My Favorite Books: Fiction

📖 The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak:

The book thief is a historical fiction that follows Liesel, a girl living in Nazi Germany during the World War II with her foster parents. The narrator of the story is death. It is a real thing in times of war. Liesel’s adventures lead her to discover her love for reading as an escape from the suffering of the world. She finds herself stealing books and reading them when no one is paying attention to her.

This story, for me, serves as a reminder to be grateful for what I have. It makes me appreciate of how hard life must have been for humans living through world wars and other catastrophes. Although I relate to Liesel the most in the book, my favorite character is Rudy Steiner. He is an energetic kid full of life and energy and brings humor to the bleak world.

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🌳 The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho:

The Alchemist is a hero’s journey. A boy who wants to travel the world tells his parents he wants to buy sheep, become a Shepard, and travel. His father helps him in this endeavor. Over the next few years, he learns life lessons by observing the sheep. They teach him how to communicate with the world. How to read the omens and connect with all things.

He dreams one night about a treasure hidden, waiting for him to uncover it. He had learned what he could from the sheep, the universe called him to take on a new adventure. On his travels to find the treasure, he has to cross a desert. The desert is almost a character in the book, it acts as an old teacher. He observes the desert and uncovers its secrets.

At the end of the desert arc, the boy meets an alchemist who acts as his mentor for the rest of the story. There is some part of creation in everything in the world. We are all part of the same system. The Alchemist teaches the boy how to touch the source of all things. This story is ultimately about following your dreams and loving yourself unconditionally.

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🌌 To Sleep in Sea of Stars, Chris Paolini:

To Sleep follows the protagonist Kira Navrez. She is a Xenobiologist studying the atmosphere on a faraway planet. One day, as she is investigating an irregular signal she falls into a structure. The room (or dome) has an intelligent design and she is mesmerized by its beauty. Is she the first person to discover alien technology?

There is a dark substance waiting in the room. It leaps onto her, it is either a living thing (parasite) or an extremely complicated machine (what’s the difference?). It seems intelligent and it integrates itself with her body. Although alarmed at first, Kira learns that she has superpowers over the next few weeks. She calls this parasite softblade and learns to befriend the unwanted guest. Aliens soon start attacking human ships with their main target being softblade.

The biggest pro of this book is science. Paolini did terrific with the physics of spaceships and Faster Than Light Travel (FTL). FTL is handled in a way to not allow time travel, which is great. Too much time travel is happening in movies and general media so this was a breath of fresh air. I didn’t love the ending, but this is still an amazing read especially if you appreciate epic space battles, stunning technology, unique aliens, and ambitious use of physics and engineering.

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👻 Haunting of the Hill House, Shirley Jackson:

Eleanor Vance has never had anything exciting happen in her life, and she is in her thirties. She had been taking care of her sick mother who passed away recently. Now is the time for her to have an adventure. She receives a letter to come live at Hill House for some time from a scientist/doctor who wants to develop a rational explanation for the strange things that happen at Hill House.

The biggest pro of this story is that Eleanor is an unreliable narrator. Her view of reality starts twisting the longer she stays in the Hill House. At times starts to imagine things that are not there. She also starts losing time and finds herself “waking up” in random places she has no memory of coming at. At some point in the story, she becomes a part of the hill house. She can feel the wind go through the house, people walking in it, and the dust as it settles on the books in the library.