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5 Great Books to Read over Spring Break

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UCD chapter.

Hey bookworms! Spring break is almost here, which means it’s time to start putting together a reading list. You should definitely consider adding one or more of these! They got great reviews on Amazon and BuzzFeed.

1. American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History by Jim Defelice

From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy Seal Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. His fellow American warriors, whom he protected with deadly precision from rooftops and stealth positions during the Iraq War, called him “The Legend”; meanwhile, the enemy feared him so much they named him al-Shaitan (“the devil”) and placed a bounty on his head. Kyle, who was tragically killed in 2013, writes honestly about the pain of war—including the deaths of two close SEAL teammates—and in moving first-person passages throughout, his wife, Taya, speaks openly about the strains of war on their family, as well as on Chris. 

Gripping and unforgettable, Kyle’s masterful account of his extraordinary battlefield experiences ranks as one of the great war memoirs of all time. Now a blockbuster motion picture directed by Clint Eastwod and nominated for 6 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. (via Amazon)

2. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good? (via Amazon)

3. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge. (via Amazon)

4. Find Me by Laura Van Den Berg

Laura van den Berg’s debut novel Find Me is set in an America devastated by an Alzheimer’s-like pandemic. Joy is a young woman whose immunity to the disease lands her in a hospital in rural Kansas, where she is studied alongside other survivors until she escapes to search for her mother, who abandoned her as a child. (via BuzzFeed)

5. Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman

In her collection Almost Famous Women, Megan Mayhew Bergman’s stories revisit the fascinating but mostly forgotten lives of brave, talented women in history who achieved only a small amount of fame. (via BuzzFeed)

Megan Taylor Hartenstein is an English major and Women's Studies minor at the University of California, Davis. Give her something to write with, and she'll create a masterpiece. While she loves journalism and writing short stories, her dream is to become a television or film writer. Megan is a proud feminist, and loves to incorporate feminist principles in everything she writes.       
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