Some books are good while you’re reading them and then you immediately forget about them. Others permanently embed themselves into your brain for reasons you didn’t ask for. Whether it’s because the story is devastating, the characters make you irrationally angry or the premise is just so bizarre you can’t stop thinking about it, these are a few books that have been living in my head for years.
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
I read Between Shades of Gray once, back in fifth grade nearly 10 years ago. I picked it up from my classroom library, thinking it was going to be related to Fifty Shades of Grey, because that would definitely be sitting in a fifth grader’s classroom. It took me forever to actually start reading it because I thought it was funny to just carry it around and let people assume it was some dramatic romance novel.
During our state testing, I finally decided to start reading it, and I was immediately humbled. The book follows Lina, a teenage girl whose family is taken from their home in Lithuania by Soviet officers during World War II and sent to labor camps in Siberia. What follows is starvation, freezing temperatures, brutal treatment and families being torn apart. I genuinely was not prepared for how depressing it was. I remember sitting there silently crying in the classroom while reading it. It is an incredible book, but it is so heartbreaking that I do not think I could ever read it again.
Atonement by Ian McEwan
I also read Atonement in school. During my junior year of high school we had to do an independent study on a book, and our teacher gave us this massive list of approved options. All of the titles sounded painfully boring to me, so I asked my teacher to just pick one for me. She told me to read Atonement because it was a love story and she thought I would like it.
What she did not mention was that it would emotionally ruin me. The story revolves around Briony, a younger sister who falsely accuses her older sister’s lover of a crime, completely destroying their lives. The book follows the aftermath of that accusation across decades, through war and separation. I genuinely think about Briony and what she did all the time because the consequences were so permanent and so unfair. Watching the film later did not help either. Ever since seeing Saoirse Ronan play Briony, I cannot separate her from that character. The story is beautifully written, but the ending makes you realize how much damage one moment can cause, which is exactly why it has stuck with me for so long.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation more recently, this past summer, and I still cannot stop thinking about it. The entire premise is about a woman in her early twenties who decides she is going to spend a full year basically sedated and sleeping as much as possible. She finds a questionable psychiatrist who keeps prescribing her more and more medication, and she spends most of the year unconscious in her New York apartment.
What I cannot stop thinking about is how jealous I am of the fact that she could just disappear from life like that. She is rich enough that she does not have to work, she cuts herself off from everyone and she spends an entire year avoiding reality by sleeping through it. Obviously it is not healthy and definitely not safe, but the idea of completely shutting off from the world sometimes sounds incredibly appealing. The book is strange, uncomfortable and a little dark, but the concept alone makes it hard to stop thinking about.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
I also read A Thousand Splendid Suns during the same English class where I read Atonement, which in retrospect was a brutal emotional lineup. The novel follows the lives of two Afghan women, Mariam and Laila, whose lives become intertwined through an abusive marriage during decades of war and political upheaval in Afghanistan.
The fact that stories like this reflect real experiences is what makes it so hard to forget. The book explores forced marriage, abuse, motherhood and survival under constant political and social instability. Khaled Hosseini writes these characters in a way that makes you feel deeply connected to them, especially the bond that forms between Mariam and Laila as they endure everything together. It is heartbreaking, but also incredibly powerful. Even years later I still think about their sacrifices and the strength they show despite everything happening around them.