Two Books; Two Days; Ten Recs

Yeah, I did that. I read two books in only two days. A book a day. I won’t be continuing to read a book a day because I have college classes, exams, and a job hunt to worry about, but when I took Easter weekend off from all that I returned to something that I always took comfort in: reading. I love to read because the stories in the books temporarily take me out of the world I am in. This is especially helpful right now in such a confusing world.

I’ve always loved to read. While other kids hid their Nintendo DS under the covers after bedtime, hoping the soft glow from the screen wouldn’t give them away to their parents…I was hoping my clip on reading light wouldn’t betray my need for a few more chapters. I have my own bookshelf in my childhood room still stocked with my favorite series from when I was a kid. I’m probably subconsciously saving the Gallagher Girls, The Hunger Games, Little House on the Prairie, A Little Princess, and Harry Potter for if I ever have kids of my own. I want their bookshelves to full of great stories. As I got older, I started actually looking at the books on the built-in shelves in our living room. I never gave those shelves much thought as a kid; they were full of picture frames and what I could only assume, by the size, were a bunch of Encyclopedia Brittanicas. But those books were in fact members of the Book Club list. The Book Club list? My mom has been in a book club for a long time and I started reading some of her suggestions from their list during my college summers. Immediately I could tell this Book Club was fond of the thriller genre and I loved it.

So for those avid readers like me in quarantine looking for their next page-turner here is a list of most my favorites that I’ve come across in the past few years. Enjoy!

1) Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens

This book got a lot of press when it was released in 2018 as it topped celebrity book club and bestseller lists. It’s a thriller that delves into the nuance of intelligence and strength with plot lines involving love, murder, and mystery…the whole package! It’s set in coastal North Carolina with a few connection to UNC too.

2) Then She Was Gone, Lisa Jewell

So my mom and the Book Club haven’t read this one yet this year, but I got my hands on it and boy was it good. This book is a little freaky if you know, were, are, or are a mother of a young or teenage girl since it surrounds one’s disappearance. It has a Room –esque storyline but is connected to the relationships and struggle of the outside world. It’s told jumping from the past to the present and back to past again, from the point of view of four different characters. This one will keep you on your toes.

3) The Passenger, Lisa Lutz

I pride myself on the ability to guess at least a partially correct outcome of most of these books, but this one stumped me. Full of identity changes, an untrustworthy narrator, shady characters, and countless crimes, see if this book keeps you as puzzled as me. (That’s why I couldn’t stop reading it and finished it in a day!)

4) All the Missing Girls,  Megan Miranda

This thriller throws you for a loop by telling the story over two weeks, but backwards. It starts at day 15 and progresses…well back to day 1. The book slowly reveals the story of a cold case of a missing girl and connects it to another girl’s disappearance in the present. This book is one that I really could not put down because of how strangely and engagingly it is told.

5) The Child Finder, Rene Denfeld

This story is particularly frightening since it deals with child disappearances but in a thriller way. The narrator was once a missing child who now uses her skills to help find kidnapped or lost children; this specific case in the cold and wild Pacific Northwest. This book is told from two points of view: the narrator as she copes with her own past, as well as a child with quite the imagination who may or may not be lost or found. This is a page turner with a few surprises where the past helps the characters understand the present.

6) The Wife Between Us, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

This book is one of the few I’ve read that can reveal the biggest twist in the middle and still keep me on the edge of my seat all the way through to the end. The second wife vs. ex-wife dynamic may seem predictable at first, but halfway through when you learn the truth, the plot begins a series of twists and turns that will have you questioning everything you expected.

7) Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng

This story premiered as a new Hulu series on March 18th starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington so you might have already binged in quarantine. If you haven’t, I would suggest reading the book first! Celeste Ng takes picture perfect suburban life and upends it with peculiar characters, moral dilemmas, love, and chaotic choices all leading up to the unbelievable moment she hints at in the first lines of the book. This book truly has chaotic energy, but I’ll let you decide if it’s chaotic good or evil.

My friend who has her own book blog gave me this book as a birthday present two years ago, so she’s ahead of the trends and knows what she’s doing! Seriously, check out Caity Burnham and her awesome content at Reading Whale. Reading Whale also has one of the prettiest Instagram accounts you’ve ever seen.

8) The Girl on the Train,  Paula Hawkins

You might have heard of this one or seen the movie. It’s a classic unreliable narrator story where you aren’t sure what to think basically the whole time. Honestly, the inability of the narrator to keep her life together or her story straight was pretty maddening in this book, but it makes for a great page turner where you want to see what actually happened because you aren’t sure who to believe. This story has all the classics: alcohol abuse, betrayal, ex-partners, murder,

9) What She Left Behind & The Life She Was Given,  Ellen Marie Wiseman

Apparently The Plum Tree is her book that made Wiseman an acclaimed author. While I haven’t read that book, I have read and loved two of her works. Wiseman is the queen of the dual timeline. She writes compelling stories from different generations and weaves them together in ways you wouldn’t expect that tell a compelling joint story. What She Left Behind deals with the intrigue of mental hospitals and our ability to understand mental illness through time. The Life She Was Given chronicles a traveling circus and a hidden room in a manor that are tied together in a story about what it’s like to be different and endure disaster. Both of these books use the past and present to keep you wondering when the two will meet with meaning.

10) Every book written by Liane Moriarty

That’s not the title of a book; I’m serious, just read every book she’s written. She wrote Big Little Lies, which is an awesome HBO series starring Reese Witherspoon (she was born to play a suburban mom in twisty stories). The book itself is the definition of a page-turner. All her books are: The Husband’s Secret, What Alice Forgot, and The Hypnotist’s Love Story are some of my favorite books on the planet. Next on my list is her novel Truly, Madly, Guilty...it just SOUNDS like you won’t be able to put it down!

Okay, so I cheated at the end and that wasn’t strictly 10 book reccomendations. I had to though, all those books deserve their time in the spotlight. Happy Reading!