]
Boy, does this bring back memories. I think I read the whole series back in the day.

 

[Kestrel]

[QUOTE="Malibu Harpy]Les Miserables changed my life. It's a story kind of like DRRR or Baccano where there are many centric characters and plot lines, but it starts with a man who's been in prison for 19 years for stealing bread. In the very beginning, he's lost and can't find a job in bad economic times. He opts to steal the silver from a bishop who had fed him and given him a place to stay but, as he escapes, he's caught by the police. Then, the bishop tells the police that it was all a gift, gives him even more silver, and tells him to use that silver to become an honest man.
That's the very beginning. It's the birth of the greatest hero in all of literature, imo. He represents honesty and virtue whereas his rival represents blind faith in "the rules". It's genius. The movie was so awful, too...

[/QUOTE]
My school's choirs and musical theater groups preformed it. It was really amazing and impacted my life. I had never heard of it, but it's now one of my favorite stories ever. I was one of the extras i.e. a factory worker in 'End of the Day', a drunk in 'Master of the House', and a woman in 'Turning'.

 

[Tapadero]

The Diary of Anne Frank......and the play.....made me cry

 

[sorrow made you]

First They Killed My Father - this book is read for one of my classes. It's a personal account of a girl living through the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Her and her family were forced to flee their home in Phnom Penh to seek refuge at the Vietnamese border. There were a lot of deaths and terrible things that happened. I don't think there has ever been a book that made me feel so much. It's a good read, but it hurts the heart.


The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down - I also read this for a class. This is kind of like a report a woman made on a Hmong family whose daughter was hospitalized because of an unknown illness. This is also based on a true story and shows the struggles between American doctors and Hmong immigrants in the 1970's. It gives a cultural perspective and shows that doctors don't know everything and immigrants know more than nothing.

 

[Noire Tukino]

Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupréy - I read this book in my French class along with Les Misérables years ago, and man, Les Mis was a hard read in French, as I'd only been four years into studying French. Le Petit Prince though, the loss of innocence felt from this book actually made my cry. I've cried at a couple books, but this one I'll always remember because of just... I don't really even know how to describe.


Medhead: My Knock-down, Drag-out, Drugged-up Battle with My Brain by Hal Friedman and James Patterson - It was a great read, definitely impacted me because I felt like I could relate to some of the battle that this person went through. It frustrated me as a person because when you don't know how to describe what's going on with you, you're stuck. And not just that, but the frustration of trying different drugs to see what works and what doesn't, as someone who's battled PTSD and the effects with it, I was on and off of different medications. I was angered by it, but I was glad to know I wasn't the only one when I read this book.

 

[yaint]

my parents bought me the whole set of a song of ice and fire.


i've been reading game of thrones since june 2015. it's been a year and i haven't finished it. the language is just too complicated for me to comprehend lol

 

[Captifate]

Final Exam is an Asian American memoir and more or less cemented my switch in majors. In it, the author reflects upon her residency up to her work as a surgeon. She provides a lot of background research on historical medical practices with an emphasis on how palliative care used to be valued much more to contextualize things. Essentially, the memoir was about our fear of death and failure; the doctor's struggle with keeping their patient alive or letting them pass in peace. Poor bedside manner is discussed in terms of emotional distancing and how desensitized doctors fail to connect with their patients.


I couldn't put the book down.

 

[LocoMetal]

H.P. Lovecrafts' The Necronomicon changed what I think is a cool and interesting design for creatures. I don't read to begin with but that grabbed me by my collar and dragged me into the tar sea.

 

[Evi]

Some awesome suggestions here I'm going to have to go and find! I also love Flowers for Algernon, what a powerful story.


The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a must read. I think it's genius the way she challenges your perceptions.


I also enjoyed The World According to Garp, by John Irving. It's a strange story, but very well written in a style and voice that really stood out to me. I found the themes explicit and contrary but enjoyed it nonetheless.

 

[Interstellar Bun]

<p><strong>The Book Thief by Markus Zusak</strong> is absolutely a book that impacted me more than I could probably express in a coherent way. It's well written, and more than that it handles multiple touchy subjects with elegance and grace. It's the sort of book you can read multiple times and get something new out of it, catch a different detail that makes you linger.</p>


<p>


<strong>The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien </strong>is also a fabulously written book that made me just stop and think about the meaning of life and death more than what was probably necessary for a high school student as it was assigned reading my senior year. It's also one I've read more than a handful of times and one I recommend to just about everyone I meet.</p>

 

[Tronethiel]

Final Exam is an Asian American memoir and more or less cemented my switch in majors. In it, the author reflects upon her residency up to her work as a surgeon. She provides a lot of background research on historical medical practices with an emphasis on how palliative care used to be valued much more to contextualize things. Essentially, the memoir was about our fear of death and failure; the doctor's struggle with keeping their patient alive or letting them pass in peace. Poor bedside manner is discussed in terms of emotional distancing and how desensitized doctors fail to connect with their patients.
I couldn't put the book down.

A good message. I have experienced the aloofness of doctor's firsthand. It can frequently lead to miscommunication. Money. Money. Money. So it goes.

[QUOTE="Organic Mechanic]H.P. Lovecrafts' The Necronomicon changed what I think is a cool and interesting design for creatures. I don't read to begin with but that grabbed me by my collar and dragged me into the tar sea.

[/QUOTE]
I've read several of his stories. Hopefully I'll get around to reading a few more in the future!

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is absolutely a book that impacted me more than I could probably express in a coherent way. It's well written, and more than that it handles multiple touchy subjects with elegance and grace. It's the sort of book you can read multiple times and get something new out of it, catch a different detail that makes you linger.
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is also a fabulously written book that made me just stop and think about the meaning of life and death more than what was probably necessary for a high school student as it was assigned reading my senior year. It's also one I've read more than a handful of times and one I recommend to just about everyone I meet.

I've heard about both of these and would like to try them out. I think I read an excerpt from the latter in college.

 

[Life.]

A recent novel that has truly widened my eyes to the world's of other countries is The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.


This novel features a coming of age story. With about 300 pages this book nearly goes over the entire life of the protagonist. Never have I felt such a roller coaster of emotions for and against the protagonist. The beginning of the novel caused a feeling of dislike for me towards the protagonist as he made a bad decision but a decision that coursed the whole book. But towards the end my feelings developed along with the protagonist changing from dislike to encouragement. This novel represents how one decision can influence one's and even other's lives. Also having the novel's setting in Afghanistan allows readers of other countries to gain a new perspective of how control and deception played a deep role within the many conflicts that occurred in the country. It also honestly left me feeling a bit helpless to imagine that the events occurring in the book relating to the war actually occurred and that I, myself, simply sat innocently here in the US while suffering occurred in another area of the same planet.


I could go on about this novel but not enough words could describe this gem of a book. For me it was an easy read and nearly teared up at one point of the novel, which rarely happens.

 

[whitefoxkiller]

One book that seriously impacted the way I thought about stuff is called The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. Before I bought it I thought that I was pretty lowly on the scale of, like, worldly experience? I guess? Like, I'd always assume my elders know much more than me and have their shit figured out so I heard about this book and everyone was praising as genius and a picture into the human soul and all that so I was pretty damn excited to read it, and I already had a pretty defined idea about the author. When I actually read it, at first I was still agreeing with the critics but as I read I realized they were FULL of bullshit. Fernando Pessoa wasn't a genius, he was a coward afraid of living his own life, and he looked down at everyone he saw but he was actually just afraid to make connections. Long story short, I learned elders and critics don't always know what they're talking about and I can form my own opinions. yay for oversharing

 

[Imnothere]

I've read so many books but


The Girl who Loved Tom Gorden


Is one that will always be with me. I've read it far too many times to count and just get so engrossed in it everytime.


I'm not sure why it's left such an impact on me but it has. Anyway it's a really good read.

 

[Vannah]

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I saw that someone mentioned it earlier and man... with reason. It is such a gorgeous book and I'm pretty sure my copy is permenantly stained with tears because it gets to you like no other. The narration is flawless and the story is heartbreaking, 10/10.


Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. Now this one is a bit odd, but there is just something about it. I read it at a time in my life where I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going and to be able to connect with characters on such a deep level? It was just a damn beautiful thing. Some of my favorite quotes come from this book because it is written like poetry.


(I could go on forever with this list but I will do one more)


The Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. Weird, I know, but this book series changed my life. Much like Harry Potter (because let's be honest if you've read it, you've been changed by it undoubtedly so I'm not even going to go there) this series turned me into a reader, I grew up with these characters! Percy, Annabeth, and Grover were my Harry/Hermione/Ron! It's just one of those series that defined my childhood and helped shape me as a person. (and fueled my love for greek mythology)