Written by Natalie Hunter (Features Writer)
Two months into quarantine and you’re probably already running out of things to do. You have probably already binge watched at least ten shows on Netflix, spent at least twenty hours on TikTok, tried at least one new recipe, and started at least one new art project. But what about reading a book?
Finding motivation to read a book can be difficult, and it is especially hard to find a good book, this has become considerably harder now that you cannot spend an hour searching for books in the store. To make it easier, here are my top seven picks for quarantine reading.
Please Don’t Tell by Laura Tims
“Joy killed Adam Gordon. At least, that’s what she thinks. The night of the party is hazy at best. But she knows what Adam did to her twin sister, Grace, and she knows he had to pay for it. What Joy doesn’t expect is that someone else saw what happened. And one night a note is shoved through her open window, threatening Joy that all will be revealed. Now the anonymous blackmailer starts using Joy to expose the secrets of their placid hometown. And as the demands escalate, Joy must somehow uncover the blackmailer’s identity or she’ll be forced to make a terrible choice.” I enjoyed the complex sister relationship between Joy & Grace. I even loved the dark concept of blacking out at a party not knowing if you killed someone or not, but knowing you very well could have because you hated them that much and felt they deserved it. Super scary to even think about..and it brought up a lot of questions. Did Joy really kill Adam? What did Adam do to her twin sister, Grace, to make Joy hate him so much?
Daughter of Deep Silence by Carrie Ryan
“In the wake of the deadly devastation of the luxury yacht Persephone, just three souls remain to tell its story – and two of them are lying. Only Frances Mace, rescued from the ocean after torturous days adrift with her dying friend Libby, knows that the Persephone wasn’t sunk by a rogue wave as survivors Senator Wells and his son, Grey, are claiming – it was attacked. To ensure her safety from the obviously dangerous and very powerful Wells family, Libby’s father helps newly orphaned Frances assume Libby’s identity. After years of careful plotting, she’s ready to expose the truth and set her revenge plans into motion – even if it means taking down the boy she’d once been in love with: Grey Wells himself.” This book left me on the edge of my seat and I couldn’t flip pages fast enough to uncover the truth! Frances was such a fascinating character and I took her in, rage, flaws and all. If I were to summarize what this book is about in one word it would be revenge. This book isn’t just any mystery book. Usually, mystery/thriller books are about someone trying to uncover the truth but this book was more than that. It’s about how Frances was trying to take down the senator and his son who had lied about what had happened to the cruise ship the Persephone. For her to do this she had to take the identity of her dead friend.
The Storyteller by Antonia Michaelis
“Anna and Abel couldn’t be more different. They are both seventeen and in their last year of school, but while Anna lives in a nice old town house and comes from a well-to-do family, Abel, the school drug dealer, lives in a big, prison-like tower block at the edge of town. Anna is afraid of him until she realizes that he is caring for his six-year-old sister on his own. Fascinated, Anna follows the two and listens as Abel tells little Micha the story of a tiny queen assailed by dark forces. It’s a beautiful fairy tale that Anna comes to see has a basis in reality. Abel is in real danger of losing Micha to their abusive father and to his own inability to make ends meet. Anna gradually falls in love with Abel, but when his ‘enemies’ begin to turn up dead, she fears she has fallen for a murderer. Has she?” It’s one story in another with one mirroring the other. His story for his sister was magical and lovely. Only up close, it’s really quite a sad one because once you see who was who and what stood for what; then you could see/feel just how far removed his stories were from their reality. And their reality? Stark, depressing, and so far from even the possibility of a happily-ever-after.
The Claw 