What truly defines a good book? To me, a book is good if it inspires me to reflect upon my life and worldview. Here are a few of my favorite stories that inspired me to do just that.
The Seven Husbands of Ev-elyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
This novel chronicles the sto-ry of an up-and-coming jour-nalist, Monique, who has been granted the opportunity to interview the mysterious Hol-lywood starlet Evelyn Hugo about her rise to fame and her
numerous marriages in order to write a high-stakes biogra-phy.
One of my favorite aspects of this book is that there is no “good guy” — each character is complex and takes morally questionable actions. It also ex-plores difficult topics like sex-uality, the commodification of women’s bodies, and discrim-ination against the LGBTQ+ community. The complexity and realness of the characters are very thought-provoking and invite the reader to reeval-uate their outlooks on life.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
In this classic, Humbert, a man waiting in prison for trial, pens an auto-
biographical retelling of his obsession with the 12-year-old title character, Lolita. At its core, this is a story told by an unreliable narrator. Con-trary to what most may think, however, it’s not difficult to get through despite the sub-ject matter because Humbert employs elegant and flowery language while talking about
his reprehensible actions. You may want to put down the book every once in a while to clear your head — the narrator manipulates the reader so well that it’s easy to find yourself excusing his actions.
This novel has vast layers of meaning, particularly ev-idenced by how the narra-tor manipulates the reader through his control of lan-guage. It’s worth reading due to these complex meanings, and the effect on the reader also illustrates how it’s remarkably easy to mask ill intentions.
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
This coming-of-age novel fo-cuses on the story of Gogol, an Indian-American growing up in Massachusetts in the late 1900s, and his journey into adulthood as grows into his identity.
One reason to appreciate this novel is its expression of the immigrant experience. It does an excellent job of explor-ing the difficulties many immigrant children face as they grow older.
Furthermore, my favorite theme in this novel was the significance of a name (Gogol’s name — read the book to find out!). This book inspires read-ers to wonder about who they really are and how their heritage shapes them.
The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst
This short story chronicles the life of the narrator and the story of his disabled brother.
I have never read a story that has impacted me as emotion-ally as this one- it broughtme to tears. The narrator’s raw honesty makes this story all the more devastating. His identity as a young child at the time of the story is evident all through his retelling, and his brother’s character captures readers’ hearts. Hurst’s use of detail and foreshadowing truly makes this a masterpiece.
I hope you appreciate these books as much as I did and that they inspire you to reflect on your worldview and opinions too!