91 Books Like The Spark and the Drive

The story of Clay Jensen is both beautiful and repelling in that it forced me to consider the unseen impact my insecurities and actions may have had on others when I was a teen. I couldn’t imagine being a shy, bright, and likable California high school student unexpectedly thrust into the center of a girl’s suicide by being named one of the contributors to her death. But that’s the point. Neither can Clay. 

In his case, the only way to discover why he was included is to listen to a set of thirteen tapes made by the victim. These tapes take him on a journey of personal growth and transformation despite his only having the loosest of connections to her. In doing so, he takes us right along with him, considering how our briefest interactions could have profoundly impacted someone else.

I found it easy to sympathize with Ponyboy Curtis as a victim of circumstance. He’s poor and raised by someone other than his parents, just like I was. More than that, I loved how he doesn’t cling to any of the early illusions about himself, his family, the neighborhood gang, or even the rival gang from the West side. 

Instead, he tries to see things as they are. And even though this 14-year-old punk, who belongs to a “gang of greasers,” discovers how unfair life can be, he still takes it upon himself to give meaning to what is lost. There is something incredibly noble in seeing a smart, empathetic teen wrestling with loss and struggling to be his own person against all odds.

For years, I refused to re-embrace Holden Caulfield, because Mark David Chapman, John Lennon’s assassin, declared it inspired him to bloodshed. I’m glad I did, getting the juices circulating for my novel.

Holden, manic-depressed over his brother’s death, cut loose from his prep school, may speak in a stream-of-consciousness babble, but he enunciated an old-soul contempt of Ivy-League elitism that reverberates today.

When Holden declares, “The more expensive a school, the more crooks it has,” it’s a literary MRI on American classism still tearing us asunder.

Every prep/boarding school has a Phineas, a campus alpha-dog and star athlete best not to anger, and a Gene, a brainy loner unsure how to navigate a treacherous ecosystem away from loved ones.

The tension is in their intersection – are they friends-of-necessity or adversaries on a collision course? – and what unfolds initially as a tragic accident hardens into a murder mystery that tests one’s conscience and memory.

It remains a stunning, unforgettable book that suggests adolescent history is our real Grim Reaper. 

I love all of the different Batgirls DC has introduced over the years, and this book brings them together in one delightful adventure. Barbara Gordon is the original Batgirl mentoring her two protégés, the snarky Stephanie Brown and the martial arts master Cassandra Cain. The trio is a mix of different personalities and strengths, but teamwork and sisterhood come first. Cloonan and Conrad craft a rollicking story in this first volume, and Corona’s bombastic artwork is a perfect vehicle for all three of these enjoyable characters.

I love this book because nothing is as it seems, especially Autumn, the unreliable narrator, who is searching for her missing twin sister, Summer, who disappeared in a way that defies all reason.

It kept me guessing until the very end. And even though the answer Autumn uncovers about what happened to Summer is completely unexpected, given the circumstances of Autumn’s life experiences, it made perfect sense. I thought about this book for a long time after reading it.

This book expertly navigates the topics of mental health and sexual violence, as well as the plight of missing black women, which largely go unnoticed and underreported by the media. 

In the comic books (and films) Batman and Joker are locked together in the eternal battle between good and evil. Except, as The Killing Joke so brilliantly explores, that’s not quite how Joker sees it. For Joker, they are both sides of the same coin. If Joker is seen as evil incarnate, then why, he asks, is Batman considered the opposite? The story has since been disowned by writer Moore, possibly because of the interminable number of nihilistic-styled super-hero stories that followed in its wake. But sometimes I think the writer’s dissonance from the subject matter adds to the sense of unease and chaos at play. And there is undeniable power at the root of the story, taken entirely from Joker’s impeccably flawed point of view. That it only takes ‘one bad day’ to turn an ordinary joe into one or the other, Joker or Batman.

I was hooked by the unexpected opening sentence: "The first time I saw my granddaughters, I was standing across the street, didn't dare go any closer."

What had gone wrong? Why was a grandmother so estranged from her own grandchildren?

As the novel unspooled, it double-backed into other surprise twists, and the characters and motivations weren't as clear-cut as they'd seemed. Leah, the mother of the two granddaughters, wasn't being juvenile, impulsive, or heartless when she broke off contact with her parents. Yoella, the grandmother, wasn't as loving and innocent as she thinks she was—and how much does she realize, in fact?

I loved the way the book sometimes said more between the lines than in the actual words. 

From the get-go the reader is introduced to Lauren Fielding, a teenager living with a condition that makes her believe everything she is told. When the opportunity for her to surgically correct this comes up, she takes it and sets much of the plot in motion. What I love is the narrative style; a set of journal entries, scenes, and supporting materials which serve to present the events as Lauren and the people around her see it. This is a classic coming-of-age speculative fiction story with sprinkles of a possibly unreliable narrator, leaving the reader to follow along with the events and create their own conclusions about what is happening. Laura and the pacing her story provides are both memorable and noteworthy.

This early American novel starts off with an episode of human spontaneous combustion, followed by repeated episodes of characters hearing disembodied voices.

Brown’s novel uses these Gothic devices and a couple of real-life murder cases to explore religious and political issues that preoccupied Americans in the years after the Revolution. How do we know whether we’re really being guided by reason? What is the basis of authority?

Most editions of Wieland include Brown’s prequel Memoirs of Carwin, which complicates the story by placing one of the main characters in an Illuminati-like organization. American Gothic literature pretty much starts here.