BookTok Books
If you're looking for a book that makes you cry, this might be the list. TikTok has increasingly become a platform for sharing the kind of reading experience that sticks with you. This collection presents popular BookTok selections, with accompanying study guides to help you get an even deeper understanding of the stories you can't put down.
Published in 2015, V. E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic is a young adult fantasy novel and the first installment of the Shades of Magic trilogy. Kell Maresh, one of the last Antari magicians, possesses the rare ability to travel between parallel worlds. When a dangerous artifact from a forbidden realm falls into Kell’s possession, he and a thief named Lila Bard become entangled in a perilous adventure. The novel, which received a Goodreads... Read A Darker Shade of Magic Summary
All the Bright Places is a young adult novel written by Jennifer Niven that deals with the topic of teen suicide. The book was winner of the Goodreads Choice award in 2015, the same year it was first published. Niven tells the story from two different voices, those of high school students Theodore Finch (who goes by “Finch”) and Violet Markey. The characters first meet at the top of their high school bell tower, where both... Read All The Bright Places Summary
All the Light We Cannot See is a historical novel by Anthony Doerr, published by Scribner in 2014. The novel alternates between the lives of its two central characters—Marie-Laure Leblanc, a girl who grows up in Paris and loses her eyesight to cataracts at age six; and Werner Pfennig, a boy from a mining town in Germany who joins the Nazi military to escape working in the mines. As the novel opens, Marie-Laure and Werner... Read All the Light We Cannot See Summary
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir (Razorbill, 2015) is the first in the An Ember in the Ashes series, followed by A Torch Against the Night. This young adult fantasy novel follows an elite warrior and a peasant girl as they find what it means to be free in a brutal world. An Ember in the Ashes debuted at number two on the young adult New York Times bestsellers list and was also... Read An Ember in the Ashes Summary
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz is a young adult fiction novel published in 2012. The novel won a Lambda Literary Award, a Pura Belpre Award, and a Stonewall Book Award. It was also named a Printz Honor Book. Told from a first-person point of view, the book is a work of realistic fiction set in El Paso, Texas, in the late 1980s.Plot SummaryAristotle “Ari” Mendoza is the... Read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe Summary
A Thousand Splendid Suns, a 2007 novel by Afghan-born Khaled Hosseini, is the story of Mariam and Laila, two women married to the same man, Rasheed. Born in 1959 near Herat, Afghanistan, Mariam is the illegitimate child of a wealthy man, Jalil, and his one-time housekeeper, Nana. For the first fifteen years of her life, Mariam lives a secluded life with Nana in a kolba (shack), situated in a clearing away from the main town. As... Read A Thousand Splendid Suns Summary
Published in 2018, Circe retells the story of the eponymous Greek mythological figure. Although traditionally viewed as a heartless, savagely beautiful witch who lures sailors to their deaths, the Circe of Madeline Miller’s imagining is quite different. This Circe is a multidimensional, flawed, and empathetic character struggling to find meaning and worth in her immortal life. Through Miller’s detailed and honest first-person narrative, which takes place over thousands of years, the evil witch becomes relatable.The... Read Circe Summary
Darius the Great Is Not Okay is a coming-of-age novel by Iranian American writer Adib Khorram. Originally published in 2018 by Dial Books, the novel echoes Khorram’s experiences growing up in a multiethnic family with a history of mental illnesses. The book, which is Khorram’s first, won the William C. Morris YA Debut Award in 2019. A sequel entitled Darius the Great Deserves Better was published in August 2020. Plot SummaryDarius Kellner is a high school... Read Darius the Great Is Not Okay Summary
Heartless, first published in 2016, is a contemporary fantasy Young Adult novel by Marissa Meyer. Meyer is best known for her dystopian sci-fi YA series The Lunar Chronicles, inspired by fairy tales such as Cinderella and Snow White. Set in a fantasy world, Heartless imagines the backstory of Lewis Carroll’s iconic character the Queen of Hearts from the 1876 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This guide utilizes the Feiwel and Friends hardcover edition, published in... Read Heartless Summary
Monday’s Not Coming (2018) is a young adult novel by Tiffany D. Jackson. She employs a nonlinear narrative to explore issues of race, mental illness, and media bias. Claudia Coleman narrates the story of how her best friend, Monday Charles, disappeared for a year, and no one but Claudia seemed to notice or care. Published by Harper Collins, Monday’s Not Coming earned Jackson the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe award for new talent. It was also... Read Monday's Not Coming Summary
Ninth House is a 2019 contemporary occult fantasy novel by American writer Leigh Bardugo. Inspired by the author’s undergraduate experiences at Yale University, Ninth House is part of the Alex Stern series with the next book planned for release in 2021. The story is set in a macabre version of the real world and focuses on the occult culture fostered by a set of Yale secret societies, which seek power and wealth through death-related magic... Read Ninth House Summary
One of Us is Lying is a 2017 young-adult thriller by Karen McManus that revolves around the suspicious death of Bayview High School senior Simon Kelleher, author of a gossip app called About That. The story is told from the alternating first person perspectives of four students who served detention with Simon when he died: Bronwyn, Cooper, Nate, and Addy. It explores themes about the corrosive impact of stereotyping and gossip, the value of empathy... Read One of Us is Lying Summary
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi is a graphic memoir about Satrapi’s experiences growing up in Tehran, Iran before and after the revolution in 1979. Originally published in France to critical acclaim in four volumes between 2000-2003, it was translated into English in two volumes in 2003 and 2004. Named a New York Times Notable Book as well as a Time Magazine “Best Comix of the Year,” the book was a San... Read Persepolis Summary
Published anonymously in 1813 by English author Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice is an example of a “novel of manners,” which presents a realistic picture of society through the customs and manners of everyday life. By depicting complex relationships between landowners and tradesmen, those with old money and the nouveaux riche, and men and women, Pride and Prejudice offers a glimpse into the social structures of early 19th-century England. The novel’s primary focus is marriage... Read Pride and Prejudice Summary
Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard (Harper Teen, 2015) is the first book in the Red Queen series, which follows one girl’s battle to bring equality to her people in a dystopian fantasy world where the power hungry Silvers oppress the lower Red class. The book won the 2015 Goodreads Choice Award for Debut Goodreads Author and was nominated for the 2015 Goodreads Choice Award for Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction. New York Times bestselling... Read Red Queen Summary
Red, White & Royal Blue is the debut novel of author Casey McQuiston. When first published in May of 2019, it created an immediate sensation and rose to the top of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists and earned awards from NPR, Kirkus, Library Journal, and others.Red, White & Royal Blue is the story of a gay romance between FSOTUS (First Son of the United States) Alex Claremont-Diaz and Prince Henry, a... Read Red, White, and Royal Blue Summary