So I stumbled across this beauty of a tag HERE, on bookishthingsandtea. It’s a weekly post that covers topics posted in the Top 5 Wednesday group on Goodreads.com. I’m really excited to pick this up as one of my continuous posts here on bookbindngs. I love the different topics and I think it will be great for covering more content! So without further ado…
This week’s topic is “future classic books”. The classics we read today in both high school and college level classes are representations of the society in which they were written. We read them to understand different cultures. Reading classical literature also helps develop critical thinking skills, and teaches empathy. And I don’t think classical literature in the future will be any different!
This topic was difficult, I have to admit. But I focused mainly on the symbolism and significance of the works you find in the “classical” category and tried to emulate them with modern works I’ve read recently.
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
This story blew me away. What was originally an impulse buy because I loved the cover turned out to be a masterpiece I actually grew quite attached to. It focuses on love and loss, and the separation of “different” people from the rest of society. The prose is beautiful and the characters are whimsical and lovely in a way I’ve never seen in other books I’ve read. This book is so underrated, too. I don’t see it get a lot of love and attention on social media, and I wish I could force feed it to the entire world.
The Hate U Give
Alright, so this one is a given without much explanation. To be completely honest, I haven’t even read this book yet. It’s on my purchase list and will soon be alllllll mine. But in the meantime, I’ve heard so much love and support behind this book that I can’t help but love it already. This book has united readers against publishing companies and brought an incredible amount of attention to the black lives matter movement and the lack of representation in YA lit. I can see The Hate U Give easily becoming the future To Kill a Mockingbird.
Tell The Wolves I’m Home
Admittedly, this isn’t a YA book. Though I’m not sure this tag has to center around YA, so I’m doing it anyway and you can’t stop me. This was another powerful read for me. It was another impulse cover buy. And it was another heart-breaker. Tell The Wolves I’m Home covers some taboo topics, like mental illness and the HIV/AIDS epidemic, as well as more familiar topics like love, loss, family, and friendship. Overall, it was incredible.
A Monster Calls
I knew I wanted to include something by Patrick Ness on this list, but I couldn’t decide which of his great works would fit perfectly into this category. A Monster Calls is all about loss, symbolism, and overcoming fears. It’s sad. And also very, very beautiful. I picked this up over a year and a half ago in an airport in LA while I waited for my flight, and proceeded to read the entire thing right there. Needless to say, I was a wreck in the terminal. But it was so, so worth it.
Twilight
Alright. So I feel like a lot of people are going to see this one and go… what? DON’T QUESTION ME QUITE YET, FOLKS. So this book is near and dear to my heart for a lot of reasons, but mainly because at 11 years old (ten years ago, OMG) this was the first series that truly made me adore reading. Not only that, but Twilight fanfiction was the first thing I ever wrote. But these aren’t the reasons I think Twilight will be a future classic. Many of the books we consider classics today are considered that because of their popularity when they were originally published. Authors like Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters didn’t necessarily write their novels intending them to be worldly, sophisticated classics. They were written to entertain. And Twilight did that for years. And still does.
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