Okay, The Cruel Prince by Holly Black. Picture a mortal girl trapped in the world of faeries. They are beautiful, powerful, and vicious. This book is pure, glittery, stabby joy.
Holly Black is obsessed with folklore. She once said she loves writing about “monsters who are charming.” That’s the whole vibe. You’ll root for a character who would absolutely ruin your life.
Fun fact: Black keeps a jar of dried spiders on her desk. For inspiration. Spiders. We are not making this up.
Sci-fi for the weird kid
Yes, you. You know who you are. Read Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. It’s a book that looks like a dossier. There are emails, chat logs, blacked-out secret files, and schematics of spaceships.
It is a war crime against boring novels. The story is about an AI named AIDAN who might be a little insane. One character literally has to convince a spaceship not to murder everyone. It’s tense. It’s brilliant.
The authors wrote the entire thing while texting each other “what if?” questions. That’s how art is made.
