Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Wish I Could Read Again For the First Time

Top Ten Tuesday is a series hosted on That Artsy Reader Girl! This week, we’re beating on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past…

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1. Dark Star by Bethany Frenette

For whatever reason, superhero fiction in the YA realm (unless it’s from an existing property or a wildly popular author) tends to get lost to time. Dark Star and its sequels are a tragic case study. When I picked it up in 2015, I fell headfirst into its unique mythos, charming romance, and community-heavy take on having––and sharing––magical powers. I wish I could revisit it with fresh eyes, if only because superhero stories that strike my fancy are so rare that I’m starved for them (Marissa Meyer’s delightful Renegades notwithstanding).

2. Matched by Ally Condie

The era of dystopians yielded many favorites for me, but there is much I owe in particular to Matched, a lyrical take on the genre that taught me the value of contrasts: poetic prose against a stark and oppressive setting, a distinctly literary sensibility against a category with fast-paced, eventful expectations. It’s striking how much of this approach ended up in my own writing, and I want nothing more than to rediscover it afresh, and feel eerily known by the way it’s already shaped me.

3. The Vanishing Season by Jodi Lynn Anderson

This is a pick I make because, regrettably, I worry an actual reread might degrade my opinion. The risky ending is wistful and cathartic when it comes as a surprise, but I’m nervous that reading it with foresight will sap it of its narrative power. Paranoid? Perhaps, but there’s real credence to the “right book, right time” phenomenon, and, occasionally, it just so happens that the time can come only once.

4. Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Delirium is another case of bleak world/flowery prose, but one with totally different results. Where the world of Matched is sleek and futuristic, Delirium‘s is gritty and lived-in, more the faded remnants of our world than a brand-new one built atop its ashes. Discovering Delirium was a singular mesmerism, one I find myself grasping for with every subsequent reread.

5. Between Us and the Moon by Rebecca Maizel

At the helm of this honest, moving coming-of-age story is a tame, nerdy protagonist chafing against her family’s expectations of her: at fifteen, she’s still being stuffed into frilly pink dresses and thought of as the “kid” of the family, her inexperience taken to mean immaturity. Seeing someone like her on the page was such a relief for my high school self––one that’s become an unreachable standard for contemporary books, by the way––and while I don’t want to go back, necessarily, there was something really special about it.

6. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

This much-maligned classic (mostly for its protagonist) is another case of seeing my unspoken worries put to paper, and, where it concerns this book, I also suspect that the ending might not work its same magic on me again. To be sixteen and sobbing to Arcade Fire after turning the last page is a powerful experience, but sadly (or perhaps happily?) a fleeting one.

7. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Having read this at fourteen and found a lot of it to be almost impassably dense, I get the sense that my inexperience with classics at the time led me to miss out on some of the fun. It’s thought to be one of the more swashbuckling of the bunch, and I’m sure I’d think so now, but freshman-me probably bit off a bit more than she could chew, and lost some suspense to having been an extra in a stage adaptation of the story, besides.

8. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Meeting the Grishaverse through its very first entry, in eighth grade, was utterly magical. I raved about it in one of my very first reviews, noting the lush setting and delectable love triangle––arguably, the start of my multi-shipper sensibilities––and there’s no doubt the Netflix series would have absolutely devoured my life were it around back then. Luckily, Shadow and Bone has generally kept its delight for me, but there’s just no recreating the shock I felt at that, admittedly, rather predictable plot twist, and as much as I still adore those kiss scenes, having them more-or-less memorized isn’t exactly conducive to a thrill.

9. Cinder by Marissa Meyer

What can I say? The Lunar Chronicles was a powerful tincture for my fraught middle school years. With an adventurous kick and a setting that perfectly strikes the balance between futuristic and fanciful, these books breathed into me a passionate love for space operas, and I’ve been chasing something that can quench my thirst for them ever since. I want to chance upon Cinder again almost as much as I want to have seen “Jupiter Ascending” in theaters during its devastatingly short release.

10. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

My nostalgia for Percy Jackson and the Olympians is comparatively recent; I finished the series just last year. But even in so short a time, I’ve started thinking of these books wistfully. It was 2020 for goodness’ sake, but Riordan, somehow, has me wishing I could go back.

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Thus concludes my first edition of Top Ten Tuesday! Thank you so much for reading, and feel free to tell me all about the books you want to return to, in the comments 💕