If you are reading this (willingly), you probably like to read. Although I don’t exactly consider myself to be an avid reader, I’ve been a fan of reading for around a third of my life. So, I decided to recommend some books that I really like to have read.

NOTE: all the following books are fiction.

Book 1: Ender’s Shadow – (Science Fiction)

This book, in my opinion, is quite special. The author, Orson Scott Card, describes it as a parallel novel. It’s parallel because it tells a story as it is, in a different perspective. If that doesn’t make sense, basically he wrote a book called Ender’s Game and wrote it again with a different protagonist. I don’t know about you, but to me it sounds very cool.

Anyway, now to the actual plot. In this book, the main character is a 4 year old boy named Bean. He is extremely intelligent, yet at the start of the reading, he isn’t on the brink of starvation, he is starving. He was raised in a place called Rotterdam. As the name suggests, it isn’t a very nice place to live. There isn’t much else I can say without spoiling most of the book, but basically it’s a book about kids fighting space aliens to prevent the destruction of earth. 

Here’s an excerpt. “He was still looking around with intelligence. None of that stupor of the walking dead, no longer searching for food or even caring to find a comfortable place to lie while breathing their last taste of the stinking air of Rotterdam. After all, death would not be such a change for them. Everyone knew that Rotterdam was, if not the capital, then the main seaport of Hell. The only difference between Rotterdam and death was that with Rotterdam, the damnation wasn’t eternal.

This little boy — what was he doing? Not looking for food. He wasn’t eyeing the pedestrians. Which was just as well — there was no chance that anyone would leave anything for a child that small. Anything he might get would be taken away by any other child, so why should he bother? If he wanted to survive, he should be following older scavengers and licking food wrappers behind them, getting the last sheen of sugar or dusting of flour clinging to the packaging, whatever the first comer hadn’t licked off. There was nothing for this child out here on the street, not unless he got taken in by a crew, and Poke wouldn’t have him. He’d be nothing but a drain, and her kids were already having a hard enough time without adding another useless mouth.”

If you are curious, here is a link to the first chapter of the book. https://www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm/book_number/500/page_number/1/enders-shadow#excerpt

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Book 2: Asylum – Horror Fiction (Warning: this books contains images of asylums. The images may include blood and other. Nothing too graphic though. The book itself isn’t very scary, but that’s just me.)

If you like to read horror, but don’t want to lose sleep due to fear? Then I think this book might be for you. 

Asylum is a book centered around a teenage boy named Daniel Crawford. He wanted to study history over the summer in a place called New Hampshire College Prep, However, the school used to be an asylum called Brookline. During his time there, him and his friends explore the asylum and figure out the history of some of its patients, the warden, and the secrets Brookline has buried deep inside. 

Here’s an excerpt. “Dan felt like he was going to be sick.

The narrow, gravelly road had been jostling his cab for at least five miles now, and that was on top of his first-day jitters. His driver kept cursing about dents and flat tires. Dan just hoped he wouldn’t be expected to pay for any damage—the trip from the airpor

t was already expensive enough.

Although it was early afternoon, the light outside was dim thanks to the dense forest on either side of the road. It would be easy to get lost in those woods, Dan thought.

“Still alive back there?”

“What? Yeah, I’m fine,” Dan said, realizing he hadn’t spoken since he’d gotten in the car. “Just ready for some even ground is all.”

Finally, the cab came to a break in the trees and everything turned dappled and silvery green in the summer sunshine.

There it was: New Hampshire College. The place Dan would be spending the next five weeks.

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Book 3: Escape from the Asylum (Horror/Mystery)

This book probably seems very similar to the book I just wrote about. That’s because it’s made by the same author, and is part of the same series. However, I put on this list because it’s a prequel to the Asylum series, and it could be read as a standalone novel. (But honestly, I don’t suggest it. Without reading Asylum it’ll be a little confusing.)

The book takes take in the same school as Daniel Crawford went to, but at the time, it wasn’t the school yet. It was when the building was the asylum. The main character in this book is Ricky Desmond. He is a patient who had been wrongly admitted into the place because of his parents. The warden took a special interest in Ricky, wanting not to “cure” hi

m, but to perfect him. With the help of a nurse and a fellow patient, Ricky realizes he needs to escape the asylum quickly.

Here’s an excerpt. “‘I need to see my parents,” he repeatedly calmly. It was hard to sound anything but terrified when he was being hauled into a cell in a place he didn’t know. A cell in an asylum. “Please, just let me talk to them. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I think I really can make them understand.”

“That’s all over now,” the orderly said. “Now we’re going to take care of you. Your parents will come get you when you’re feeling better.”

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Book 4: The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle (fiction)

If you have read Percy Jackson, then I’m sure you’ve hear of this book. The book, as the title suggest, is about Apollo. Apollo is the God of the sun, poetry, music, and is pretty good at a bow an arrow. However, as punishment, he got turned into a mortal because of Zeus. In order to become a God again, he must collect 5 oracles. 

Here’s an excerpt. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Thought I saw them again.”

“Them?” I followed her gaze but saw nothing unusual. “The thugs from the alley?”

“No. Couple of . . .” She waggled her fingers. “Shiny blobs. Saw them back on Park Avenue.” My pulse increased from an andante tempo to a lively allegretto. “Shiny blobs? Why didn’t you say anything?”

She tapped the temples of her glasses. “I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff. Told you that. Mostly, things don’t bother me, but . . .”

“But if they are following us,” I said, “that would be bad.”

I scanned the street again. I saw nothing amiss, but I didn’t doubt Meg had seen shiny blobs. Many spirits could appear that way. My own father, Zeus, once took the form of a shiny blob to woo a mortal woman. (Why the mortal woman found that attractive, I have no idea.)

“We should get inside,” I said. “Percy Jackson will help us.”