With busy lives and lots of responsibilities, it’s hard to find time to sit down and relax even just for a minute. Let alone have time to leisurely start a new book and actually finish it within a timely manner. Rather than extend it to the point where you don’t even remember what happened in the first chapter because you started reading the book over a year ago.
Nonetheless, reading is a great strategy to relieve stress especially for college students. Regardless of genre, books create a realm beyond our individual realities that we can escape to even just for a moment before facing the real world. Plus, books are pretty easy to carry around wherever you need to go throughout your daily activities. And if physical books aren’t really your thing, kindles are a great user-friendly option!
To help you get on your reading grind, here are some recommendations for books you should read this month!
The Sun is Also a Star
My favorite read of 2019 thus far is most definitely Nicola Yoon’s #1 New York Times Bestseller. Written with multiple perspectives of main characters as well as general city-goers of the Big Apple, The Sun is Also a Star includes issues of immigration, college decisions, racial injustices, and financial difficulties all throughout a windy love story. This is one book you will not be able to put down until you’re finished!
You can order The Sun is Also a Star on Amazon here.
All The Bright Places
If you’re ready for a tear jerking, heart wrenching story to captivate all of your thoughts long after you finish it, then All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven is the right choice for you. This book includes stories of teenage angst alongside the drama and multitude of hardships revolving around high school. Without a doubt you will be taken on an emotional rollercoaster and even have some reminscences of your own high school days.
You can order All The Bright Places on Amazon here.
Everything I Never Told You
If you’re looking for more of a thriller to spice up our literary desires, Celeste Ng’s story will make you rip your pages from turning them so quickly. Written about a teenage girl whose body is found in a lake, a devastatingly shocked family pieces together what events lead to such a tragedy in this emotional book. Sophomore UMass Amherst student Alicia Ramones gives her praise for the book because “it leaves a lot of room for guessing and predicting, with reasons that are shocking“.
You can order Everything I Never Told You on Amazon here.
Severance
With settings of an apocalyptic plague and endings of society with a twist of comic relief, Ling Ma’s Severance takes us on a reflection of one girl’s experience as a hardworking millenial. The book draws bigger life questions like what it means to survive as opposed to what it means to actually live. Nadia L’Bahy of UMass Amherst ranks Severance on her book shelf of favorites because “it’s not just your standard apocalypse”. She goes on to claim that “it shows kind of a critcism of the way we live now and how even when everything is falling apart, we are so dedicated to maintaining the exact same system and routine–which makes it kind of funny.”
You can buy Severance on Amazon here.
With these new books to add to your reading list, you are sure to have a busy yet relaxing month! Happy reading!