Here are 100 books that Tonight We Rule the World fans have personally recommended if you like
Tonight We Rule the World.
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Aside from my brief stint as a bossy know-it-all when I was little, I have always been that quiet girl no one notices. In high school, it took me at least ten minutes and five tries to get myself to wish my desk partner a happy birthday. I spent a lot of my adolescence trying to find myself, so I understand what it’s like to feel lost. My greatest wish is for my book to help at least one person feel how these books helped me.
This book is one of the first to teach me how wonderfully odd people can be. Jandy Nelson’s ability to write about lovable, flawed people who see the world differently gave me the courage to take pride in my peculiarity.
With memorable characters and strong familial relationships, this book is one of my go-to recommendations for anyone wondering if there is space for the strange.
Shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize
Winner of the 2015 Michael L. Printz Award
Winner of a 2015 Stonewall Honor
"This is the big one - the BLAZING story of once inseparable twins whose lives are torn apart by tragedy." Entertainment Weekly
From the critically acclaimed author of The Sky Is Every where, a radiant novel that will leave you laughing and crying - all at once. For fans of John Green, Gayle Forman and Lauren Oliver.
Jude and her twin Noah were incredibly close - until a tragedy drove them apart, and now they…
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 am a writer who was first a reader and am convinced that novels can speak profound truth. They’ve helped me too many times to believe otherwise. I write novels about how we unwind from painful pasts to create new and better lives. In my experience, that requires us to face difficult truths and choose to be different until we are. I write fiction because I can begin with something awful, cut out boring detours that didn’t matter, and get my honorable and well-intentioned characters to happy endings faster than I’ve gotten to mine. These books map similar journeys, and all have left me better off for having read them.
I fell into this story with the first line and barely came up for air until I was done.
I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book filled with so much beautiful and tragic truth, or an ending that filled me with so much optimism. Thousands have written gorgeous reviews about the story, the characters, the writing—so I won’t even attempt that here.
These lines, from the book, are among the most beautiful and meaningful to me: “If you are surrounded by those who call what you are different instead of beautiful. If your mind or body has cried out for peace and acknowledgement and understanding, just know…You are part of an infinite family. The people who have been through terrible things and survived them. If you are reading these words, you WON today.”
A modern cult classic, a major motion picture and a timeless bestseller, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story.
Charlie is not the biggest geek in high school, but he's by no means popular.
Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie is attempting to navigate through the uncharted territory of high school. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and music - when all one requires to feel infinite is that…
Aside from my brief stint as a bossy know-it-all when I was little, I have always been that quiet girl no one notices. In high school, it took me at least ten minutes and five tries to get myself to wish my desk partner a happy birthday. I spent a lot of my adolescence trying to find myself, so I understand what it’s like to feel lost. My greatest wish is for my book to help at least one person feel how these books helped me.
I know that including a Peter Pan reimagining where the narrator is a fairy in Neverland seems odd for a list like this, but this book captured my heart as few others have.
It focuses on Tiger Lily but is told from Tinkerbell’s perspective: an outsider is looking upon an outsider. The unique perspective and beautiful narrative made me, a girl on the periphery, wonder what stories even the quietest of us have to tell.
In the forbidden woods of Neverland, Tiger Lily falls under the alluring Peter Pan's spell. She will risk everything - her family, her future - to be with him. But Tiger Lily soon discovers that the most dangerous enemy can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart. From the New York Times bestselling author comes a magical and bewitching story of the romance between a fearless heroine and the boy who wouldn't grow up.
Crossing is a vividly human re-imagining of the love, sacrifices, and accomplishments that two Chinese brothers - American Immigrants - experience as they travel to California to build the Transcontinental Railroad.
Aside from my brief stint as a bossy know-it-all when I was little, I have always been that quiet girl no one notices. In high school, it took me at least ten minutes and five tries to get myself to wish my desk partner a happy birthday. I spent a lot of my adolescence trying to find myself, so I understand what it’s like to feel lost. My greatest wish is for my book to help at least one person feel how these books helped me.
Before Bo Burnham made us all Google derealization in 2021, Helena Fox helped me understand the concept of dissociation and how it ties to grief and its aftereffects. I had never seen struggles with mental health portrayed in such a raw, haunting way.
Though the book is unquestionably dark, and interested readers should check for content warnings before starting, I appreciated the honest portrayal of mental illness and loss. I read this book years ago, but it resurfaces in my mind every so often and lingers there.
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best of the Year
"Profoundly moving . . . Will take your breath away." -Kathleen Glasgow, author of Girl in Pieces
A stunningly gorgeous and deeply hopeful portrayal of living with mental illness and grief, from an exceptional new voice.
Biz knows how to float. She has her people, her posse, her mom and the twins. She has Grace. And she has her dad, who tells her about the little kid she was, and who shouldn't be here but is. So Biz doesn't tell anyone…
My memoir Performance Anxiety, about my adolescence, is a true story. But I realize that writing it, I created a character. He has my name and attributes, but is at least partly invented. That's inevitable because the source material, memory, is fluid. And he is nuanced by what I chose to emphasize about my past and those times.
These five memoirs depict—and, at least partly, invent—boyhoods wildly different from mine. I've never met the writers, but I know these guys. Our challenges and fears, and hopefully triumphs, are common to queer kids. Are they shared by all kids, regardless of orientation? I'll keep reading memoirs to find out.
I never heard a more harrowing story of the closet and coming out.
There was no bullying, rape or damnation to hell in Andrew Tobias' childhood. He was a high-achieving, good-looking son of an affluent family in cosmopolitan New York who came to adulthood in the anything-goes sixties. He realized he was homosexual at age 11—then never allowed himself to tell a soul, or have sex (even with himself) until 23. When he finally, tentatively, began to own being gay, he remained twisted up by stereotypes of masculinity and queerness.
Paradoxically, because he was afraid of it, his saga gives a colorful rendering of gay culture around 1970. (And I happen to know that he eventually found self-acceptance, love, and a prominent, honored role in gay politics.)
The classic account of growing up gay in America. "The best little boy in the world never had wet dreams or masturbated; he always topped his class, honored mom and dad, deferred to elders and excelled in sports . . . . The best little boy in the world was . . . the model IBM exec . . . The best little boy in the world was a closet case who 'never read anything about homosexuality.' . . . John Reid comes out slowly, hilariously, brilliantly. One reads this utterly honest account with the shock of recognition." The New…
Until recently, my lovely in-laws kept a home in southern France near where my father-in-law grew up. Their hilltop village was everything my summer-in-France fantasies could imagine: red-tile roofs, overflowing flower boxes, croissants on every corner (or at least four), bustling markets, and palm trees framing a snowcapped peak. Downsizing in their eighties meant selling the house, but some of my fondest memories will always reside there. This summer most of my travels will take place from my garden in Colorado. I plan to trek the world through books. These are some of my favorite reads for an armchair trip to France through romance, mysteries, exploration, and cooking.
Here’s another fantasy I didn’t know I had until I listened to this fabulous audiobook: to be neighbors with the great Chef, Julia Child. Not only that, to solve crimes with her!
Tabitha Knight has arrived in post-World War II Paris from Detroit for an extended stay with her French grandfather. She’s on a journey of discovery and about to get mixed up in a murder investigation.
Mysteries are my favorite genre, especially cozy mysteries focused on a topic and places I’d love to visit. This book combines some of my favorite things: cooking, France, and did I mention Julia Child?
Fans of Jacqueline Winspear, Marie Benedict, Nita Prose, and of course, Julia Child, will adore this magnifique new mystery set in Paris and starring Julia Child’s (fictional) best friend, confidante, and fellow American. From the acclaimed author of Murder at Mallowan Hall, this delightful new book provides a fresh perspective on the iconic chef’s years in post-WWII Paris.
“Enchanting…Cambridge captures Child’s distinct voice and energy so perfectly. Expect to leave this vacation hoping for a return trip.” –Publishers Weekly
As Paris rediscovers its joie de vivre, Tabitha Knight, recently arrived from Detroit for an extended stay with her French grandfather,…
Almost Home is a fictional retelling of the last great tragedy of the Civil War.
In late April 1865, almost 2,000 newly freed Union prisoners of war are packed onto the steamer Sultana, in poor repair and with a listed capacity of 376 passengers. Among them are four Indiana soldiers…
I’ve loved murder mysteries since I first discovered the genre. As a child, I loved watching Morse, Miss Marple,and other detectives as they got to the bottom of whodunit. I was hooked. It wasn’t long before I started to read books starring these detectives. I really love the way that female amateur detectives often have far more ideas of what’s going on and why things have happened than the men who populate the books. What woman can’t resist reading about another woman who just gets to the bottom of it all? I know I can’t, but these books are some of the very best in the genre.
My all-time favorite amateur detective is Miss Marple, and if I had to pick a favorite book she is in, it would be this one. I love the idea of a quiet, mostly ignored spinster who most people dismiss being the one character who seems to know exactly what is going on and what people are up to.
I really like the way Miss Marple figures out why the main character thinks she is going mad and proves that she isn’t. In this book, Miss Marple really proves her status as one of the best amateur detectives, and I love it.
As a queer reader and writer of horror, I have little interest in anything that could be deemed “positive representation.” Horror is most compelling when it gets honest and ugly about the bad, selfish, cruel, or simply unwise choices people make when they’re truly scared–and that includes queer people. I love queer stories that aren’t primarily romantic or neatly resolved. I like messy groups of friends, toxic emotional entanglements, and family dynamics that don’t fit in a Hallmark card. These days there are lots of stories in other genres about queer people becoming their best selves, but horror also has space for us at our worst.
This book is horror for adrenaline fiends, but it has emotional depths and a rich cast of well-developed characters to balance out its fast-paced thrills.
My favorite character in this book, and one of my favorites in the whole horror canon, is Nell Talbot, one half of the brother-sister duo of protagonists. Nell is a 100-proof disaster bisexual, surfing a wave of her own bad choices all the way to shore.
You know how a story is supposed to have an inciting incident? Nell Talbot is the inciting incident.
One of Tor Nightfire's "Horror Books We're Excited About in 2022"!
"Lyons burnishes his reputation as a rising horror star . . . [and] keeps the pages flying with fast-paced chills." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)
From the author of The Night Will Find Us comes a white-knuckled horror-thriller set across the American Southwest.
Road trips can be hell.
Siblings Jonah and Nell Talbot used to be inseparable, but ever since Jonah suddenly blew town twelve years ago, they couldn't be more distant. Now, in the wake of Jonah's divorce, they embark on a cross-country road trip back to…
I am a reader and an author. Both my reading and writing diets are deeply grounded in gothic novels. This list mixes up some of the classics from way back with more recent works. All of them give the flavor of this fascinating realm in literature. There is nothing more satisfying than lucking into a story that is truly original, too, which these recommendations are. Find a comfy perch with a drink of your choosing and take some time with these books. I wouldn’t steer you wrong, and I stand behind all five of these recommendations.
This novel's compelling cover reeled in this reader straightaway and, indeed, delivers with a plot that captures the gothic folk horror genre in a tidy and well-written package.
As I read it, it felt like Harvest Home and The Wicker Man were seated on either shoulder. Overarching the story is also a "morality play" at work, expertly woven in. Bonus points for historical roots and an English village setting.
So original, so folky horror, so good and, simply put, a treat.
'Withered Hill is the ultimate nightmare destination' Laird Barron
Inside
A year ago Sophie Wickham stumbled into the isolated Lancashire village of Withered Hill, naked, alone and with no memory of who she is.
Surrounded by a thick ring of woodland, its inhabitants seem to be of another world, drenched in pagan, folklorish traditions.
As Sophie struggles to regain the memories of her life from before, she quickly realises she is a prisoner after multiple failed escape attempts. But is it the locals who keep her trapped, with smiles on their faces, or something else,…
Creativity, Teaching, and Natural Inspiration
by
Mark Doherty,
I have woven numerous delightful and descriptive true life stories, many from my adventures as an outdoorsman and singer songwriter, into my life as a high school English teacher. I think you'll find this work both entertaining as well as informative, and I hope you enjoy the often lighthearted repartee…
As a professional counselor by trade, I’m fascinated by the machinations of the human mind, what drives us, and how our primeval urges can overcome our learned and acceptable behaviors. Accordingly, I enjoy both reading and writing books that expose and explore the dark side of our psyche and the dichotomy of human nature. I particularly appreciate stories that balance evil with redemption, rescue, or retribution.
I love a tense, character-driven thriller, and this one was set in a remote town I’ve visited.
I love that the book is set in 1963, a decade that had particular significance for Australian women, their roles, and the expectations placed upon them.
It’s not fast-moving, but the setting is an almost palpable character in its own right. I found it dark, rife with corruption, violence, oppressive heat, and both the best and the worst of what Australia has to offer.
'From screen to page, Matt Nable's ability to breathe life into vivid characters shines against the grittiness of the harsh Australian landscape.' - Jane Harper, author of The Dry
'a thrilling, heart-stopping novel that fans of The Dry are going to love' - Weekender
'Nable renders the past both tangible and real and it's riveting' - Sue Turnbull, The Age
'must read' - Who Weekly
Darwin, Summer, 1963.
The humidity sat heavy and thick over the town as Senior Constable Ned Potter looked down at a body that had been dragged from the shallow marshland.…
