Imagine: you’re in your room and you can hear the whoosh of the rain outside. Opening your curtain it seems that the people out in the rain are running for shelter. It’s probably best you don’t go out for a while. You check your phone only to see that the Internet is down. You have enough food and drink, so you turn to your bookshelf. You have no idea when the storm will pass, and you have endless amounts of free time.

What books do you choose to read?

This is my own compilation of books for just such an occasion. These are books that I have read and personally enjoyed and I hope that you appreciate these books as much as I do.

1 – The Deepest Cut by Natalie Flynn

This book made me cry.

Not many books have done that, so I definitely recommend this one if you are in need of a compelling story about death, rock bottom, and finding your way out again.

We follow Adam’s guilt-ridden perspective as he tries to cope with his best friend, Jake’s, murder. After an attempt on his own life, Adam is taken to a mental health facility where he is too traumatised to speak. Instead, he writes down the events leading up to Jake’s murder and tries to come to terms with what happened.

The entire book is an extremely cathartic experience. The first time I read it, I finished it in only a few hours. The writing is especially engaging with Adam’s distinct character voice shining through.

Overall, a fantastic book that you won’t want to put down.

2 – The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1) by Patrick Ness

The style of this book is phenomenal.

It is definitely a different type of mystery book than you’d find usually, it’s full of otherworldly things while at the same time making them seem ordinary.

Following Todd Hewitt on this alien world, we find out that while the men can hear each other’s thoughts, the women are missing; thought dead. While walking in the swamp with his dog, Todd discovers a gap in the noise of men’s thoughts. It’s terrifying. As Todd steps further into the mystery, he suspects that the men in his town are hiding something from him. Eventually, he has to run away with his dog Manchee, but he doesn’t get far before he runs into a girl. But didn’t all the women die years ago?

One of the most charming parts of the book, in my opinion, is the child-like spelling and grammar mistakes. This is because this informs you of Todd’s character immediately on the first page as someone who hasn’t had a proper education. This also helps to establish his unique character voice, which shines throughout the book.

It’s been a while since I first read it, but now, after looking at it again, I’m tempted to revisit it. It’s really one of those books you can’t put down, because you want to know where the story goes next or how the mystery gets solved, or even how everything gets worse.

I would recommend this book if you like both science fiction and mystery stories. This is well worth the read, and is only the first book in a trilogy. I guarantee that you’ll want to read the rest.

3 – Thunderbirds Agent’s Technical Manual by Haynes

As a Thunderbirds fanatic I had to include this on the list.

This is definitely a book to read on a rainy day; it’s incredibly fascinating to see how all the machines work from the 1965 era of the show.

This book shows the schematics of everything from Thunderbirds 1965; from Tracy Island to FAB1. Ever wondered how fast Thunderbird 1 really goes? Now you know. Want to know exactly how the boys make it into their respective ships, even to Thunderbird 4? It’s all right here for you to feast your eyes on.

I first received this as a birthday present and I’ve loved it ever since. With an introduction letter from Jeff Tracy himself, Haynes really gets the feel of the original show and even gives character profiles if you wanted to know more about all the lovable characters from the show.

If you yourself are a Thunderbirds fan, or you know someone who is, this is a must have.

4 – Steelheart (Reckoners #1) by Brandon Sanderson

This turns the entire superhero genre on its head.

Sanderson has done something special with this book. He’s given us an anti-hero story wherein the people you think are superheroes are really not.

When the star Calamity first appeared in the sky, select people gained different types of supernatural abilities, but it turns out, the more they use these abilities, the more they turn bad. The story starts with our narrator, David, recalling a memory from 10 years ago that is the key in fighting the superhumans called Epics: he’s seen Steelheart bleed. Steelheart killed David’s father, and David wants to fight back. The thing is that no one fights the Epics, at least, not anyone who wants to stay alive. So David joins the Reckoners, the people who are the only ones brave enough.

This is a brilliantly written and constructed fantasy story with elements of mystery. You have my dad to thank for this recommendation, because he made me listen to it in the car as an audiobook. The journey was 6 hours and was made miles more interesting (pun intended). Sanderson really immerses you in the action of the book. A must read for fantasy and action fans alike.

5 – World War Z by Max Brooks

‘An Oral History of the Zombie War’.

If you’ve seen the movie, forget it. It’s about as different from the book as the sun is from the moon. This is a different sort of zombie book that focuses on the aftermath.

Instead of the struggle of a single man against a horde of the undead, you have a single man interviewing a number of people about their experiences during the war. He travels across the world and each character he interviews has a different horrific story to tell about their experiences. The first interview is that of the doctor that discovered Patient Zero in the small village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China. The goal of these interviews, as stated by Brooks, is to include the ‘human factor’ in his book, because it is ‘the only true difference between us and the enemy’.

With each interview, you are immersed in their story, in their descriptions and in their clearly displayed emotion. This book is an incredible collection of humanity after such a dark time, and even though it is fiction, it feels very real. This is something to read that makes you feel like you’re reading actual accounts of survivors of a real war.

6 – Tokyo Ghoul by Sui Ishida

A deliciously horrific manga that questions who the real monster is.

For those who are unaware, a manga is essentially a Japanese comic book. This specific manga looks at the transformation of a normal human into a flesh eating Ghoul; drawing strong parallels with Kafka’s Metamorphosis.

Ken Kaneki’s story begins with his crush on a girl, Rize, and she seems to be a bookworm like him, and they agree to go on a date. However, this date turns fatal. As Kaneki walks her home, he discovers way too late that she is a Ghoul and plans to eat him. Luckily, before she can, heavy construction beams fall on them. Waking up in hospital with an organ transplant from Rize, Kaneki notices that all the food he tries to eat tastes disgusting. This follows to his later, horrifying discovery that he has become a Ghoul, a creature who craves the flesh of humans. Follow him on his journey to come to terms with what he has become and what terrors await in the dark underworld in which he now finds himself.

The story, as bizarre as it sounds, is incredibly compelling, and Kaneki’s inner turmoil continues throughout the series. I personally enjoy stories that focus on an inner struggle, and this provides that and more.

Despite the physical needs of the two opposing forces in the series, the Ghouls and the CCG (an organisation that hunts down and kills Ghouls), they appear to all be people who have their own feelings and aspirations. This series is ambiguous as to who the real monsters are, and I love that uncertainty.

A blog by Louise Goode

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