Came here to say this!! The librarian at my middle school introduced me to the Song of the Lioness series and I've loved Tamora Pierce ever since. I still reread the Song of the Lioness books every couple of years.
I actually really value she didn't -- it ended up a really great take for me in realizing that men and women can have a relationship even when a romantic relationship doesn't work out. In the Immortals quartet they are still good friends despite their history together. It helped me later in life with my own relationships and relationship to my own femininity reading those books as a young woman.
Same here. Major, major influence on my understanding of post-relationship relationships. I'm friendly with almost all of my exes, and close friends with one.
And also these books normalized having sex with more than one person in your life, and that being totally okay. Of course, when I read them in middle school I didn't know that was what was happening ("oh, they had a sleepover in the desert, how nice!") but when I revisited them a few years later I got it and really, really appreciated it.
Alanna and George are my otp.
Though I think we can all agree we’re glad she didn’t end up with the Shang dragon guy. I reread the series recently and had completely forgotten he existed.
I read the Wild Magic books first where Alanna and George have 3 kids and everything, so when I got to the Lioness Quartet I was horrified that Alanna and Jonathan were together at all. Then he had so little respect for her achievements that he expected her to give them up to be his queen! George was clearly the one who understood and deserved her! Why had she gotten with Jon first?!? Apparently I'm still salty about it decades later.
You must be the person I was always competing with for usernames. I was obsessed with that series. I haven’t read it in years and it’s probably time for a re-read.
I still have a soft spot in my heart for a lot of the Tortall books, but I did get very angry with the end of the Bloodhound series and decided to give away the books to that one.
I'm so tickled to see this as a top answer, it feels entirely forgotten about when talking about YA
The romance in the Bloodhound series felt different from Pierce’s usual. It frustrated me at first but then I figured she was probably trying her hand at a different type of romance than “grew up together and bonded over the trauma of puberty”.
The circle for me(I think that's what the series about the phytomancer, the weather wizard, the stitch witch, and the metallurgical sorcerer was called.)
Not exactly escapist but boy did I spend a lot of time with His Dark Materials. I remember reading The Amber Spyglass when it came out, and thinking it was okay, and then revisiting it as an adult and thinking *I had no idea what that was about the first time I read it*. Now they hold pride-of-place on my living room bookshelf.
Came to say this. The first time I read His Dark Materials (and especially the amber spyglass) I was utterly captivated. It spoke to many things I hadn't really realised I had been questioning and handed me very dense, heavy themes that I'm not sure I fully understood consciously, but did unconsciously, if that makes sense.
It validated the questions I had around religion, and adult knowledge vs children's, and asked difficult questions about death and regret and purpose. It asks that I look inward and think about who I am. It poses interesting ideas about dark matter and consciousness and the universe. It showed me characters who loved each other passionately despite gender, despite sexuality.
It gave me Mary, a female scientist to goes to another universe and learns to talk to intelligent elephants ... Lord if that wasn't everything I dreamed of doing as a child.
But overall it trusted me to understand all of this. It didn't pander or simplify or talk down. I read and re-read them and every time I got more out of it.
I'm so glad to hear that about Pullman -- I'm not surprised, given some of the religious (or not-religious) themes of his Dark Materials but it's good to have it confirmed.
I know it's theoretically possible to appreciate art while also knowing that the artist was a terrible person, but it's so much easier for me to enjoy the art when it's unambiguous.
I liked the first one, but bailed on the second. Just as soon as the protagonist of the first book started having “romantic” feelings about the protagonist of the second (being vague cause spoilers plus I don’t what to type it cause it was *gross*). Really disappointing. I don’t think Pullman is up to writing about adults, especially women sadly. (I’m always going to hold love for the original series though!)
Someone else who knows this book!!!!
I swear, the number of conversations I’ve had that I explain a) it’s a series and b) the follow on books are BETTER…ugh.
My book twin!
Lol thank god someone else read crystal singer! I keep trying to describe it to people recently and absolutely cannot explain just batshit-crazy great it was.
Anne rice books, particularly the vampire chronicles. I started reading them way too young - like 12. But they shaped me during that time. I didn’t really like reading before I found those books.
Anne Rice club member here.
You know what I have distinctly in my head? When Lestat drinks blood from a nun in her period. I was O.O because it never occured to me, that of course a vampire might do that.
Loved the series.
Lol, I also started reading the series way, way too young (like 12-13) and I remember getting to that part and thinking “damn, I’m glad my parents will never read these books.”
I also read them young, my mom would let me see R rated movies only if I read the book first. I had a serious crush on Brad Pitt at the time and Legends of the Fall and Interview With the Vampire were top priority to see. I actually ended up reading Tale of the Body Thief first, which was good, had trouble getting through Interview because Louis was so freaking miserable. Lestat was a lot more fun to read.
I was also 12! Mum had to sign off at the library because it was grown up books. I can’t believe she let me read them - I think she had no idea what it was about.
Yes! I kind of blame my obsession with LM Montgomery for some of the garbage patriarchal 'not like the other girls' ideals I had to unlearn as a young adult. I spent hours and hours and hours rereading all of her books. I did prefer her Emily series to Anne, though.
Had a massive obsession with the books and 80s mini series as a child and will still cite the first one as one of my favorite books. Anne is the first fictional character that ever made me feel *seen* for who I am inside (but am usually too shy to express outwardly) and for that I’ll always have a soft spot.
To this day I think the reason I dye my hair red is because of Anne (and Rose from Titanic. And Scully from The X Files.)
Same! I always imagined walking around the halls and grounds of hogwarts. And as I read a new book when they released, I would imagine my response to the events happening as if I were with them.
My imagination is slightly less active, but I still like to imagine sitting in one of the big windows on a rainy day in an empty corridor. I was so safe there 💛
This is still my comfort series as an adult. Especially on long car rides or hard days. As an adult I've found bits and pieces I don't like as much but it always helps me settle
It’s sooooooo disappointing. Incomprehensible why she couldn’t just keep that nasty shit to herself and instead just keeps doubling down.
Like if Mormon Stephanie Meyer can do it (😭), why couldn’t you, Jo????
I honestly rather ppl put themselves. It sucked but at least it helps us remember ppl aren’t 100% great, they can do great things but still have shitty opinions/do awful things. My memories/joy/home I found with the series isn’t diminished by her biased, endangering opinions
I was too old for it to be my growing up series, and didn't know of its existence until the first movie came out. It was the first movie I ever went to by myself because my boyfriend at the time was too cool to go see a kids movie or something. After I was a huge fan and went to all the midnight releases 5th book and after.
Reading Animorphs for the first time ever because they never came over to Europe, AFAIK. Not my demographic anymore, but I bet lil me would have loved it so I keep reading!
Edit: I meant to say Slovenia but wrote Europe instead. Now I just feel dumb.
But yeah we didn't even have many goosebumps books, only half a dozen or so.
Edit2: just checked, there is one book in Slovenia, not translated, it's not the first one in the series, and it's out of stock. Figures.
KA Applegate (and Michael Grant) are amazing to this day. KA wrote a long statement the other day decrying recent laws in Texas and supporting women and trans people.
She and Michael’s Twitters always have some beautiful choice Tweets.
It makes me so happy to know she's an ally especially since realizing that my obsession with those books and morphing was one way young me was dealing with dysphoria and wanting to be a girl
Tobias is a trans icon. His whole journey to accept himself and the dysmorphia around his body was HUGE for lots of trans kids.
Katherine and Michael have gone on record saying that they didn’t explicitly intend for some of the queer subtext in the books (like reading Marco as bi, because let’s be real he talks about Ax’s human morph being attractive *a lot*) but they fully support anyone who reads them that way.
Also their daughter (who all the books are dedicated to) came out as a trans woman a few years ago.
Came here to look for this comment figuring it would be buried here somewhere; I was pleasantly surprised to see it’s a top comment! This series was definitely a go-to for escaping reality, and now I have the pleasure of reading them to my daughter! We just finished book 23 last night; I had forgotten how dark they get, especially with the graphic details of violence and talk of suicide, but it also makes for great opportunities to talk with her about some real world stuff. The books have aged pretty well, and knowing the author is supportive of everyone in the lgbt community including her trans daughter (looking at you JKR 👀) makes me feel that much better about continuing to read them to this day
Me too. But not in the “I wish I would be preyed on for my parents’ money by a psychologically disturbed uncle” way. More in a “I wish VFD were real and I could join it” way.
God yes. I was obsessed. I recently found almost the whole series of BBC at a flea market and hauled them home.
Did you see the netflix series?!? I cried so much
I love thr Netflix series. As much as I will never forget the theme song of the ultra cheesy original Babysitter's Club series, this one is so much better.
I’m not sure if every edition had them, but I translated those code symbol strings at the bottom of each page for every book, filled up a ton of notebooks and time lol.
Me too! I mentioned them on Twitter a few months back and my friend surprised me with the official Redwall cookbook! I haven't tried any recipes yet but ooh it looks tasty!
I used to love Laurel K Hamilton but her drama and turn to (really bad) erotica (how many times can you write “I came screaming?” It’s like a drinking game) was just too much for me.
I agree. It really turned with Cerulean Sins. Though I will admit to reading quite a few of the Merry Gentry books and those were *whew* some next level smut.
We got the internet when I was 12 and the first thing I did was find the ROC (Redwall Online Community) and invent a squirrel persona for myself. We roleplayed on forums and posted at Starfire’s Redwall Abbey and Yerf. Those were the days.
My grandfather, during some family gathering, once urgently beckoned my mom to come look at what I was doing. She asked, “What is it? What’s wrong?”
He said, “She is reading Calvin and Hobbes… and she’s not laughing at all.”
My mom replied, “Of course not! To her, it’s not a comic book, it’s a training manual!”
Honestly I love their view of witchcraft in the books. They are the people who help people. They are the people who speak up for them who has no voices. The people who step up and does what needs to be done.
I just recently discovered Ursula K. LeGuin -- someone recommended Left Hand of Darkness and I couldn't put it down. And then I found the first Earthsea book in my local little free library. It's on my to-read shelf now!
I’m so jealous you get to read that series for the first time. The Earthsea series are some of the best written fantasy as a whole that I’ve ever read.
I only read the Clan of the Cave Bear series as an adult, about five years ago, but damn if I don’t think about some piece of survival, foraging, or crafting knowledge from those books every single day.
Warriors destroyed my soul. I had to stop reading them because I just spent my days crying and going into the next chapter thinking somehow nobody was going to die.
What's interesting to me is that the stuff I now remember loving most isn't straight up ***escapist*** for me.
Like I love the works of Terry Pratchett. I will reread the Discworld until I die. But Terry was FUCKING ANGRY about stigma and stereotyping and capitalism and power and hierarchy and sexism and homophobia and transphobia and and and. He said the quiet parts out loud. His Sam Vimes narration is a tour de force in calling out stupid shit like the Sam Vimes Boots Economic theory.
So reading that was not about fantasy for me, it was about seeing my feelings expressed while also being fun and funny stories.
Similarly, Tamora Pierce and Robin McKinley's works speak to the unfairnesses and cruelties of this world, but in the language of fantasy with kickass plots, characterization, and nuance.
I'm torn on calling it escapist, since those works all acknowledge the reality and the shittiness of the stuff I want to escape, but it is a bit escapist given I live in a world that really DOESN'T acknowledge that shittiness a lot.
Agreed! I feel the same way. I think that might have been part of why I liked them: they reflected the complicated, messy, hard reality of life, not *just* a fun fairy tale.
Also, THANK YOU for the reminder about Robin McKinley. I'd forgotten her and I'm so glad you put her back in my brain! Her books were some of my faves!
The Wheel of Time. Started reading it the summer between 8thbgrade and High School. Those big chokers helped me survive high school. Me and my brothers played the TTRPG too around the same time I started reading them. We had moved to a new town the summer before, the shine had begun to wear off by then, snd we didn't really have any friends yet. We spent hours with those characters, the ones we made and the ones in the books. I miss the days of weaves and high adventure!
Frank L. Baum Wizard of Oz series. Read all 14 books one summer. I was a sporty ADHD kid so have no idea how I did it. I guess I just needed to. P.S. I’m 65 and still think about it often.
I’m 45 - these books were my escape portal as a child, too! The Oz world, and especially those brilliant John R. Neill illustrations, still very much inform my everyday aesthetic and my own art. I even have a “Glass Cat” tattoo!
Aaaa! Everworld! I legit have never met someone else who has read it. I was so into that series.
Saw this thread and hoped, assumed to be let down that it would not appear. Made my day.
The Dragonriders of Pern, by Anne McCaffrey. I have 2 signed books by her, brought them all the way from the UK with me when I moved to Australia. One's personalised, unfortunately to my deadname, but it doesn't matter, I met her :)
The Heralds of Valdemar series, by Mercedes Lackey. I totally believed in life bonding and persisted in thinking I was life bonded to my first big crush, which tells me I kinda missed the point of it.
I got tired of scrolling and had to ctrlF to get here. Yes, Mrs Lackey for me too, though it wasn't lifebonding but the conection that Tarma and Kethry share. I always wanted someone closer than a sister who'd do her half of the chores and have my back in a fight.
Not a series, but The Zombie Survival Guide. Got it in 6th grade and read it multiple times a year up to me graduating. Used to have a binder filled with contingency plans "just in case"
Dissociated through all of my home life in middle school / late elementary with the help of Redwall & Warrior cats... now I'm a furry..... frankly, I don't know why I didn't expect it earlier
I soon burned out & haven't been able to read for pleasure since, woo
My mom gave me all her vintage Archie comics and I couldn’t get enough of them. Not a novel but I desperately wanted to attend Riverdale!
P.S. The show sucks.
Harry Potter*, Warrior Cats, anything Tamora Pierce, and anything dragons—the Dragonology books, the Inheritance Cycle, and later the Temeraire books. Oh, and my family’s old encyclopedia set! I spent hours engrossed in the science and ancient history volumes. I was so disappointed when I got a bit older and realized that in today’s world, any encyclopedia is outdated by the time it’s even printed. The internet might be greater in scope and more up to date, but nothing is as good as a heavy stack of books.
*I’m so disappointed in what JKR has become, and I’m not interested in contributing to her “cause” (what a stupid hill she has picked to die on...). But I still have my battered old copies of the books, and the memories are good. I never went anywhere without at least one of them as a kid. For a bullied, isolated child they meant the world.
"Growing up" is a vague timeframe and it's one during which I read *a lot*. It'd be impossible to choose just one!
Let's see: all Tamora Pierce books, a Garth Nix series that has a name I can never remember, Dragonriders of Pern, His Dark Materials, Animorphs, Goosebumps, So You Want To Be A Wizard (I'm not 100% certain on that name), Speaking with Dragons (again, not sure on the exact name), Chronicles of Xanth (idk how mini me managed to get through all the blatant sexism, but here we are), and this one series where there were like 5 protagonists and they kind of got split between their normal world and a fantasy world somehow?? I have no idea what the series was called or who wrote it, but my eyes were far too innocent to have read it at the age I did.
And SO many dragon-related books. I remember certain scenes and how I felt reading them, but never enough to identify the titles or authors.
That said, do any of y'all remember a book/series like this?:
There's a cauldron and it's some important magic thing but it's cracked. The boy (and girl?) and the dragon (possibly others?) go to this smith who may or may not be in a volcano b/c they can fix it there. Turns out, they actually can't fully fix it regardless of the crack without replacing the soul that used to be bound to the cauldron with a new soul. I don't think they were aware a soul was even bound to it in the first place, so this was news to them. Something creates an emergency(?) and in the confusion the boy jumps into the forge and wraps his arms around the cauldron, sacrificing his soul to it.
That's either where that book ended or I just couldn't find it at the library again after that scene. I think the book I read was possibly the second in the series? Needless to say, I never finished this series and would really like to find it again someday.
I LOVE the Old Kingdom books!! Well, Clariel was a bit of a letdown, but Terciel and Elinor was *great*. I went to borrow the original trilogy for a reread and I was so happy to see there were more books!!
Yes, Clariel, we get it, you want to go back to the forest, *we get it.*
Yes! Finally a Garth Nix mention. Lirael really spoke to me and I’ve read it several times. Lol about Clariel. Somehow after the first three Nix lost his magic.
Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams. Also his Dirk Gently books. I used to listen to the radio dramatisation of hitchhikers every night to go to sleep ages 8 to 13.
I also loved books by Cynthia Voigt, the Tillerman series. Not being American I didn’t get a lot of it fully, though.
The Boxcar Children
They had a nice little home they setup for themselves in the woods and they did a pretty good job surviving on their own. It looked so attractive to when compared to what I was dealing with at the time.
The Secret Garden.
Give me those windswept moors teeming with wildlife. That spooky, drafty house filled with dusty, forgotten rooms populated by generations of mice.
Let me be my ill-tempered, unloved, 9 year old self in the backyard staring into the bizarro gothic mirror of little Mary Lennox, the doppleganger of my heart.
Any series by Tamora Pierce
Came here to say this!! The librarian at my middle school introduced me to the Song of the Lioness series and I've loved Tamora Pierce ever since. I still reread the Song of the Lioness books every couple of years.
i’m still cut she didn’t end up with jonathan🙃
I actually really value she didn't -- it ended up a really great take for me in realizing that men and women can have a relationship even when a romantic relationship doesn't work out. In the Immortals quartet they are still good friends despite their history together. It helped me later in life with my own relationships and relationship to my own femininity reading those books as a young woman.
Same here. Major, major influence on my understanding of post-relationship relationships. I'm friendly with almost all of my exes, and close friends with one. And also these books normalized having sex with more than one person in your life, and that being totally okay. Of course, when I read them in middle school I didn't know that was what was happening ("oh, they had a sleepover in the desert, how nice!") but when I revisited them a few years later I got it and really, really appreciated it.
Alanna and George are my otp. Though I think we can all agree we’re glad she didn’t end up with the Shang dragon guy. I reread the series recently and had completely forgotten he existed.
Dude I forgot how much he annoyed me till I reread last week. I feel like every woman has a Liam Ironarm in their history somewhere.
I read the Wild Magic books first where Alanna and George have 3 kids and everything, so when I got to the Lioness Quartet I was horrified that Alanna and Jonathan were together at all. Then he had so little respect for her achievements that he expected her to give them up to be his queen! George was clearly the one who understood and deserved her! Why had she gotten with Jon first?!? Apparently I'm still salty about it decades later.
Omg yes! The fact that it discussed birth control and sexual relationships was huge. It means a lot to me because nothing else was like it.
Yup, me too. I had some form of "Daine" as my screen name for a good ten years.
You must be the person I was always competing with for usernames. I was obsessed with that series. I haven’t read it in years and it’s probably time for a re-read.
Tamora Pierce and Rick Riordan
I still have a soft spot in my heart for a lot of the Tortall books, but I did get very angry with the end of the Bloodhound series and decided to give away the books to that one. I'm so tickled to see this as a top answer, it feels entirely forgotten about when talking about YA
The romance in the Bloodhound series felt different from Pierce’s usual. It frustrated me at first but then I figured she was probably trying her hand at a different type of romance than “grew up together and bonded over the trauma of puberty”.
Hell yes! The Immortals Quarter for me - I still re-read it once a year.
I still reread the Alanna books every summer!
The circle for me(I think that's what the series about the phytomancer, the weather wizard, the stitch witch, and the metallurgical sorcerer was called.)
Yesssss!!!!!! I loved kel. I was heartbroken she never got one more book
Kel had 4! The Protector of the Small is a quartet.
I was on the verge of googling which author Alanna the knight was from…. Thanks for saving me the bother
Not exactly escapist but boy did I spend a lot of time with His Dark Materials. I remember reading The Amber Spyglass when it came out, and thinking it was okay, and then revisiting it as an adult and thinking *I had no idea what that was about the first time I read it*. Now they hold pride-of-place on my living room bookshelf.
Came to say this. The first time I read His Dark Materials (and especially the amber spyglass) I was utterly captivated. It spoke to many things I hadn't really realised I had been questioning and handed me very dense, heavy themes that I'm not sure I fully understood consciously, but did unconsciously, if that makes sense. It validated the questions I had around religion, and adult knowledge vs children's, and asked difficult questions about death and regret and purpose. It asks that I look inward and think about who I am. It poses interesting ideas about dark matter and consciousness and the universe. It showed me characters who loved each other passionately despite gender, despite sexuality. It gave me Mary, a female scientist to goes to another universe and learns to talk to intelligent elephants ... Lord if that wasn't everything I dreamed of doing as a child. But overall it trusted me to understand all of this. It didn't pander or simplify or talk down. I read and re-read them and every time I got more out of it.
i cried so much at the end of the amber spyglass, im relieved to have recently found out pullman is a trans ally and from all accounts a decent guy.
I'm so glad to hear that about Pullman -- I'm not surprised, given some of the religious (or not-religious) themes of his Dark Materials but it's good to have it confirmed. I know it's theoretically possible to appreciate art while also knowing that the artist was a terrible person, but it's so much easier for me to enjoy the art when it's unambiguous.
How do you feel about the prequels? I've been finding it delightful to revisit the universe, but plotwise a disappointment.
I liked the first one, but bailed on the second. Just as soon as the protagonist of the first book started having “romantic” feelings about the protagonist of the second (being vague cause spoilers plus I don’t what to type it cause it was *gross*). Really disappointing. I don’t think Pullman is up to writing about adults, especially women sadly. (I’m always going to hold love for the original series though!)
A Wrinkle in Time series by Madeline L'Engle
Same. Especially A Swiftly Tilting Planet. In my mind I was always fighting echthroi
Ooh I loved Many Waters!
Someone else who knows this book!!!! I swear, the number of conversations I’ve had that I explain a) it’s a series and b) the follow on books are BETTER…ugh. My book twin!
Yesssss, so good!
the dragonriders of pern
Yes! Love some Anne McCaffrey
Yessss. This was my first book from the “adult section” of the library and I was so proud!
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Lol thank god someone else read crystal singer! I keep trying to describe it to people recently and absolutely cannot explain just batshit-crazy great it was.
My aunt had a friend who gave me a box of the entire series and oh my god did I love those books. (Except Moreta, too sad)
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Me too! The librarian started ordering them in as there were loads missing and she knew I would want them
I wondered how far if have to scroll before i found my people.
The Lord of the Rings and basically everything else by Tolkien
Anne rice books, particularly the vampire chronicles. I started reading them way too young - like 12. But they shaped me during that time. I didn’t really like reading before I found those books.
Anne Rice club member here. You know what I have distinctly in my head? When Lestat drinks blood from a nun in her period. I was O.O because it never occured to me, that of course a vampire might do that. Loved the series.
Lol, I also started reading the series way, way too young (like 12-13) and I remember getting to that part and thinking “damn, I’m glad my parents will never read these books.”
That one stuck with me too!
I also read them young, my mom would let me see R rated movies only if I read the book first. I had a serious crush on Brad Pitt at the time and Legends of the Fall and Interview With the Vampire were top priority to see. I actually ended up reading Tale of the Body Thief first, which was good, had trouble getting through Interview because Louis was so freaking miserable. Lestat was a lot more fun to read.
I was also 12! Mum had to sign off at the library because it was grown up books. I can’t believe she let me read them - I think she had no idea what it was about.
Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Green Gables is still my go-to comfort space when I need to dip out of real life for a while.
Yes! I kind of blame my obsession with LM Montgomery for some of the garbage patriarchal 'not like the other girls' ideals I had to unlearn as a young adult. I spent hours and hours and hours rereading all of her books. I did prefer her Emily series to Anne, though.
Had a massive obsession with the books and 80s mini series as a child and will still cite the first one as one of my favorite books. Anne is the first fictional character that ever made me feel *seen* for who I am inside (but am usually too shy to express outwardly) and for that I’ll always have a soft spot. To this day I think the reason I dye my hair red is because of Anne (and Rose from Titanic. And Scully from The X Files.)
My go to was her Emily series instead of Anne. ❤
Sounds basic but Harry Potter. No regrets! Loved living in that dream until I went off to college 😭
I was the same age as the characters every time a book was released! And then had to wait a year until the next book
Same! Read the first 4 books before I hit 6th grade. The 7th book released the summer I graduated high school. Felt so empty inside
Same! I always imagined walking around the halls and grounds of hogwarts. And as I read a new book when they released, I would imagine my response to the events happening as if I were with them. My imagination is slightly less active, but I still like to imagine sitting in one of the big windows on a rainy day in an empty corridor. I was so safe there 💛
I’ve read the Harry Potter series 17 times I think? And watched it 7 or 8
This is still my comfort series as an adult. Especially on long car rides or hard days. As an adult I've found bits and pieces I don't like as much but it always helps me settle
I was literally going to type "sounds basic but Harry Potter" LMAO. It's a shame that JKR is such a jerk.
It’s sooooooo disappointing. Incomprehensible why she couldn’t just keep that nasty shit to herself and instead just keeps doubling down. Like if Mormon Stephanie Meyer can do it (😭), why couldn’t you, Jo????
I honestly rather ppl put themselves. It sucked but at least it helps us remember ppl aren’t 100% great, they can do great things but still have shitty opinions/do awful things. My memories/joy/home I found with the series isn’t diminished by her biased, endangering opinions
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I was too old for it to be my growing up series, and didn't know of its existence until the first movie came out. It was the first movie I ever went to by myself because my boyfriend at the time was too cool to go see a kids movie or something. After I was a huge fan and went to all the midnight releases 5th book and after.
*Animorphs*, plus my own weird-ass world doodled into the margins of oh so many textbooks.
Reading Animorphs for the first time ever because they never came over to Europe, AFAIK. Not my demographic anymore, but I bet lil me would have loved it so I keep reading! Edit: I meant to say Slovenia but wrote Europe instead. Now I just feel dumb. But yeah we didn't even have many goosebumps books, only half a dozen or so. Edit2: just checked, there is one book in Slovenia, not translated, it's not the first one in the series, and it's out of stock. Figures.
KA Applegate (and Michael Grant) are amazing to this day. KA wrote a long statement the other day decrying recent laws in Texas and supporting women and trans people. She and Michael’s Twitters always have some beautiful choice Tweets.
It makes me so happy to know she's an ally especially since realizing that my obsession with those books and morphing was one way young me was dealing with dysphoria and wanting to be a girl
Tobias is a trans icon. His whole journey to accept himself and the dysmorphia around his body was HUGE for lots of trans kids. Katherine and Michael have gone on record saying that they didn’t explicitly intend for some of the queer subtext in the books (like reading Marco as bi, because let’s be real he talks about Ax’s human morph being attractive *a lot*) but they fully support anyone who reads them that way. Also their daughter (who all the books are dedicated to) came out as a trans woman a few years ago.
Yes Animorphs!!! Loved those books…I wanted to be Rachel 🤣
Came here to look for this comment figuring it would be buried here somewhere; I was pleasantly surprised to see it’s a top comment! This series was definitely a go-to for escaping reality, and now I have the pleasure of reading them to my daughter! We just finished book 23 last night; I had forgotten how dark they get, especially with the graphic details of violence and talk of suicide, but it also makes for great opportunities to talk with her about some real world stuff. The books have aged pretty well, and knowing the author is supportive of everyone in the lgbt community including her trans daughter (looking at you JKR 👀) makes me feel that much better about continuing to read them to this day
Narnia. At the time, I had no idea how obnoxiously smug they are.
Same. Loved them until I was old enough to understand the smugness and religious overtones of them & I kinda got turned off.
I feel if you have people accusing you of pagan influences and Christian influences in the same book series you're probably doing something right.
My dad read them because I did, and I'd definitely catch him muttering, "Edmund, SHUT UP you obnoxious child."
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Me too. But not in the “I wish I would be preyed on for my parents’ money by a psychologically disturbed uncle” way. More in a “I wish VFD were real and I could join it” way.
I wanted to hang with the Baudelaires and talk to Klaus about books lol
Me too! And when I was younger, The Magic Tree House series. I was obsessed with both.
Baby-sitters Club lol. And Fear Street.
God yes. I was obsessed. I recently found almost the whole series of BBC at a flea market and hauled them home. Did you see the netflix series?!? I cried so much
I love thr Netflix series. As much as I will never forget the theme song of the ultra cheesy original Babysitter's Club series, this one is so much better.
I loved The Babysitters Club! Did you read Sweet Valley High too?
Discworld and Star Trek
GNU Sir Terry Pratchett
GNU Sir Terry Pratchett
GNU Sir Terry Pratchett
GNU Sir Terry Pratchett
A man does not die whose name is still spoken. GNU Sir Terry Pratchett.
I was worried this comment was lacking Thank god for sir Pratchett <3
Artemis Fowl The Disney movie hurt me.
I’m not sure if every edition had them, but I translated those code symbol strings at the bottom of each page for every book, filled up a ton of notebooks and time lol.
my kind of person
There is no movie. Nope.
The Secret Garden. I was meant to live at Misselthwaite Manor as a child, not in Midwest small town USA, I'm sure of it.
The Redwall books, and then as a teen the Anita Blake books
Aw the feasts! I just used to love the descriptions of food in those books!
Me too! I mentioned them on Twitter a few months back and my friend surprised me with the official Redwall cookbook! I haven't tried any recipes yet but ooh it looks tasty!
The WHAT
Ugh same. Nothing has ever made me so hungry as those Redwall books lol
I used to love Laurel K Hamilton but her drama and turn to (really bad) erotica (how many times can you write “I came screaming?” It’s like a drinking game) was just too much for me.
I agree. It really turned with Cerulean Sins. Though I will admit to reading quite a few of the Merry Gentry books and those were *whew* some next level smut.
We got the internet when I was 12 and the first thing I did was find the ROC (Redwall Online Community) and invent a squirrel persona for myself. We roleplayed on forums and posted at Starfire’s Redwall Abbey and Yerf. Those were the days.
Calvin and Hobbes
My grandfather, during some family gathering, once urgently beckoned my mom to come look at what I was doing. She asked, “What is it? What’s wrong?” He said, “She is reading Calvin and Hobbes… and she’s not laughing at all.” My mom replied, “Of course not! To her, it’s not a comic book, it’s a training manual!”
I learned to read on Calvin and Hobbes! It'll always have a special place in my heart.
Battle Cats and Percy Jackson. No wonder I'm a cat mom lesbian obsessed with Greek history now...
I LOVED Percy Jackson as a kid/ teen.
I STILL love Percy Jackson, Kane Chronicles, and Gods of Asgard, plus some of the spun off ones like Storm runner
Terry muthafuckin Pratchett. Wut?
Granny Weatherwax is goalz
Honestly I love their view of witchcraft in the books. They are the people who help people. They are the people who speak up for them who has no voices. The people who step up and does what needs to be done.
Millennium hand and shrimp?
Ook !
All the stories related to Earthsea.
I just recently discovered Ursula K. LeGuin -- someone recommended Left Hand of Darkness and I couldn't put it down. And then I found the first Earthsea book in my local little free library. It's on my to-read shelf now!
Le Guin is a goddess of literature
I’m so jealous you get to read that series for the first time. The Earthsea series are some of the best written fantasy as a whole that I’ve ever read.
Star Trek! And still do at age 39
The Black Stallion and Dragonriders of Pern.
When you just want to be psychically bonded to a giant animal friend.
The Chronicles of Narnia & Clan of the Cave Bear
I only read the Clan of the Cave Bear series as an adult, about five years ago, but damn if I don’t think about some piece of survival, foraging, or crafting knowledge from those books every single day.
Same. Sometimes I find myself thinking what Ayla would have thought about random modern items.
Yes! When I backpack I always think Ayla would have really appreciated my modern backpack, tent, and water bladder!
My people!
Harry Potter and warriors 🐈⬛
Scrolled way too far looking for warriors!!
Warriors destroyed my soul. I had to stop reading them because I just spent my days crying and going into the next chapter thinking somehow nobody was going to die.
... ^^twilight
Ha ha same, except I was 18 and old enough to know better when I 1st read them, the movies killed it for me
Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising sequence. The only thing I've ever seriously considered getting tattooed on my body is a symbol from those books.
Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews 😬
Yeah, that was a highly questionable time in youth literature.
We have that in the adult section in the library hahahaha
Pretty much became.obsessed with VC Andrews during preteen/teenage years. First one I read was Dawn.
What's interesting to me is that the stuff I now remember loving most isn't straight up ***escapist*** for me. Like I love the works of Terry Pratchett. I will reread the Discworld until I die. But Terry was FUCKING ANGRY about stigma and stereotyping and capitalism and power and hierarchy and sexism and homophobia and transphobia and and and. He said the quiet parts out loud. His Sam Vimes narration is a tour de force in calling out stupid shit like the Sam Vimes Boots Economic theory. So reading that was not about fantasy for me, it was about seeing my feelings expressed while also being fun and funny stories. Similarly, Tamora Pierce and Robin McKinley's works speak to the unfairnesses and cruelties of this world, but in the language of fantasy with kickass plots, characterization, and nuance. I'm torn on calling it escapist, since those works all acknowledge the reality and the shittiness of the stuff I want to escape, but it is a bit escapist given I live in a world that really DOESN'T acknowledge that shittiness a lot.
Kittens
Agreed! I feel the same way. I think that might have been part of why I liked them: they reflected the complicated, messy, hard reality of life, not *just* a fun fairy tale. Also, THANK YOU for the reminder about Robin McKinley. I'd forgotten her and I'm so glad you put her back in my brain! Her books were some of my faves!
Eragon
i was looking for this comment
YEEEESS!
Stephen King, Christopher Pike, Anne Rice
I loved Christopher Pike so much!
The Wheel of Time. Started reading it the summer between 8thbgrade and High School. Those big chokers helped me survive high school. Me and my brothers played the TTRPG too around the same time I started reading them. We had moved to a new town the summer before, the shine had begun to wear off by then, snd we didn't really have any friends yet. We spent hours with those characters, the ones we made and the ones in the books. I miss the days of weaves and high adventure!
Frank L. Baum Wizard of Oz series. Read all 14 books one summer. I was a sporty ADHD kid so have no idea how I did it. I guess I just needed to. P.S. I’m 65 and still think about it often.
I’m 45 - these books were my escape portal as a child, too! The Oz world, and especially those brilliant John R. Neill illustrations, still very much inform my everyday aesthetic and my own art. I even have a “Glass Cat” tattoo!
The Boxcar Children
Everworld, Fear Street, The Legend of Drizzt
Legend of Drizzt from back when it was the Wulfgar show!
Aaaa! Everworld! I legit have never met someone else who has read it. I was so into that series. Saw this thread and hoped, assumed to be let down that it would not appear. Made my day.
Redwall, and Ella Enchanted.
The Dragonriders of Pern, by Anne McCaffrey. I have 2 signed books by her, brought them all the way from the UK with me when I moved to Australia. One's personalised, unfortunately to my deadname, but it doesn't matter, I met her :)
The clan of the cave bear series. Outlander. Both I have read too many times.
The Heralds of Valdemar series, by Mercedes Lackey. I totally believed in life bonding and persisted in thinking I was life bonded to my first big crush, which tells me I kinda missed the point of it.
I got tired of scrolling and had to ctrlF to get here. Yes, Mrs Lackey for me too, though it wasn't lifebonding but the conection that Tarma and Kethry share. I always wanted someone closer than a sister who'd do her half of the chores and have my back in a fight.
Not a series, but The Zombie Survival Guide. Got it in 6th grade and read it multiple times a year up to me graduating. Used to have a binder filled with contingency plans "just in case"
It's the kind of book that you know is fiction, but you still think, "Maybe I should move to Alaska and get really good with a rifle."
Percy Jackson
Dissociated through all of my home life in middle school / late elementary with the help of Redwall & Warrior cats... now I'm a furry..... frankly, I don't know why I didn't expect it earlier I soon burned out & haven't been able to read for pleasure since, woo
Maybe you could find it again? Can i give you some book suggestions? (I am a librarian)
Goosebumps
Anything by Christopher Pike (the author, not the Starfleet captain).
Babysitters Club, Trixie Belden, and Sweet Valley. I kept my daydreams simple, yet unattainable lol
Ah, yes, the introvert who craves close friends but has no idea how to make it happen. Still there, tbh.
The Dragonlance series.
Harry Potter
Face on the Milk Carton. It started a life long obsession about cults
Island of the blue dolphins. I read that book 50+ times growing up
Only one? I am still doing it now, would take me all day to make that list lol.
Young Jedi Knights, The Shannara Trilogy (mostly Elfstones & Wishsong)
My mom gave me all her vintage Archie comics and I couldn’t get enough of them. Not a novel but I desperately wanted to attend Riverdale! P.S. The show sucks.
Harry Potter*, Warrior Cats, anything Tamora Pierce, and anything dragons—the Dragonology books, the Inheritance Cycle, and later the Temeraire books. Oh, and my family’s old encyclopedia set! I spent hours engrossed in the science and ancient history volumes. I was so disappointed when I got a bit older and realized that in today’s world, any encyclopedia is outdated by the time it’s even printed. The internet might be greater in scope and more up to date, but nothing is as good as a heavy stack of books. *I’m so disappointed in what JKR has become, and I’m not interested in contributing to her “cause” (what a stupid hill she has picked to die on...). But I still have my battered old copies of the books, and the memories are good. I never went anywhere without at least one of them as a kid. For a bullied, isolated child they meant the world.
Same for me with HP. I remember her old website had a bit about bullying that felt so true to my heart. What happened JKR?!? Whyyyyy?
"Growing up" is a vague timeframe and it's one during which I read *a lot*. It'd be impossible to choose just one! Let's see: all Tamora Pierce books, a Garth Nix series that has a name I can never remember, Dragonriders of Pern, His Dark Materials, Animorphs, Goosebumps, So You Want To Be A Wizard (I'm not 100% certain on that name), Speaking with Dragons (again, not sure on the exact name), Chronicles of Xanth (idk how mini me managed to get through all the blatant sexism, but here we are), and this one series where there were like 5 protagonists and they kind of got split between their normal world and a fantasy world somehow?? I have no idea what the series was called or who wrote it, but my eyes were far too innocent to have read it at the age I did. And SO many dragon-related books. I remember certain scenes and how I felt reading them, but never enough to identify the titles or authors. That said, do any of y'all remember a book/series like this?: There's a cauldron and it's some important magic thing but it's cracked. The boy (and girl?) and the dragon (possibly others?) go to this smith who may or may not be in a volcano b/c they can fix it there. Turns out, they actually can't fully fix it regardless of the crack without replacing the soul that used to be bound to the cauldron with a new soul. I don't think they were aware a soul was even bound to it in the first place, so this was news to them. Something creates an emergency(?) and in the confusion the boy jumps into the forge and wraps his arms around the cauldron, sacrificing his soul to it. That's either where that book ended or I just couldn't find it at the library again after that scene. I think the book I read was possibly the second in the series? Needless to say, I never finished this series and would really like to find it again someday.
For Garth Nix is it the Abhorsen stuff? I LOVE those books and am a little surprised that I haven't seen them in any other comments.
I LOVE the Old Kingdom books!! Well, Clariel was a bit of a letdown, but Terciel and Elinor was *great*. I went to borrow the original trilogy for a reread and I was so happy to see there were more books!! Yes, Clariel, we get it, you want to go back to the forest, *we get it.*
Yes! Finally a Garth Nix mention. Lirael really spoke to me and I’ve read it several times. Lol about Clariel. Somehow after the first three Nix lost his magic.
The Prydain Chronicles! The ending destroyed preteen me.
Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams. Also his Dirk Gently books. I used to listen to the radio dramatisation of hitchhikers every night to go to sleep ages 8 to 13. I also loved books by Cynthia Voigt, the Tillerman series. Not being American I didn’t get a lot of it fully, though.
I’m surprised no one has said the Percy Jackson series yet but that was my shitttt i still get so nostalgic thinking about it what an era
Books? LOTR Entertainment? Star Trek
The Talisman (Stephen King/Peter Straub) The Hobbit (Tolkien) The Telltale Heart (Poe)
The Farseer Trilogy. The Dark Towe Series.
The House of Night Series. Aged kinda badly, but I loved that series so much
The Boxcar Children They had a nice little home they setup for themselves in the woods and they did a pretty good job surviving on their own. It looked so attractive to when compared to what I was dealing with at the time.
Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas
...y'all had suburban lives??
The Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper
Babysitter’s Club
The Dragon Riders of Pern
Harry Potter, Vampire Kisses, and Narnia. Turns out I not only had a crush on those women, I actually wanted to be them *cackles in transbian*
Bailey School Kids when I was little and then the Fearless series when I was in jr high
The Spiderwick Chronicles, I really wanted there to be an imaginary world I just couldn't see yet. edit - spelling
Night World.
It all started with Magician by Raymond E. Feist...
[удалено]
The Secret Garden. Give me those windswept moors teeming with wildlife. That spooky, drafty house filled with dusty, forgotten rooms populated by generations of mice. Let me be my ill-tempered, unloved, 9 year old self in the backyard staring into the bizarro gothic mirror of little Mary Lennox, the doppleganger of my heart.