"Aela," I'm sure you're wondering, "Most of these are YA books!"
Damn right they are. I could tell you about Shakespeare, how Othello made me realize you could have a likeable villain who's not just a big, misunderstood baby. I could talk to you about all the books I read on my King Arthur class, and how they changed me as a person.
But I'm going to talk to you about YA books, and you're going to fucking like it. The obvious exception is the Wheel of Time series. But we'll get there.
1. The Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce
Honestly, I could've put The Song of the Lioness Quartet in here just as easily, but I think I always identified with Daine a bit more than with Alanna. Regardless, these books shaped my childhood in a way no others did. I got my first one in, what, third grade? I was reading way better than I ought to have been at my age, and my mother got frustrated. So she picked these up, thinking they'd be too hard and I'd give up easily.
I didn't. I devoured these books.
They shaped me as a person, honestly. I can look back on these books and see a lot that I didn't see when I was younger; how these were some of my only female role models, how they never stopped to think that they couldn't do something because they were women, how each and every one of them changed the world but were really everyday people. Each girl had her faults, but they worked through them.
I owe a lot to Tamora Pierce's writing, and I'm sad that the Circle of Magic books never managed to do for me what the books of Tortall did. I never read Keladry's books, because my mom said I was too old for them and wouldn't let me get them. I haven't read the Beka Cooper stuff yet because I just keep forgetting.
But as I'm sitting here in my bed, I've got Lioness Rampant sitting right next to me. In two months I'll be 21, yet Tamora Pierce is still one of those authors I pick right back up to reread.
2. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
I know, I put The Subtle Knife as my picture, not The Golden Compass. But there's a reason for that, actually.
This series did a lot for me. It showed me that adults can be just as wrong and awful and cruel as kids, that they're people as much as children are. It showed me that just because a lot of people believe something that doesn't mean it's true. It showed me you'll make friends in the most unlikely of places, and that's okay.
But The Subtle Knife spoke to me in a way the first book just didn't. I loved The Golden Compass, don't get me wrong. But Lyra didn't really click with me, and Will did. I understood Will, when I just didn't understand Lyra. I didn't understand her until The Amber Spyglass, which I was unable to read until high school, as my mom and I couldn't find it anywhere.
For years, I wanted my own dæmon. I was upset I didn't have one, even when reading about how it could be cut away and you'd become empty.
The problem was I wanted a companion, and I didn't have one.
3. The Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan
Holy hell, this series is a monster. I read it for the first time in Germany, during my freshman year of high school. I managed roughly a book a day, but I had to spend all day reading it.
When I came across this series, I was a mess. I'm still a mess; this series didn't turn my life around. But I was being home schooled because my mother didn't think the teachers at the DOD high school in Germany would actually teach me anything. She's right, they wouldn'tve. Most of them took vacations during the school year, and our classes were often filled with substitutes. But she didn't do any better.
Every day, my mother would leave me alone in the house with a list of work to accomplish. Some of it was schoolwork, some of it was chores. Then she'd go out with her friends, leaving me at home alone.
I would do the chores first, then grab a chair to take the grading book mother had and copy all the answers down onto my own paper. There, schoolwork done.
Books came next. It was hard to buy new books in Germany; only a few made it in to the shopette, and ordering them online meant they'd take forever to come in. Local books weren't in English, obviously, and I didn't know any German.
I burned through all my books, my sisters books, then eyed my parents' collection. I knew the romance novels were out of bounds, and I didn't want to touch them, anyway. But there were huge fantasy books, larger than anything I'd read previously, stacked together.
Dad's went quickly. Though they were larger than my own books, the writing was simple and easy to get through. Before long, I had a good footing in adult fantasy.
Then there was this series. I'd tried it first, but gotten bored quickly and put them back.
Now I can't imagine my life without them. I still haven't finished the last book, because I don't want to let it end.
I can't really describe how they changed me, or why they're important to me, but you can bet they are.
After all, the name I go by online is Faile.
4. Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce
I know. Tamora Pierce, again? I read these two books at a very different time of my life, though. I was sixteen, same as Aly, and going through a lot of her same problems. I didn't know who I was, who I would be, anything. All I knew is everyone was asking what I wanted to do with my life, but kept telling me writing books wasn't an option.
Aly proved to be just the heroine I needed at that time. She was strong, resilient, obstinate, and clever. I connected with her in ways I couldn't with her mother, and she won out even over Daine.
I dyed my hair blue, to my mother's dismay, and wrote in secret. I wrote in made-up alphabets I've now forgotten, so no one else could read it. I wrote on the backs of tests that I still had to turn in, in the bathroom, on the bus. I wrote anywhere and everywhere, because if Aly could be a spy, I could be an author.
I can't see myself in Aly as much anymore. I don't have her courage, her ability to overcome anything.
But Aly was there during the deepest parts of my depression, and I will always be grateful.
5. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
I didn't actually read this book until after I'd seen the movie enough times to have it memorized. I didn't know there was a book, and once I found out I grabbed it right away. The two after it took a while, but they weren't as important to me.
How could a story about a girl bound by life to be the least successful sister not call to me? My sister was already planning to be a doctor, already had perfect grades, already did everything right. And I, the oldest, was always the disappointment.
But Howl's Moving Castle showed me that, even though it seems like things are going to go a certain way, nothing is ever set in stone. The world changes, people change, and you yourself will always change. You'll find great things inside yourself that you had no idea were there. Even the oldest sister can do great things. You don't have to be confined to a hat shop. As long as you can believe in yourself, you can be amazing.
Sometimes it takes a witch with a curse. Sometimes it takes depression so deep your blood mixes with the mud keeping your boots stuck in the ground.
But there is always a castle.
And what about everyone else? What five books do you think represent you?
This one taught me not to be afraid to take risks or suffer for what you know is right. That's not much of a cover for such a great story, but the illustrations often showed people in dramatic poses, or if not in motion, showing a wonderful range of expressions on their faces.
