Thanksgiving is a time to spend with your family and be appreciative of all you’ve been given in life. Now as for us collegiettes we spend it sleeping, eating, sleeping and more eating. Who can blame us? We survived midterms, last minute papers our professors assigned us before break and class registration; we deserve five days to get back to basics. While your head is not resting on your pillow, consider reading these six great books.
1) Americanah
Americanah is written by novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Americana is centered around the love story of Ifemelu and Obinze. Their love is unlike any that you have read in any books growing up. Their love is beautiful, but then it is tried, beaten, stretched, yet it endures and gets stronger. Love aside, this book deals about race and hair and how they relate to one another. Ifemelu goes to America to finish college and is faced with what it means to be black in America. This book is filled with multiple storylines that come together beautifully.
2) Kite Runner
The Kite Runner a book turned film and is the first novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. Amir, a well-to-do Pashtun boy, and Hassan, a Hazara who is the son of Ali, Amir’s father’s servant, spend their days kite fighting in the hitherto peaceful city of Kabul. Hassan is a successful “kite runner” for Amir; he knows where the kite will land without watching it.
3) Welding Hall
When it comes to horror films, I’m usually not the one to be first in line to see it. That goes for books as well. For some reason horror books have had a history of giving me goosebumps a lot more than any horror film I’ve seen. Welding Hall is no different. This book is written by Elizabeth Hand and centers around a British acid-folk band are compelled by their manager to record their unique music at Wylding Hall, an ancient country house with dark secrets. There they create the album that will make their reputation, but at a terrifying cost.
4) The Poisonwood Bible
Written in Barbara Kingsolver, an evangelical Baptist preacher Nathan Price takes his family to the Belgian Congo as missionaries. When they arrive in the Congo, they are assigned to the village of Kilanga, where the Prices will be the only American family. Soon after their arrival, it becomes clear that they are woefully unprepared to deal with life in such a drastically different culture and climate.
5) Suicide Notes
Fifteen-year-old Jeff wakes up on New Year’s Day to find himself in the hospital – in the psychiatric ward with the nutjobs. For him, this is all a huge mistake, because the bandages on his wrists, the notes on his chart and the problems with his best friend, Allie, and her boyfriend, Burke does not make him crazy. Jeff’s perfectly fine, perfectly normal, not like the other kids in the hospital with him. But a funny thing happens as his forty-five-day sentence drags on – the crazies start to seem less crazy.
6) Homegoing
Effia and Esi- two sisters with two very different destinies. One sold into slavery; one a slave trader’s wife. The consequences of their fate reverberate through the generations that follow.