By By: Eva Monhaut
Columnist
This week I wanted to take a break from my personal recommendations and take a look at one of my fellow writers at The Preface. So, this week we are taking a quick glance at some reading recommendations from The Preface staff.
- The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
Recommended by Co-Editor-in-Chief, Taylor Waldron, this sci-fi, fantasy thriller is a page-turner for sure. It tells the story of a young boy with a strange birth story.
“It has been years since I gave it a read, but it’s an interesting story that lets you immerse yourself in another world and the chaos of an advanced future. It lets you forget about the actual chaos of our present,” shared Waldron.
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Recommended by Staff-Writer, Mabel Myers, this classic is not to be overlooked.
“To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favorites. We had to read it in high school, and I don’t think enough people actually read the book for what it was. This book is exactly what we need in the world today. We can learn so much from it,” said Myers.
- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Recommended by Intern, Cassidy Martenson, this fiction must-read will grab your attention from page one. The book is set in a fictional Barkley Cove, a small fishing village where rumors fill the air of a mysterious girl known as the “Marsh Girl”.
A young Kya Clark does not fit into the normal, polite society running barefoot around town; she is quickly blamed for the death of Chase Andrews. Kya lives one with the land but must also face the growing tension between her natural ways and society’s ways while battling accusations regarding Andrews mysterious death. This deeply moving book is sure to please all audiences.
- The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Recommended by Staff-Writer and Social Media Editor, Ashley Cox, this popular thriller is sure to leave you gripping the edge of your seat. The protagonist, Rachel, catches the same commuter train every day overlooking some gardens. Soon she begins to watch one family who she calls, Jess and Jason, who she believes have a perfect life until one day, she is surprised by what she sees. What follows is a series events which bring her unexplainably into their lives.
“I love this book because of the suspense and how they split up the chapter. I am not a reader, but I can read the book over and over without getting bored. I would highly recommend it to anyone that wants a thriller,” expressed Cox.
- The Bigger World: Poems by Noelle Kocot
This is my recommendation for the week, a lovely, fairy tale like book of poetry by poet, Noelle Kocot. The poems in this collection are characterized by the oddities of being an individual human in a bizarrely mundane world that is far from mundane the closer we look at it. The poems explore loss, love and healing through the lens of the strange, mythological, fairytales and dark surrealism. In the end, the poems use these modes to explore the human experience.
I hope that some of these reading recommendations intrigued you and offer you some interesting reading material for the rest of the semester. As always, follow me on Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6143318-eva to always see what I am reading, find more of my book recommendations, and connect with me in more depth about must-reads.
