My Most Favourite Thing (Part One)

I received a request to do a post on books! As a writer, books are easily my most favourite things in the world. I am often baffled when people tell me that they don't like to read; how could you not like to read?! What is abhorrent to you about delving deep into the lives of so many other people, surrounding yourself with a world that is so very different from your own? How could anyone not enjoy that? The idea that anyone could be opposed to reading is something that I will never be able to understand, no matter how it is explained to me.

"She reads books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live."

~Annie Dillard

 So yesterday, upon receiving the request, I made a list of ten books/series that I am either currently reading or are always going to be favourites (note: I updated the Current Favourites page to show what I'm reading/playing/listening to now!). They are in no particular order, except for that which I thought of them in. Because I can't possibly make this a single sit-down post, I'm going to separate the books into two lists of five.

So, starting from the top, which is actually my favourite book, we have this:

1. The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern.

"The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night."

-The Night Circus

This is my very battered copy alongside the necklace charm that Ryne's mom bought for me. I have recommended this book to several people, but it seems to really only appeal to a specific group. It is very long, and worth every single second spent reading it. There is an audio book for it, read by the lovely Jim Dale, but I would highly recommend reading it yourself.
It tells the story of two magicians, Celia and Marco, who are trained from childhood by the enigmatic instructors for the purpose of a competition.

The competition's stage, as it were, is a circus. A circus where they will showcase their magic until only one of them is left standing; a battle to the death. The circus serves a darker purpose beyond entertainment and profit. The exhibits within the circus are the pieces of magic entered within the competition. Celia is taught to hone her innate talents by holding ever larger and more complex magical workings in her mind. Celia takes her position on the game board as the illusionist who makes true transformations, adding tents and maintaining wondrous aspects from the inside. Marco is trained with books in the ways of glyphs and sympathetic magic and illusory worlds that exist only in the mind of the beholder. Marco takes a position as the assistant to the producer of the circus; he works from the outside in, connected to the circus, but not a direct part of it, like Celia is. The two beguile the circus goers and each other with nightly wonders, soon falling in love despite being magically bound to a deadly competition with rules neither understands.

There are other characters, as the story switches between several points of view. It also skips through time by several years, sometimes decades, and reading the time-stamps at the top of each chapter is very important to keeping track of everyone. The book is enormously complex, but the language, the diction, is captivating. Whenever I read the book, the entire text is so rich that I find myself reading a lot more slowly than I usually do so that I can appreciate every syllable. The story is beyond beautiful.
The first time I read it, I finished it very late in the evening. Early morning, actually, around two o'clock. I cried when I finished it, not because it was sad, but because this book awakens within you the strangest feeling. You read it, and you find yourself missing the circus. Missing a place you have never been or seen or even known of, except in your mind's eye.

This is the only word I can think of that describes the feeling, and it's not even English. It's German. It's nostalgia for a place you've never been, for something that you don't even truly know. It creates a feeling within you that the place you are longing for makes reality around you pale in comparison. I know I'm rambling, but this book makes you long so desperately for the circus, for the atmosphere of that place, that it brings you to tears.
I highly, highly suggest you read this book. It has stolen my heart in a way that no other book has ever done.

Don't worry. Not all of my recommendations will be this long.

2. The Private series, by Kate Brian.

"Tradition. Honour. Excellence."

-Easton Academy Motto, Private series

I will be the first to admit that these books are not works of literary art. They are a little poorly written through the first few, as the author tries to find her footing. But once you get into the story, it's crazy intense. There are 13 books in the series itself, with two prequel-ish novels accompanying it. There's a spin-off series called Privilege about one of the other characters in the story that I am fixing to read in the near future.
The story is about a girl named Reed Brennan who comes from a middle-class family and attends her last three years of high-school at an elite, private boarding school with the upper-classes. The books follow her life, and the amount of curve-balls thrown at the reader are crazy. There are murders, kidnapping, and extortion, all surrounded by the wealth and extravagance of New York royalty. It honestly throws you for a loop with every book, keeps you on the edge of your seat, and will freak you out if read in the middle of the night.

3. Anna and the French Kiss, by Stephanie Perkins

“How many times can our emotions be tied to someone else's - be pulled and stretched and twisted - before they snap? Before they can never be mended again?” 

-Anna and the French Kiss

This is a book that has to be read without thinking about the title. The title is what turns people off from it whenever I mention it. It is not referring to French-kissing, with tongue and gross spit and all that nasty stuff, but a literal French kiss. A kiss in France, from a boy who is as much a part of France, regardless of the fact that he's not actually French.
Anna is sent to boarding school in France for her senior year by her divorced parents. Her father recently became a famous author (who writes books similar to John Green or Jodi Piccoult or Nicholas Sparks) and decided that to "impress his author friends" he needed to make it appear as if he were wise and cultured: sending Anna to France for school was the result.

 She arrives and is immediately drawn into a small group of friends. Amongst them is a beautiful boy named Étienne St. Clair, who Anna immediately falls in love with. Unfortunately, the lovely St. Clair is already in a relationship. All is good and well--there's nothing wrong with liking a person, as long as you don't act on it--until St. Clair falls in love with Anna. Despite his relationship status. This element is what makes the book so interesting: how can he break up with his girlfriend without the reader thinking he is callous? How can the reader like Anna when it seems like she's trying to tempt him away from his committed relationship?
The book spans over her entire senior year at this school, and the ending is actually extremely satisfying. The book is everything that a love story should be; it's set in the City of Love, how could it not be?
My best friend, Claire, and I actually considered getting matching tattoos using an element from this book because we both enjoy it so much. Alas, no tattoo. Yet.

4. The Selection series, by Kiera Cass

"I hope you find someone you can't live without .I really do. And I hope you never have to know what it's like to have to try and live without them.”

-The Selection

The final book in this series (maybe?), The One, was actually released closer to the beginning of this year. I say 'maybe' because the author posted on Instagram what looked like a manuscript for a fourth book, titled The Queen. These books are incredible. They are everything I like about dystopian novels with none of the annoying cliches. Sure, The Hunger Games and Divergent were good, but they had elements that made them too similar. Kiera Cass completely leaps out of that realm and into a whole new world of her own.

These books tell the story of a girl named America Singer, one of the girls chosen in The Selection, an event that picks out select girls from each caste in the kingdom to be potential brides for the prince. They are moved away from their homes and all live in the palace, completing tasks and being trained to be royalty, all the while getting to know the prince and vying for his affection.
America never wanted to be a part of The Selection, because she's in love with a boy back home. Unfortunately, she is a caste higher than the boy she loves, making any finalization (i.e. marriage) of their relationship nigh impossible. No one even knows that they are in love because it would mess up a lot of things within castes.
But oh, how the prince wins her over.

America starts to realize she loves Prince Maxon more than her boy back home, even when said boy moves in as part of the Castle Guard. But all this romance is surrounded by something darker: a secret war. A war between the Northern Rebels, the Southern Rebels, and the royal family. The rebellion believes that The Selection should be abolished, as should the castes. One set of rebels is violent, frequently raiding the castle, killing servants in an attempt to get to the king and queen. The other group is only in pursuit of knowledge. And when America discovers secrets about the history of their country and starts to agree with some of the rebellion's ideas, everything about her relationship with the prince and the royal family is called into question.
Does she do what's right and potentially lose the prince, or does she keep her mouth shut when everything around her is utterly, horribly wrong?
Kiera Cass is an incredible writer. One of the people who inspires half of what I write, alongside Erin Morgenstern and Jane Austen.

5. The Lunar Chronicles, by Marissa Meyer

"'Vanity is a factor, but it is more a question of control. It is easier to trick others into perceiving you as beautiful if you can convince yourself you are beautiful. But mirrors have an uncanny way of telling the truth.”"

-Cinder

I am not one for science-fiction. I really dislike it, actually. Aside from Star Trek, Star Wars, and Doctor Who, science-fiction is definitely not my thing. But this series (incomplete: the fourth book comes out next year, unfortunately) takes old fairy tales and turns them into a futuristic plot-line. Each book is from the point-of-view of a different character, continuing the story each time (meaning it's not a repetition of the same story, just told from another pair of eyes).
Earth is in a stale-mate with the Lunar people. 'Lunar' implying the obvious: the people of the moon. The Lunar Queen wants in on the alliance between Earth, it's nations, and the other planets, but she will only be sworn in if she gets to marry the Prince of the Eastern Region. If she doesn't get in, she will bring her army down and swiftly destroy every single continent without mercy.

 The books tell the story of a variety of fairy-tale characters, the first being Cinder, obviously after Cinderella. In the futuristic setting, Cinder is a cyborg, seen as dirty and inhuman to the people of Earth. She was once a human being, but due to events that she has no recollection of, she is now a cyborg. No one likes the cyborgs, especially not her step-mother. Cinder bumps into the prince accidentally whilst out at the market, and they get along swimmingly. He continues to come back to the shop that Cinder owns in the market, purely to visit her. They start a friendship, and when the prince is about to throw a ball to welcome the Lunar Queen to Earth for a treaty organization, he invites Cinder.
When Cinder's step-mother discovers that Cinder was invited, she refuses to let her go, instead going in her place with Cinder's step-sister.
This is when Cinder uncovers the Lunar Queen's plot to kill the prince, and everything hangs in the balance.

I can't reveal a lot about the following books due to spoilers, but Scarlet is the main character of the next novel, following the tale of Red Riding Hood. Scarlet eventually becomes tangled up in Cinder's story, and the two join forces to save the Earth from the Lunar Queen. The third novel continues their story, eventually tying them in with Cress, a girl modeled after Rapunzel.
The third book ended with quite the cliff-hanger, and I don't know how Marissa Meyer expects me to wait a full year for the new one.

I'm sorry this was so long! Once I get started on books I have a hard time stopping. It's difficult for me to try and sum up and pitch a book to someone without getting really worked up and revealing the whole plot. I will add the next five books/series tomorrow! I hope that this inspired you to make a trip to the library.
I would offer to let you borrow my copies of the books if you really wanted, but I hate letting other people touch my most prized possessions. I know that no one else will love and care for them as much I do (completely serious).

"But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God. I will always trust in God’s unfailing love."

Psalms 52:8