Sophomore Pearl Tweedy recommends “She Who Became the Sun” by Shelley Parker-Chan.
“It is about this girl named Zhu, and after her family is killed by barbarians, she decides to take the identity of her brother. He was destined to be great, and so she decided to become great herself. So she goes to a monastery and becomes a monk, and now she is going to war and she’s leading armies, and she takes his faith and she really does become great. It’s beautifully written, it’s just really incredible. I also just liked the plot, and I like being able to see into her mind. It’s really interesting.”
Junior Simone Sauve recommends “Children of Time” by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
“It’s set in the future, and it’s about how humans are traveling to other planets and colonizing those planets by genetically engineering the animals on those planets to prepare the planet for them before they arrive. So on one of these planets, the spiders grow. They get really big, and it shows the development throughout, and their connection to the humans and how that works, Sauve said. “I kind of like bugs and spiders, they’re kind of cool, and it was very well written. I liked how he [Tchaikovsky] showed the development of the spiders’ brains as the generations progressed, and it was just like nothing I’ve ever read before.”
Freshman Anna Karpyn recommends “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara.
“It’s about these four college students who meet at a prestigious law school, and it follows them from then to when they die. Everyone kind of revolves around the main character of the four, Jude, because he struggles a lot with mental health, and had a really traumatic childhood. It was really, really good. It was realistic and well thought out, and the worldbuilding was incredible, and it really made you feel like it was a real story with real people.”
I recommend “The Priory of the Orange Tree” by Samantha Shannon.
The story is a fantasy focused on two main characters in two warring lands, the East and the West. The East focuses on Tané, a girl training to be a dragon rider who has a secret– she smuggled a citizen out of the East and into the West. In the West, the reader focuses on Ead Duryan, a sorceress and assassin assigned to protect their Queen, despite the fact that she’d come from the East and disagreed with all of her beliefs. I liked the story because while it was long, it didn’t feel that way. It was fun, and it was interesting in the fact that it was a retelling of a story I’m unfamiliar with. I’m definitely interested in reading the original now, though! I enjoyed the unique storytelling of the different characters, and it was a wild ride emotionally. I’m very glad I read it, and if you like fantasy, you should too!
