For example, looking for Alaska holds such a special place in my heart. If I read it today it would hold no weight or value and I can see the major problems with the book. However, it was the first sort of “adult” book I borrowed off my sisters shelf when I was younger and it completely started my deep love of reading. I remember completely falling into the book, proud of myself for reading something so “grown.” It just holds a special place in my heart and reminds me of lil ol me venturing into my sisters room to get a big book. I will forever be thankful to it for setting off my love of reading. So what’s a book that despite what people say about it, despite if you think it’s a bad book now or see it’s problematic, that holds a place in your heart ?
by aelinsmith123
49 Comments
I read *Looking for Alaska* not too long ago and it’s still great. Not sure what you find especially objectionable about it.
The Wildmage series by Tamora Pierce will always have a special place in my heart. That said, the relationship between a 16 year old and her adult teacher being framed as romantic and sweet has *not* aged well… Nor have the author’s comments defending it.
It might sound silly but I loved A Series of Unfortunate Events. I received the entire book set when I was 11 and it was my first big series I ever read. I still have those book today and they’ll always hold a special place for me 🖤
“Green Eggs and Ham” was the first book I read all by myself. I don’t currently own a copy, but once I do it will be displayed proudly on my shelf for all to see. Forever.
“The Hobbit” was the first “adult” book I read on my own. I read it when I was nine or ten. I borrowed it from the school library and it took me most of the year to get through. The librarian was frustrated at how long I had kept it out, but it wasn’t against the rules so I didn’t (and don’t) care.
But both of those books are considered good, so I guess my actual on topic answer would be the Star Wars series [“Jedi Quest”](https://www.goodreads.com/series/42184-star-wars-jedi-quest). They are aimed at children and not much more than fluff, but they stimulated my growing imagination in a way no other book did at the time. I actually still consider them hugely influential to me in some ways. If I hadn’t read those as a kid, I very well may not have kept reading at all. While I am definitely far outside of the target audience these days, they are still fairly common comfort reads for me.
The Last Hurrah. I read it first sophomore year in HS and reread every few years.
*The Three Musketeers.* I was kind of obsessed with it when I was a kid. I don’t even know how many times I’ve read it. I had a beautiful old copy of the book that my aunt gave me. I lent it to a friend from school and never saw it again.
“Tailchaser’s Song” by Tad Williams was the first book I bought. (The owner of the shop basically gave it to me for free though.)
And my first “adult” book. I was probably 11 years old when I read it.
As a child I really struggled with reading, and was in special ed classes over it. I loved books though and I wanted to read so badly.
Anyways, I got this book.
I kept getting confused with the novel because the characters had two names. I remember asking a teacher for help with it, but being told I should pick up an easier book. Went home that night and sat at the kitchen table with my mom and she helped me struggle through the first chapter.
After that it was like everything clicked and I blasted through the rest of the novel and all the ones after that. In two years I was out of special ed and by 3 more was in advanced classes.
I reread it a few years ago. It’s not a bad book, but it is certainly not a good book. Still, I’ll always appreciate it for being the book that changed everything.
The Warriors series, like the cat one, is known for being a hot mess. It’s been a while since I’ve actually looked at the prose so can’t speak on its quality, but after a certain point there were many straight up errors, like mixing up characters and whatnot. I know the whole “it’s really written by three people” thing presents some logistical issues but with how popular the series was I’m just shocked the editing wasn’t more attentive.
That said, those books will forever hold a special place in my heart and they were my favorites as a kid. I tore through those books. They were my favorites. The first book that made me cry was a Warriors book. That series is soooo nostalgic to me and I’ll love it forever.
That Was Then, This is Now S. E. Hinton
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Following the white rabbit down the rabbit hole, opened my imagination to what the world could be. My father had one of the early editions with the weird illustrations and type layout.
For me it was Winnetou by Karl May. My older brother casually gave me one book from the series. Not even the first one. And boy was I obsessed.. I got a hold of other books by Karl May then and read a bunch of them. Then I moved on to other books about native Americans. I just loved how brave and honorable the characters were. And I feel like, as a child, these books thought me some strong values. However, I have heard quite some critiques towards Karl May. I guess mostly because he was a german dude who has not even experienced in the things he wrote about. But I feel like he was respectful towards native Americans, so I dont really see the problem? I am not sure.
Where the sidewalk ends
Nancy Drew series. They introduced me to the mystery genre as a kid and I loved them and read every one of them.
I totally get what you mean about books holding a special place in your heart. For me, *The Catcher in the Rye* is that book. Even though I can see its flaws and understand why it might not resonate with everyone, it was one of the first books that made me feel like I was really connecting with literature on a deeper level. I remember reading it during a summer break and feeling like Holden Caulfield’s struggles mirrored some of my own experiences at the time. It was a formative moment in my reading journey. Is there a particular scene or moment in *Looking for Alaska* that stands out to you?
The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King. It’s only the second King book I read, but it’s a very formative one. To this day, I don’t think I’ve had such a blast reading a book. But I ended up DNFing The Dark Tower towards the end of the fifth book and have grown to hate Stephen King’s style. I’ve tried reading stuff by him since, like IT, Pet Semetary, Misery, and absolutely none of them grabbed me. I couldn’t break through the first 200 pages in any of them.
The Spooksville series by Christopher Pike. I used to take them out of the library and loved the retro horror covers.
# Book: The World According to Garp.
I’ve read it twice and I am gearing up for a third. First time, I read it as a young adult and it changed the way I viewed my parents. Second time I read it as a newlywed and it gave me insight into married life and relationships. I expect when I read it this next time, it will change how I look at raising my children.
# Author: Liane Moriarty
I really enjoy when authors are able to describe my life better than myself. When they add the small character developments that just click! While I don’t particularly swoon over any one of her books, Liane Moriarty always has at least one character or one situation that feels so relatable. Sometimes it is even just the back story on a minor character where I am like “she gets me!”
girl in pieces by kathleen glasgow. i read it as a kid. had to get my mom and principal to approve it 😅. i self harmed as a kid and continued well into my teens and even still now. it was the first book i ever read that had a character like me and it was deeply personal. it moved me and i related to it in a lot of ways. i own a copy of it now as an adult and still reread it sometimes. the book and its main character, charlie, will forever hold a deeply special place in my heart
There’s a book called The Little White Horse. Now I recognize some of the negative messages in the book, and how Christian it is(I’m jewish), but I got that book when i was almost ten and it held such a special place in my heart for years and years. I still have my copy.
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet. I was around 12 when I read it for the first time.
My mum, sister and I had to pack our stuff and leave our family home in the middle of the night. That house got destroyed by an explosion not much later, so we basically lost everything we owned. My uncle let us live in his home temporarly and that’s where I found this book and decided to give it a try. It completely sucked me in and I believe that was the first time I used a book to scape reality. It kept me company through very difficult times and it’ll always hold a special place in my heart.
It also sparked my interest in architecture and I went on to study Art History in college so yeah, feel like it has shaped who I am in more than one way.
The wishing spell by Chris Colfer honestly I didn’t even finish the book honestly I didn’t even read it I couldn’t even tell you what it was about at all. But why it holds a special place in my heart is because it made me feel less alone. You see it was a destroyed copy, it had its cover ripped off and many pages missing and lots of writing inside. The writing inside by all the girls who went through what I did is what I read. Their words of warning and encouragement and random thoughts and speaking of every thing we weren’t allowed to say out loud.
I had a really difficult time as a teenager an extremely difficult time mentally so I was sent away but the places were usually very abusive. And in one place on a small bookshelf they had this book so I took it to my room and when I discovered all that was inside I felt so relieved.
It seemed like we were all speaking to each other in the book I even added to it too. I think it’s just when it finally clicked for me that what was happening wasn’t ok and that I wasn’t the only one feeling the way I did about it. I mean it’s hard to know when any bad mouthing about what’s going on around you will get you dragged to isolation and drugged for being “disruptive” so instead all we would do was play uno and speak about the most mundane stuff such as favorite colors and animals.
We all knew about the book it seemed we just never spoke about it out loud. We passed it around and it never lasted long on the bookshelf but it always came back soon and you never would see anyone actually open it bc we only opened it when alone to have a real conversation.
So yea a very special book for me even though I’ve never actually read it.
Gone with the wind.
I’ll start by specifying that I am Indian and I read this book long before I understood the significance of current day Black Americans’ issues in America and the portrayal of slavery in this book.
To me the book holds significance because at an early and impressionable age this book showed
1. a strong female protagonist which was really inspiring for me to read.
2. a not a happily ever after which was very new and unexpected for me. I never knew books could end that way and it gave me a different perspective on life.
Both the Foundation books and the Robot books by Asimov may forever be my favorite books of all time.Their depiction of women is…meh, not the best. The science involved, especially biology and social science is…also not the best. And the characters can feel a little flimsy at times (Elijah and Daneel are bright exceptions imo).
However, they just hit the right parts of my brain. I long for the the sort of science optimism these books were born in. They are the raw memetic material that was crafted into Star Trek.
The Book Thief.
My first “find” was HM Stanley’s In Darkest Africa, signed by the author and the Letters of TE Lawrence. Colonial issues, sure, but I was only 12.
My late uncle’s library was being put into a skip, around 1978, and I was invited to take a couple of carrier bags full, free. I begged for more, but I was told not to be greedy. He spent his life collecting. Those 2 carriers were stuffed with Stanley’s 2 volumes, TE Lawrence, 20 baedekers, the very first National Geographic magazine, Nansen’s Furthest north (signed)…
That section of the family were always massive AHs. My only consolation is that they must have lost thousands if not tens of thousands of pounds through their unwillingness to listen to a 12 year old.
I loved the Gone series by Michael Grant and re-read it a lot. Not talked about enough imo
> …despite what the book is?
*Lolita*. Horrific in every way. Just when you think it can’t get any more revolting, there’s a casual throwaway remark that manages to escalate the whole thing by 3x. And yet it’s the most gorgeously written book I’ve ever read. The prose is pure poetry.
For me, A Wrinkle in time by Madeleine L’Engle holds a special place in my heart. I first read it at ten, and Meg’s journey resonated deeply with my own feelings of not fitting in. Despite its simplicity it still fills me with wonder and reminds me of the power of love and bravery.
For me it’s the Dragonlance Chronicles. They are just novel adaptations of D and D campaigns, but I loved them. They’re overly dramatic, they’re predictable, and some of the characters are a little thin, but I still love them. They introduced me to fantasy, which is still my favorite genre.
The original version of The Gunslinger by Stephen King.
Its a flawed book made by a young author who makes a lot of mistakes in his ambitious, especially in his prose – things like a cowboy speaking using 70’s slang, to using exaggerated language like Parsecs etc.
But damn, if the novel doesn’t have a strong atmosphere and mystic to it
Harry Potter, despite JK Rowling’s problematic views on trans people.
I very much love the Blood Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop. I read them when I was a sixteen year old virgin and was totally enraptured by the magic system, the political intrigue, the power dynamics of the world, and the steadfast love that the three main male characters had for the “main” character of the series.
I reread them every few years as comfort food. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve recognized that there are things about the books that are a bit cheesy, or a bit gross, or even things that just totally went over my head when I was sixteen. This year’s reread had me marveling about the fact that a central plot device of the trilogy is a magical cock ring – which at face value sounds ridiculous. I told my husband about the book series this year and mentioned the magical cock rings and now every time I’m reading he asks me “is it another one of those magic cock ring books?” 🤦🏻♀️
No books have a spacial place in my heart *despite* what the book is.
Many are there *because of* what they are.
The Wishing Chair and Faraway Tree books will always be the bed time stories my mother read me as a young child.
Harry Potter book 3 will always be the book that truly ignited the spark of liking literature as a kid (though I did read books before this)
Reading Jeffery Archer’s Kane and Abel and Wilbur Smith’s Monsoon as a preteen was definitely a fond experience.
I am sad that I have only managed to finish reading one novel since covid hit.
I want to get back into reading, (and writing) but I have a few more years until I’ll have enough time on my hands for any leisure activity that can’t be enjoyed in few second/minute bursts.
Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. It was the first adult book I can recall reading and made me a fan of vampire fiction for life. I was 14 and it was 1998, so not exactly the heyday of the vampire craze. So it let me channel the weird dark side of me that hitherto I was not aware of.
Atlas Shrugged – I thought most of the writing was absolutely ridiculous, I don’t agree with Ayn Rand’s political ideals, and certainly don’t like the real-world political groups that closely align themselves with the book, but I just really like the setting lol.
I’ve read the secret garden at least five times as a teen. i can’t even pinpoint what exactly it is that i liked about it but it was sort of my comfort read and is one of the oldest books in my shelf.
percy jackson too since that started my obsession with greek mythology.
For me it has to be Island of the Blue Dolphins. I seldom read books a second time, but I cannot guess how many times I reread this book as a young teenager! It will always hold a special place in my heart.
It by Stephen king. An amazing work of horror. Unfortunately it has a very problematic scene that crosses a major line that no one should ever cross, even for literary allegory.
Atlas Shrugged (please don’t skewer me).
Even though I completely disagree now with its conclusions, I read it during some formative years. It initially turned me into a libertarian. Now about 10 years later, I can see it instilled values of hard work and respect for personal freedoms, and I also have a strong understanding of libertarian arguments, even though the logic of the book’s arguments is deeply flawed in my opinion (I’ve moved quite a bit left since then).
As cliche as it is among younger millennials, Harry Potter. I got the first book at nine, and the Polish translations came out at a similar pace I was growing up at. Plus the Polish translator did a marvelous job. Fun fact: HP was published here by a religious publisher. The owner of which was a personal friend of Rowling’s pastor.
The second series, I don’t think it ever got translated into English, was Achaja. Very r/MenWritingWomen, but I read it at a special time in my life, and enjoy the humor.
The Babysitters Club series. This series was a staple for me as a kid. I could easily find it at thrift stores/garage sales for cheap and there was always at least one book at the library from the series to check out. I was already responsible for so many younger cousins and my sisters, so babysitting being a fun thing, something girls my age (older when I started reading the series) wanted to do, was very exciting for me lol I still love kids, I worked at a daycare for awhile, went to school and took early childhood education courses, and I still love babysitting for friends/family or just doing activities with the kids in my life. I always wanted to have a lot of kids, but changed my mind as an adult (one and done lol.) Now I just want to be an amazing Auntie and when my kid is older/moves out be a foster parent. Part of that stems down to the BSC and their love for babysitting lol
But man, the writing… The characters are not deep. The repetitive intros in every single book. The situations and plots. They can’t/won’t tell their parents anything ever. The whole series was largely ghost written, and sometimes you can tell who wrote it which book based on what the characters do/say.
I watched the movie and the show from the 90s too. The new show on Netflix I think did a great job of modernizing and toning down the wackiness as well as tightening up the plots.
I think it’s still good for what it is, a kids series, but as an adult revisiting it I rolled my eyes a lot.
The Queen’s Fool and The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
I read those in college and it sent me on a massive English history kick that lasted for years. And like I know her books aren’t historically accurate and are mostly sensationalist trash, but goddamn Gregory could write some good sensationalist trash when she wanted to. I just love those two ridiculous books so very much.
*Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh* was the first “real” book I read where it wasn’t an easy chapter book and could be enjoyed by even adult readers.
I also read the whole Dark is Rising series at least once a year as a kid because I hated the idea of having to say goodbye to all of the characters forever, so I had to “revisit” them every summer, lol. The first time I finished that series, I cried at the end because I felt like the characters had become friends and I couldn’t stand the thought of them not being around anymore. I re-read it a few years ago as an adult and it really felt like catching up with old friends. They were a such a consistent part of my childhood and reading the series was something I looked forward to every summer.
Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews. The premise of the story is INSANE, but i was such an avid & high level reader as a kid i would run out of kid friendly things to read, and I literally had no idea what this book was about until i read it. I think it just stood out to me specifically bc i was very young when i read it, and it’s a longer book so I remember taking it everywhere with me so I could finish it so i had a few good memories attached to it even though it’s literally such a disturbing series in some sections
For me, it was Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the “trilogy of five books”. I read it in my first year of high school and it had me hooked from day one . I’m still obsessed with it to this day. I’d never even entertained the possibility of a sci fi book being humorous before this, and the pure chaos and the absurdity of it all was so refreshing. It got me back into reading after one hell of a slump and I recommend it to everyone I meet lol.
Definitely Harry Potter. The author is a transphobic prick that I don’t want to support in any way – but Harry Potter played such a huge part in my childhood and was one of the book series that made me fall in love with reading!
The His Dark Materials books. I read them as a teenager and was swept away.
The Hobbit. People may claim that LOtR is better, or that The Hobbit is a childrens book, or that even after personally rereading it for the first time in a longtime I discovered it’s actually kind of boring in a lot of parts, much more so than the adventure I remember. It still holds its place as the first big fantasy book I was introduced to. My mom read it to me in early elementary and I became enamored with elves and dwarfs and dragons ever since.
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath. Read it when I was in grade 11. (25+ years ago)
I’ve always been a secure, head on shoulders, socially adept, independent person – but something about her book connected with me. I think it was vulnerability, something I had never really experienced first hand.
I reluctantly returned it to the school library at the end of the year after numerous requests from the library and my home room English teacher.
In my final year of HS, my Grade 11 English teacher approached me, said he was in the library and saw the book on the FOR SALE cart. It was $1 and he bought it and handed it me. Said that it deserved a good home. I still have the book to this day.