25 Books That Influenced Me Before 25

Uncategorized, ,

I turn 25 today which is a terrifying thought, but it also means I get to start using the phrase “the last quarter century” in regards to myself which is a wonderful turn of phrase. So on that note, I thought I’d spent my birthday reminiscing on some of the books that influenced me during the first quarter century of my life. What books have influenced you in your life? Let me know in the comments! I love new book ideas for the next 25 years!

CHILDREN’S

  • The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
    • This is a book I didn’t fully understand until I was older and its message still resonates with me the older I get.
  • Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss
    • I don’t even remember why I loved this book so much. I just know that I remember it as my favorite Dr. Seuss book and it’s one of the children’s books I still think about every so often.
  • Winne the Pooh by A.A. Milne
    • I was obsessed with Winnie the Pooh as a kid and I am not ashamed to admit that I went and saw Christopher Robin by myself with my childhood Pooh plush shoved in my purse.
  • The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
    • Ever since my high school French teacher had us read this book, I’ve been lowkey obsessed with it and what it wants to say about imagination and dreams. I definitely almost cried watching the Netflix adaptation.

YOUNG ADULT
(You can probably pinpoint the exact year I turned 13 based on this part of the list but c’est la vie!)

  • Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
    • A book that grows with you in ways good and bad is always going to influence you. As I’ve gotten older (and Rowling has gotten more publicly transphobic), the way I’ve read these books has changed. But I cannot deny that the Wizarding World had a profound effect on my childhood and remains the root of my love of fantasy literature.
  • Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
    • This is the first book I read in one sitting. I never watched the Netflix adaptation because I didn’t want anything to change my impression of Jay Asher’s story.
  • The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
    • This series is still the definitive YA dystopia to me and the older I get and the more I look back, the more I pick up on what Suzanne Collins was trying to say.
  • Looking For Alaska by John Green
    • John Green’s debut novel holds a special place in my heart because it takes place near my hometown. Having said that, I still hold a dust speck sized grudge against Green for name dropping every town in the area except my hometown.
  • Maximum Ride by James Patterson
    • While I don’t think I could now tell you the plot of these books to save my life, I have so many fond memories of reading this series throughout middle school and into high school
  • Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
    • I was Team Edward. Then Team Jacob. Then Team Edward. Now, many years later, I’m Team “Bella deserves better than both of you.” The Twilight times were the first time I got to ride the wave of a cultural obsession start to finish. My friends and I loved reading and discussing these books and I will always fondly remember those times. But to be honest I can’t believe some of the things that happened in that series looking back.
  • Ahsoka by E. K. Johnston
    • I credit this book with two things. One, my undying love of E.K. Johnston’s writing and two, my obsession with the Star Wars books which now take up a whole shelf on my bookshelf. One of the rare books I obsessively read in less than 24 hours.

CLASSICS

  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
    • I read this book at 16 and it inspired such an interest in the 1920s for me that eight years later I wrote a paper in a grad school history class about flappers and got an award for it. Gatsby’s lines of “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can…. I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before. She’ll see” still haunts me to this day.
  • The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
    • One of the first “required reading” books that I fell in love with and one of the first books that made me realize just because the book is older than you, doesn’t mean it’s bad. Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold.
  • To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
    • Shocker, the girl from Alabama was influenced by To Kill A Mockingbird. But to be fair, this was one of the first times I was taught how to critically read and study a book that had a personal connection to me.

FICTION

  • The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler
    • This is one of the books that got me back into reading as an undergrad. It sparked a one-year reading streak and helped me figure out what I wanted out of non-young adult books.
  • The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
    • This one of the first books I loved that I didn’t want to read quickly. Usually, when I love a book I fly through it. But with this one it demanded to be read slowly, letting the story and beautiful world slowly wash over me a little at a time. I still think about this book constantly and am planning on doing a second reading, something I rarely do.
  • Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
    • I think this might qualify as the first adult fantasy series I read. It was the series that proved to me that I could still read 1000 page books at a similar rate to how I did when I was 12.
  • The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
    • The writing style of this book is beautiful. The prose is breathtaking, and I think about quotes from this book constantly.
  • Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
    • I read this book after becoming massively obsessed with the television show. The way Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship is written is so wonderful and the world Pratchett and Gaiman built is delightful.
  • The Martian by Andy Weir
    • I was never really into realistic science fiction, but I got so into this book I was actively ignoring people while I read it and forcing them to wait for me to come to a stopping point before I would start a conversation.
  • Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
    • This book gets a spot on this list because it’s one of the first books I read where I got to meet the author and listen to her talk about the book and it was one of the best nights of my life.
  • Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
    • I never considered that a book could be written in this format and it expanded my horizons about writing possibilities.

NON FICTION

  • The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher
    • I read this book while processing the loss of Carrie Fisher and I fell more in love with her on every page. It’s a beautifully comedic autobiography that I will hold onto as a memorial to one of my favorite actors.
  • Out on the Wire by Jessica Abel
    • This is such a beautifully illustrated lesson on how to tell a story in any medium and it stands as one of the most thought-provoking “how to write” reading assignments any professor ever gave me.
  • She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey
    • This book is the story of a story, but I always appreciated how the authors didn’t make it a story about themselves, but a story about the sources and their journey to becoming a part of one of the most influential journalism stories of the past decade.

So there you have it, 25 books that influenced the first 25 years of my life! Cheers to the next 25, whatever books they may bring

Want to share this post on Pinterest? Use this image below and follow me @serenaspeaking on Pinterest and Instagram!