Here are 100 books that The Girl with No Reflection fans have personally recommended if you like
The Girl with No Reflection.
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I’m only a writer because I was a musician first. I worshiped music—as a performer, listener, and later a critic—for its ability to enshrine me in a purely emotional world. My favorite lyrics were poetry in motion; my favorite melodies escaped description. And through sharing my feverish acclamations of particular albums and songs, I found community with others who also pledged themselves to art that’d definitively split their lives into “before” and “after.” My writing career was born from cathartic devotion and remains devoted to recounting the rapture of self-formation, of being reflected in the mirror of something that saw you before you even knew to see yourself.
Based on the title alone, I knew Yi’s debut novel would hit me like a crossbow to the heart. “Y/N” Is a prevalent shorthand for a particular kind of self-insert fan fiction, and having grown up in online fandom spaces, I have a lot of nostalgia for (and now plenty of necessary distance from) the passion that often explodes within and beyond those communities.
And still, I wasn’t prepared for the journey that Yi took me on. Nominally about one woman's spiraling obsession with a Korean pop idol, Y/N charts the inexplicable journey between a “regular person” and a “fan" before morphing into something sinisterly, beautifully, and singularly unhinged.
"Wondrous and weird." -New York Times "Gorgeous." -New Yorker "High Brow x Brilliant." -NY Mag (Approval Matrix) "So good it's hard to believe." -New York Times Book Review Podcast "Rare." -n+1 "A true novel of the era." -Elle "Piercing, feverish, and frequently astonishing." -Entertainment Weekly "Utterly brilliant, shining, and mesmerizing." -Cosmopolitan "Freakish and hallucinatory." -Vulture "Absurdly funny." -Ms. Magazine "Savage." -Vanity Fair "Playful, immersive yet unreal." -Esquire "Riveting and innovative." -TIME "Curious, cerebral . . . with moments of tender poetry." -Times Literary Supplement "It."-SSENSE "Sophisticated." -Chicago Review of Books "Strange, haunting, and undeniably beautiful." -Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) "One…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I’m a Jamaican and Korean American author of young adult romance, and when crafting my stories, I love to create characters who go against the expectations thrust upon them, whether they’re based on race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, ability, etc. As a woman, as someone with multiple ethnic identities, as someone who isn’t neurotypical, and someone who doesn’t subscribe to the norms of gender and sexuality, navigating intersectionality has been a large part of my life and, therefore, my work. Rules should be broken when they're the ones telling us we can’t do something based on who we are.
This book breaks all the rules by being the sweetest, most empathetic, and heartfelt romance I’ve read in a long time, but without the romance. It portrays the importance of platonic love between two aromantic and asexual students who crave community, friendship, and understanding and find it in each other.
The social media posts and comment threads make it such an immersive reading experience. As I was reading, I truly felt like I was in their world. I had a smile on my face the entire time and a feeling of warmth, love, and acceptance. When I was done, I immediately called my best friends to tell them I loved them.
Dear Wendy's Sophie and Jo, two aromantic and asexual college students, engage in an online feud while unknowingly becoming friends in real life, in this dual POV Young Adult contemporary debut from Ann Zhao
Sophie Chi is in her first year of college (though her parents wish she'd attend a “real” university rather than a liberal arts school) and has long accepted her aroace (aromantic and asexual) identity. She knows she’ll never fall in love, but she enjoys running an Instagram account that offers relationship advice to students at her school. No one except her roommate can know that she’s…
I’m a Jamaican and Korean American author of young adult romance, and when crafting my stories, I love to create characters who go against the expectations thrust upon them, whether they’re based on race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, ability, etc. As a woman, as someone with multiple ethnic identities, as someone who isn’t neurotypical, and someone who doesn’t subscribe to the norms of gender and sexuality, navigating intersectionality has been a large part of my life and, therefore, my work. Rules should be broken when they're the ones telling us we can’t do something based on who we are.
This book breaks all the rules because, well, Ji-won, a young Korean-American girl, literally breaks the rules (and the law) by becoming a serial killer in the face of societal expectations. I love a woman who’s not concerned with being or acting pretty, and we see that in Ji-won far before she ever gets a bite of her first blue eye.
The commentary in this novel is sharp, and much of what Ji-won experiences resonates with me as a Korean-American. Though she is by no means a role model, it was satisfying to see someone who might typically be overlooked go on a grotesque, revenge-fueled violence spree. This book was intelligent and subversive in all the right ways.
Crying in H-Mart meets My Sister, the Serial Killer in this feminist psychological horror about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective.
Ji-won's life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her Appa's extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying... yet enticing.
In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Salivatingly blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George's, who is Umma's obnoxious new boyfriend. George has already overstayed his welcome in her family's…
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
I’m a Jamaican and Korean American author of young adult romance, and when crafting my stories, I love to create characters who go against the expectations thrust upon them, whether they’re based on race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, ability, etc. As a woman, as someone with multiple ethnic identities, as someone who isn’t neurotypical, and someone who doesn’t subscribe to the norms of gender and sexuality, navigating intersectionality has been a large part of my life and, therefore, my work. Rules should be broken when they're the ones telling us we can’t do something based on who we are.
This book is full of rule-breakers, but not in the way you’d think. Rhea and her friends try to combat gentrification in their South L.A. neighborhood in the most unconventional way imaginable by inventing a fake gang; however, they are soon blamed for a very real murder.
I lived in West Baltimore for a time and saw the effects of gentrification taking over my neighborhood even in the short two years that I was there, so this book really resonated with me on a personal level. The premise reminded me of those memes of people claiming to shoot out the windows every few months to keep the rent low. While it’s a joke, there is a very real fear behind it, and this is a complex issue that Adia tackles with such a fresh voice and nuanced approach.
Winner of the 2024 Coretta Scott King John Steptoe New Talent Award
A raised fist against the destructive forces of gentrification and a love letter to communities of color everywhere, Jade Adia's unforgettable debut tells the darkly hilarious story of three best friends willing to do whatever it takes to stay together.
The gang is fake, but the fear is real.
Rhea’s neighborhood is fading away—the mom-and-pop shops of her childhood forced out to make space for an artisanal kombucha brewery here, a hot yoga studio there. And everywhere, the feeling that this place is no longer meant for her.…
I write because I want to tell stories–and I also want to share great stories with others. An avid reader and writer of fantasy and speculative fiction, I have a love of the fantastic, the remarkable and the supernatural, which I have managed to sustain and develop alongside a successful working life in government and social administration. If you want to know about power–and what you need to wield it and control it, just give me a call. Great fantasy should tell universal truths, and sometimes, more difficult messages can be told more effectively using a supernatural metaphor. Telling those stories is what I do.
I love all Alan Garner’s novels but have chosen this one because I have long been captivated by the deft and frequently quite terrifying way that Garner weaves a dark heart of fantasy and elemental magic into an everyday story of modern relationships—divorce, re-marriage, class prejudice, and economic inequality.
The book has haunted my imagination for over thirty years now, which, to me, is a sign of the work of a truly great author. I also love the way the book retells stories from ancient legend, reworking some of the central themes of the Welsh Mabinogion—some of the very earliest tales of magic and fantasy.
A 50th Anniversary Edition featuring a new introduction by Philip Pullman, THE OWL SERVICE is an all-time classic, combining mystery, adventure, history and a complex set of human relationships.
It all begins with the scratching in the ceiling. From the moment Alison discovers the dinner service in the attic, with its curious pattern of floral owls, a chain of events is set in progress that is to effect everybody's lives.
Relentlessly, Alison, her step-brother Roger and Welsh boy Gwyn are drawn into the replay of a tragic Welsh legend - a modern drama played out against a background of ancient…
I love middle-grade books (for eight to twelve-year-olds), which is why I write in that genre. My Summer of L.U.C.K. trilogy is sprinkled with magical adventures, but each one has real-life kids struggling with real-life problems and finding real-world solutions. I believe that books whose characters experience magical elements along with themes of friendship, perseverance, and self-acceptance will help them learn, as I did when I was a young reader, that whatever troubles they're experiencing, other kids have those troubles too, that they're not alone, and that help is possible.
This book by Jane Langton, which inspired me to write my own books, is another one of my all-time favorite magical middle-grade books. Written in the 1960s and set in Concord, Massachusetts, it drew me in right away when siblings Eleanor and Eddie discover a magic attic room with a roadmap to treasure that might just save their remarkable old home.
My favorite chapters deal with the self-acceptance that helps Eleanor choose wisely for her future (The Gift of the Mirror) and Eddie’s discovery of the importance of helping others (The Chambered Nautilus).
The Halls' house stood out like an exotic plant amidst all the neat, square houses in Concord. It had porches, domes and towers and a tiny window in the attic whose raised center pane shone out like a brilliant diamond.
There had been jewels once in the house, the gift of an Indian prince to two children, Ned and Nora. The prince had devised ingenious games so that the hidden jewels could be found. And then, suddenly, mysteriously the children and then Prince Krishna disappeared...
Years later, Eleanor and Eddy, niece and nephew of the lost…
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
I’m an incurable nostalgist and, thanks to early exposure to a curly-haired, scarf-wearing eccentric who travels the universe in a battered old police box, gained an early and ongoing obsession with time travel stories, whether intricately-plotted and filled with brain-tangling paradoxes, or steeped in wistful yearning for days gone by. Young me would, I like to think, be delighted to learn that he would, one day, write a book bursting with both paradoxes AND yearning.
As a six-year-old, I was enraptured by the 1974 BBC TV adaptation of this book, thrilled by the notion that I, too, might one day find a magical route into hidden worlds.
As my reading skills improved, I did just that, thanks to a library card and books like this one. Pearce’s tale is haunting and beautifully told, and there’s an ingenious little piece of time-travel plotting involving a pair of ice skates that blew my preteen mind.
From beloved author Philippa Pearce, this sixtieth-anniversary edition is the perfect way to share this transcendent story of friendship with a new generation of readers. Philip Pullman, bestselling author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, called Tom's Midnight Garden "A perfect book."
When Tom's brother gets sick, he's shipped off to spend what he's sure will be a boring summer with his aunt and uncle in the country. But then Tom hears the old grandfather clock in the hall chime thirteen times, and he's transported back to an old garden where he meets a young,…
Tales of magic have captivated me since I was a small child, and I started writing fantasy stories in high school. But it was only when I discovered the YA faerie subgenre several years ago that I truly found my niche. As my book recommendations will demonstrate, there’s a delicious connection between faerie magic and teenage angst, and it’s the tension that arises that makes for fantastic worldbuilding and storytelling. I hope that you enjoy my top books in the genre and find a new favorite for yourself!
Prepare to have your world turned upside down in this peculiar take on the faerie novel. We meet Cathy as a resident of modern England but learn she’s actually an escapee from “The Nether,” a faerie mirror world that’s stuck in the 19th century. As a historian, I absolutely love how Newman moves characters between the worlds—without time travel! And just imagine being in the shoes of a young woman forced to straddle the freedoms that come with modern life with a life with an arranged marriage. And above all, she must appeal to the whims of the faerie lord who controls her family’s fortunes. Come for the premise, but stick around for her deep world-building and richly-drawn characters (I mean, who doesn’t love a talking gargoyle?)
Beautiful and nuanced as it is dangerous, the manners of Regency and Victorian England blend into a scintillating fusion of contemporary urban fantasy and court intrigue.
Between Mundanus, the world of humans, and Exilium, the world of the Fae, lies the Nether, a mirror-world where the social structure of 19th-century England is preserved by Fae-touched families who remain loyal to their ageless masters. Born into this world is Catherine Rhoeas-Papaver, who escapes it all to live a normal life in Mundanus, free from her parents and the strictures of Fae-touched society. But now she's being dragged back to face an…
I grew up in the 1970s, still in contention for America’s most paranoid decade (thanks, Watergate). Practically everything I watched, listened to or read (right down to my beloved superhero comics) was asking, what’s hiding behind the world around you? I don’t think of myself as a paranoid guy – I don’t, for instance, believe in a real life Deep State – but these are the sorts of stories that resonate for me. Taken less literally, they do ask worthwhile and still disturbingly relevant questions: what is beneath the world you know and see every day? What is right in front of you, both good and bad, that you aren’t seeing?
Suburbanite Ragle Gumm is overcome with a sense of urgency to play a bizarre newspaper game every day. He’s so good at it, he makes a living from its cash prizes. But lately, his world seems to be fraying around him. Things he sees and knows are suddenly...not. And if you can’t trust the very ground you’re standing on, what’s left? This takes the whole “maybe my world isn’t what I think it is” idea about as far as it can go, and it was just about the first story to ever do that. The best, most satisfying book I ever read about a banal, mundane world that turns out to be anything but.
Ragle Gumm is an ordinary man leading an ordinary life, except that he makes his living by entering a newspaper contest every day - and winning, every day.
But he gradually begins to suspect that his life - indeed his whole world - is an illusion, constructed around him for the express purpose of keeping him docile and happy. But if that is the case, what is his real world like, and what is he actually doing every day when he thinks he is guessing 'Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?'
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
I write adventure and mystery stories for children aged 9 - 13, involving battles with mythical creatures, dangerous pacts with demons, and other supernatural chills. My first book, Ante’s Inferno, won the People’s Book Prize and a Silver Wishing Shelf Award. For The Fall of a Sparrow, I drew on my love of ghost stories, not just for their scariness but also for their emotional complexity: ghosts don’t haunt just for the sake of it. They need something only the main character can give. Friendship, perhaps, a companion in their loneliness… or something much darker. Here’s my choice of classic stories in which ghosts pursue a wide – and sometimes terrifying – variety of agendas.
Even now, I can’t read this without getting goosebumps. No other writer matches L. M. Boston for creating an enchanting, intriguing atmosphere that leads the reader, along with the story’s main character, 7-year-old Tolly, to feel the ghost children long before they appear. When they do, the combination they bring of joy, playful behaviour, and wistfulness – there is a reason, after all, that they are all ghosts together – goes straight to the heart.
L. M. Boston's thrilling and chilling tales of Green Knowe, a haunted manor deep in an overgrown garden in the English countryside, have been entertaining readers for half a century. Now the children of Green Knowe--both alive and ghostly--are back in appealing new editions. The spooky original illustrations have been retained, but dramatic new cover art by Brett Helquist (illustrator of A Series of Unfortunate Events) gives the books a fresh, timeless appeal for today's readers.
