By Oona Dawson
These books are some of my favorites, ranging from murder mystery fiction to supernatural horror, to dystopian/ sci-fi fantasy! They’re perfect for reading while curled up in bed and wrapped in a fuzzy blanket! I hope you love them like I did!
Delicious Monsters
By: Liselle Sambury
Delicious Monsters left me on the edge of my seat, with alternating perspectives and a villain I could never bring myself to hate. This book even stayed in my mind after finishing it. The first perspective is Daisy, a girl who can see ghosts. The story follows her as Daisy and her mom move into a mansion they inherited from her late uncle. This was a place where Daisy’s mom spent many of her childhood summers. As Daisy uncovers secrets about her mother and delves deeper into the dark history surrounding the house, Brittney is uncovering those same secrets ten years later for her podcast, Haunted. Brittany desperately needs this podcast to go well so she can finally get away from her abusive mother, but when Daisy’s story starts to feel a bit too much like her own, she’s not sure if she can go through with it. The two stories run ten years apart as each of them learns the truth about The Mansion. This book is a chilling haunted house story that creates the type of fear that makes you want to read more, and totally changes your perspective of what it means for someone to be “good” or “bad”.
The Rest of Us Just Live Here
By: Patrick Ness
The Rest of Us Just Live Here is a hilarious coming of age story about the kids in a fantasy world who are just trying to graduate from high school. The kids who don’t have powers and don’t really care. Mikey and his friends are just trying to navigate the last few weeks of their senior year while dealing with their issues and hoping that the high school doesn’t blow up (again) before they graduate, they have way too much on their plates to be bothered by the crazy fantastical things around them, things that the adults in town don’t bother to even acknowledge. Mikey’s not trying to be the hero, he just wants his friends to be happy and to work up the courage to ask out the girl he likes. This book seamlessly incorporates humor while also bringing up important issues and raising awareness for mental illness in a serious way. Each chapter begins with a small glimpse into what’s happening to the “indie kids” (the kids with powers who are involved in all the fantasy) and then goes back to focus on Mikey and his friends at that same moment in time. It’s always really funny to switch from the Indies Kids’ high stakes battle to the main characters just going about their day. This shift really adds to the contrast between the characters.
Wilder Girls
By: Rory Power
Wilder girls is a thrilling dystopian book about the Raxtor School for Girls, that’s been under quarantine since The Tox, a mysterious disease, hit. The Tox killed many and those that survived were changed. The story follows Hetty, the main character, as she fights to survive as she faces The Tox, and uncovers secrets she was never supposed to know. Normally, the girls don’t leave the school, because of The Tox, the surrounding wilderness and the animals are rabid, wild, and deadly. But when Hettty’s best friend suddenly disappears, saving her is an automatic decision. This book shows girls who are survivors, girls who are resilient, stubborn, blunt, fierce and do what they need to do to keep themselves alive. It’s eerie, mysterious, exciting, and captivating. Hauntingly beautiful, this book will not disappoint.
The Naturals
By: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
The Naturals is a murder mystery style fiction book about an FBI program that recruits teenagers with special analysis skills to solve cold cases for murders. This story follows Cassie, the newest recruit to the naturals program, as she adjusts to her new life living with the other kids with similar abilities to hers. Cassie is a profiler, she’s good at reading people and can use the most basic details to learn a lot about a person and what they’re going to do next. In The Naturals program, Cassie meets Michael who can read emotions, Lia who can detect lies and tell lies without anyone knowing, Sloane who has a photographic memory and is amazing with numbers and data, and Dean who is also a profiler like Cassie. As Cassie starts her training of solving unsolved murders and stepping into a killer’s mind, she starts to get wrapped up in an ongoing serial murder investigation, one that she is far more connected to than she would like to be. This book is thrilling, it gave me goosebumps and anytime I wasn’t reading it my mind was filled with thoughts, questions, and theories. With excerpts from the murderers perspective, this book will give you chills and you’ll want to read the whole series in one sitting.