At this point, I think most of us have had the same experience, so I’ll assume you will know what I’m talking about when I mention “the post middle school reading slump.” You were deeply infatuated with literature (especially YA at the time, at least), ranging from the Percy Jackson series to The Fault in Our Stars and a plethora of others. Same here! About a year after moving back to the United States and understanding enough English, you would constantly catch me with a book. That went on in middle school and into most of high school. Next thing you know, the idea of even picking up a book was repulsing for me.
I think part of it has to do with the fact that I went to college. 95% of the time, I was reading academic articles and other texts that required a lot of my attention. As for the additional 5%, I was completing assignments for those classes. By the time the semesters came to an end, I was too tired to do anything; I just wanted to shut down for a while until I had to repeat the same cycle.
That being said, I’ve had more opportunities to read on my own time and also for class, and these are some books that have helped me get back into the joys of reading!
- Habitat Threshold by Craig Santos Perez
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This poetry collection consists of incredible pieces about environmental destruction and its association with racial and cultural injustices. Perez manages to weave his personal life into these pieces, more specifically, what it’s like to be raising a daughter in this climate. Reading his poetry just emphasized that those two things cannot be separate, no matter how people try to spin them. Craig Santos Perez also recycles several poems, giving each of them his voice. Some of my favorite pieces in this collection are: “Rings of Fire,” “Christmas in the Capitalocene,” “Hush, Little Planet,” “Thanksgiving in the Plantationocene,” and “Halloween in the Anthropocene.”
- The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
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In this non-fiction book, Sarah M. Broom takes us through her life in one of the most neglected areas in one of the most popular places in the United States: New Orleans. Sarah shares details going all the way back to her mother’s side of the family, how the Yellow House came to be, and how it inevitably was wiped off the map due to Hurricane Katrina. It is a memoir about a place, race and class, the government’s neglect, and eventually the shame that comes with all of it. As someone who didn’t grow up in the United States and was young when Hurricane Katrina happened, I was aware of the extent of the response to the disaster, but this book was that and a lot more. It was about family, finding your identity, and a house that meant a lot. I’m not someone who usually reads non-fiction books, but this is it if I had to recommend one.
- Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
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Set in the 1950s in San Francisco, Malinda Lo tells the story of Lilly Hu, a young child of Chinese immigrants who is entering her final year of high school and begins to explore her sexuality. This book was recommended to me through TikTok, which I usually don’t take book recommendations from, but I decided to go for it because the plot sounded interesting. However, I was still in that slump, so I got it, but it stayed on my bookshelf for about a year before I finally picked it up. It’s a great read, and I recommend looking up content warnings for this novel (as it uses slurs and other triggering content), so do keep that in mind before reading this book!
- Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Saenz
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The sequel to Aristotle and Dante’s Discover the Secrets of the Universe deals with the relationship between Aristotle and Dante as they navigate being gay men in Texas during the 1980s AIDS pandemic. The first book was an immense comfort for me. I read it in 7th grade about three times before giving it back to the library, and while I prefer the first one, I still think Saenz did a great job with the sequel. It was a pleasure to see Aristotle and Dante grow as individuals and also a couple.
I’m genuinely looking forward to spending more time with books, and I’m always looking for recommendations, regardless of genre—for the most part!
Honorary mentions: A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.