Like any teenager, growing up brought lots of changes, stresses and dramas, but there was one thing that never changed. Any time after 9 pm you could always find me in bed with a hot chocolate, a slice of toast and a book.

Over that time, I read almost a book a week, but as my bookshelves grew, there were only a few titles that made a lasting impression on me. These books have influenced my life from the moment I read them so I thought there was no better introduction to me and this blog than taking you through them.

The Hunger Games

A screenshot from my Instagram, November 21st 2013 

Though now I’m a self-confessed granny, I wasn’t always like this. My sister had always been the ‘reader’, I grew up watching her obsess over Jaqueline Wilson and Harry Potter. In my mind, books were reserved for her, they were Helena’s thing. Then one day, the drive we took almost every day out of the village changed the course of my life entirely. From the back seat, I listened as she told us about a new book she was reading where children were forced to fight to the death in a cruel reality show. For the first time ever, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a book.

As you might have guessed, that book was ‘The Hunger Games’, and as any teenager would, I instantly became obsessed. The next few years of my life were consumed by Katniss and Peeta. I made fan art, stayed up to go to midnight premieres and because it was 2012, I even became mildly Tumblr famous. Unfortunately, Peetamakescheesebuns was hacked a few years ago when someone decided to turn it into a never-ending porn ad. But, thanks to the magic of Tumblr support, you can still see my shrine to all things Katniss if you need some second-hand embarrassment.

The Great Gatsby

Yes, I do own four copies. 

If The Hunger Games made me fall in love with reading, The Great Gatsby made me fall in love with literature. Fitzgerald’s prose was so beautiful and complex that I wanted to dissect it to find out how he managed to make me feel love and yearning even though I had never experienced it myself.

If you ever need to induce a headache, try my A-Level copy of Gatsby. 

Though I thought Fitzgerald was a genius just for that. I loved tracing his extended metaphors and picking apart each sentence for hidden meaning. The Great Gatsby not only made me love the way literature could bring you into other, worlds, bodies and experiences but gave me a new admiration for authors. I think it was this love and respect for literature that made me go on to study it at university.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Like many teenagers society just ‘didn’t get’ my reading choices were guided by Tumblr, so when I saw ‘We were infinite’ artfully pasted over gifs of Emma Watson’s pixie cut I knew I was going to love The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

But it wasn’t just the Pinterest-perfect quotes and great soundtrack that got me. At the time I read Stephen Chbosky’s first book, I spent way too long in the library and cried if I didn’t get an A in English Lit, so I was depressed, lost and slightly pretentious, just like all the characters. I loved that book so much that I drafted multiple letters to Chbosky about how much I resonated with the characters. To this day, I wish I could read those letters back and see how far I’ve come since then.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusack

If there’s a book on this list I love the most, it’s probably this one. The Book Thief is a chunky novel but I’ve read it at least five times since the pitch ‘it’s about Nazi Germany and is narrated by death’ hooked me almost ten years ago.

My morbid fascination has made me read a lot of books, but I was shocked by this simultaneously sweet and heart-wrenching tale. You would expect Death to be harsh and cold, but the narrator is surprisingly soft and kind and appreciates colour in a way other narrators cannot. In a similar way, though The Book Thief in no way shies from the horrors of Nazi Germany, it appreciates the colour, the beautiful moments and the friendships that form the heartbreaking moments that make this book stay with you.

What next?

Sometimes I wonder where and who I would be if I hadn’t read these books. Would I have studied English Literature at uni? Would I still have a soft spot for romance novels and YA literature? These are all things I think about as my TBR pile grows and I wonder what kind of person I’ll be in another ten years.