Most of the time, in small towns there simply aren't many ways to spend time. My favorite way is reading, but it's hard to find books centered in a setting you can relate to and are also well-written and developed stories. Everyone deserves a piece of escapism, so I went through all of my bookshelves and found five fantastic books perfect for anybody else having this problem.
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Review: I first read this book when I was in 8th grade, but I've reread it so many times through the years since then. Garcia and Stohl are amazing writers in how they take a supernatural world and incorporate it into a small, southern town, keeping the setting both mystic and rustic. Along with this, the plot and character development is always developing, with every small and big action important to the overall story. This is the first book in the Caster Chronicles, with three other books following it, and is a definite read for anyone interested.
Description: Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.
Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.
In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.
The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner
Review: THIS. BOOK. I read this book during my senior year of high school, the same grade the characters are in, and automatically connected with everything they were going through. This book tackles a lot: religion, family, coming of age, and death. Even so, I had to put the book down at times because I was laughing too hard to concentrate. This book is an adventure, taking you on a journey of emotions, and must be read by any Young Adult reader.
Description: Dill has had to wrestle with vipers his whole life at home, as the only son of a Pentecostal minister who urges him to handle poisonous rattlesnakes, and at school, where he faces down bullies who target him for his father's extreme faith and very public fall from grace.
The only antidote to all this venom is his friendship with fellow outcasts Travis and Lydia. But as they are starting their senior year, Dill feels the coils of his future tightening around him. Dill's only escapes are his music and his secret feelings for Lydia, neither of which he is brave enough to share. Graduation feels more like an ending to Dill than a beginning. But even before then, he must cope with another ending- one that will rock his life to the core.
The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry
Review: I also read this book during my senior year of high school. The description of the book doesn't do justice to just how complex the story really is. I'm the kind of reader who is always trying to figure out where the book is going, if there's going to be a plot twist, or what's going to be the climax, but I was completely caught off guard by this book. I would describe it as magical realism, meaning magic is present in a real, rational setting, with a love story fit for any contemporary. It is a slow burn, but is definitely worth the time to read.
Description: Natalie Cleary must risk her future and leap blindly into a vast unknown for the chance to build a new world with the boy she loves.
Natalie’s last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start... until she starts seeing the “wrong things.” They’re just momentary glimpses at first—her front door is red instead of its usual green, there’s a pre-school where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn’t right.
That’s when she gets a visit from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls “Grandmother,” who tells her: “You have three months to save him.” The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it’s as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau.
Emily Henry’s stunning debut novel is Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, and perfectly captures those bittersweet months after high school, when we dream not only of the future, but of all the roads and paths we’ve left untaken.
Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins
Review: I think this book is so amazing. Harper, the main character, throws away stereotypes of how a sweet, Southern belle should act as well as a secret but fierce warrior. Harper balances both of these identities, as good with manners as she is with fighting. This book is part of a trilogy so when you fall in love with it, the next book is waiting for you.
Description: Harper Price, peerless Southern belle, was born ready for a Homecoming tiara. But after a strange run-in at the dance imbues her with incredible abilities, Harper's destiny takes a turn for the seriously weird. She becomes a Paladin, one of an ancient line of guardians with agility, super strength and lethal fighting instincts.
Just when life can't get any more disastrously crazy, Harper finds out who she's charged to protect: David Stark, school reporter, subject of a mysterious prophecy and possibly Harper's least favorite person. But things get complicated when Harper starts falling for him—and discovers that David's own fate could very well be to destroy Earth.
With snappy banter, cotillion dresses, non-stop action and a touch of magic, this new young adult series from bestseller Rachel Hawkins is going to make y'all beg for more.
Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang
Review: This is one of my favorite books I have ever read. The book isn't a chronological order of events; rather, the unique narrator tells the story in a perfectly sporadic fashion, which when added to Zhang's brutal honesty of a range of topics (depression, suicide, and drug addiction to name just a few) it creates a beautiful story. Liz is one of the most complex characters I have ever read, adding to the depth and masterfulness of the story. Perhaps the best part of this book is how Zhang applies the Newton's Laws of Motion to show the effect we can have on other people, how they effect us, and the consequences of our actions.
Description: On the day Liz Emerson tries to die, they had reviewed Newton’s laws of motion in physics class. Then, after school, she put them into practice by running her Mercedes off the road.
Why? Why did Liz Emerson decide that the world would be better off without her? Why did she give up? Vividly told by an unexpected and surprising narrator, this heartbreaking and nonlinear novel pieces together the short and devastating life of Meridian High’s most popular junior girl. Mass, acceleration, momentum, force—Liz didn’t understand it in physics, and even as her Mercedes hurtles toward the tree, she doesn’t understand it now. How do we impact one another? How do our actions reverberate? What does it mean to be a friend? To love someone? To be a daughter? Or a mother? Is life truly more than cause and effect? Amy Zhang’s haunting and universal story will appeal to fans of Lauren Oliver, Gayle Forman, and Jay Asher.
