Turning 33 Musings & Book Recs
33 Books for 33 Years
I turn 33 on Friday. Birthdays were never a very big deal growing up - I have the same birthday as my mum, my sister is a week after and my dad was a week before so we would do a ‘summer Christmas’ on my birthday instead where everyone got their gifts all at once to save time. Most years I get upset about getting older - there is this weird feeling that everyone else around me is growing up, and I’m still stuck and the same. Especially as I have chosen to be child-free, when everyone around me is rearing small humans and I’m still waking up at 9.30am to watch anime until 11, it’s hard not to feel like a piece of shit.
At the weekend, I went with some of my girlfriends to a bottomless brunch with a giant ball pit. It was the most fun, I was cry-laughing for the whole night. The next day, hungover to hell, I got a text from one of my close friends. She’s pregnant. I couldn’t help but think about what a huge loser I must look like to her, Peter Panning my way through life and refusing to be an adult. But, I’m trying to get over these feelings, and to tell myself that everyone has a different path and the choice to have a child or not doesn’t make you more or less valid. Someone has to be the fun aunt who gets drunk at kid’s birthday parties and says something inappropriate, and I guess it’s gonna have to be me.
So, my gift to myself is to continue having fun (and a new gym membership), and my gift to you all is 33 book recommendations. When I turned 30, my friend Bronte gave me a jar of her 30 favourite reads to work through. I’m recycling her idea for you. These are 33 books that have stuck with me through the years, there’s something for everyone, and they’re all amazing in their own very different ways. Books that have truly shaped me into the person I am today.
Here we go!
MATILDA by Roald Dahl. For children who feel a little bit different, and need some magic in their lives.
A LITTLE LIFE by Hanya Yanagihara. A desperately tragic story of love and friendship with LGBTQ+ rep. (Bring tissues.)
PSYCHO by Robert Bloch. A classic horror with incredible characters. Consumable in one sitting.
READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline. A fantastically fun sci-fi set in an online VR landscape filled with 80s pop culture easter eggs.
SIX OF CROWS by Leigh Bardugo. Fantasy duology with a host of morally grey outcasts who band together for a heist.
LOLITA by Vladimir Nobakov. A disturbing story of grooming told with the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read. The original unreliable narrator.
THE HATE U GIVE by Angie Thomas. Contemporary teen novel about the devastating effects of police brutality and racism in America.
COLUMBINE by Dave Cullen. A non-fiction account of the school shootings that rocked the world, covering every angle: Grief, violence, and media frenzy.
THE BOOK THIEF by Marcus Zusak. A beautiful and horribly sad story of a young girl in Germany during the Nazi reign who befriends a Jew.
JUNK by Melvin Burgess. A controversial teen novel called for banning that depicts young drug addiction in the UK. Gritty and real.
THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO by Patrick Ness. A brilliant fantasy set in a world where women don’t exist and men can hear each other’s thoughts.
THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER by Stephen Chbosky. A coming-of-age YA novel about friendship, love, and abuse.
PAX by Sara Pennypacker. A beautiful children’s book about a fox and it’s boy trying to find each other after being forced apart during war.
BATTLE ROYALE by Koushan Takemi. The original Hunger Games. Japanese fiction following school children in a brutal, grizzly, fight to the death.
WHITE FRAGILITY by Robin Diangelo. Non-fiction book on racial inequality and what can be done to be better. A vital read.
LAST ONE AT THE PARTY by Bethany Clift. A thought-provoking, realistic post-apocalypse novel with an unforgettable ending.
EARTHLINGS by Sayaka Murata. Japanese fiction for the weirdos. A bizarre story of aliens, incest, and what it is to live.
THE SECRET HISTORY by Donna Tartt. A furiously aesthetic murder story with the best, most ridiculous and pretentious characters to ever exist.
ALMOND by Won-Pyung Sohn. Korean fiction. Painfully sad story about a boy with a brain condition. Monsters who meet monsters, friendship and loss.
LEGENDS AND LATTES by Travis Baldree. A cosy fantasy about an ogre who runs a coffee shop with her misfit found family. Like a warm hug.
FOURTH WING by Rebecca Yarros. A spicy fantasy with epic worldbuilding, dragons, a wicked magic system and high stakes.
THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt. Another aesthetic novel, this time heartbreakingly sad as we follow a boy through his difficult life after the traumatic death of his mother.
THE DEAD by Charlie Higson. A rip-roaringly fun apocalypse novel set in modern-day London, where kids survive and adults are zombies.
BAD FRUIT by Ella King. A psychological thriller that explores race, narcissistic mothers and the pain of hidden family secrets.
SEVENTEEN by Joe Gibson. A disturbing non-fiction story of a boy who was groomed - and married - his teacher. Unforgettable.
SAVING NOAH. Another disturbing one. Noah is a teenage predator. He can’t stop his urges. His mother wants to help him, but can you fix this sickness? An uncomfortable read that questions the blurring of morality.
THE LAST THING TO BURN by Will Dean. An edge-of-your-seat nail-biting thriller about an immigrant woman being held captive on a farm in England.
LAPVONA by Ottessa Moshfegh. For the person who has read everything, and doesn’t think they can be shocked or disturbed anymore. You can. Read this.
I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN by Jacqueline Harpman. The French classic - a post-apocalyptic story exploring what it is to be a woman, or alive.
MONGREL by Hanako Footman. A beautiful literary story following three generations of women exploring mixed-race identity.
PENPAL by Dathan Auerbach. The most disturbing horror story, some scenes stuck in my brain forever. Not gory - but deeply psychological and twisted.
IT by Stephen King. Another horror, a masterclass on strong dialogue and going beyond the expected in a genre.
ON WRITING by Stephen King. Non fiction autobiography-cross-guide written by the King himself. Inspirational, clever, engaging and fun.
Extra recommendations because 33 was too few somehow:
BUNNY by Mona Awad - A weird fever-dream book about a mini girl cult reading literature at university.
CRESCENT CITY by Sarah J Maas - A rip-roaring high-stake fantasy with excellent world-building, fun and 3D characters and a feverish plot. Think elves taking drugs in a club.
MAAME by Jessica George - A contemporary story of a young girl dealing with grief. Timely when I read it, and will stay with me as a result.
GEEK LOVE by Katherine Dunn. Think Freak Show season of American Horror Story in book form. But better.
STRANGE PICTURES by Uketsu. Japanese fiction. The cleverest mystery I have ever read, I can’t fathom the plotting process. Ingenious.
FORBIDDEN By Tabitha Suzuma. A sad story about the incestual relationship between brother and sister in a broken home in the UK. (Fiction).
NOUGTS AND CROSSES by Malorie Blackman. A must-read modern classic about love between a couple in a world where racism as we know it is flipped.
WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER by Hanna Thomas Uose. A thought-provoking speculative about what it is to live your life. Made me question everything.
