Story by Maddy Williams | Contributing Writer
Honorable mention by Ethan Pickering | Lifestyles Editor
Reading provides a myriad of benefits, such as bettering your memory, reducing stress and lowering your screen time.
If you want to lessen the amount of time you spend scrolling on social media or watching Netflix, reading is a great replacement to fill the time.
Reading is far more beneficial than simply binge watching a show all day. Here are a few of my favorite fiction reads.
1. “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid is a book about a wealthy movie star’s 7 marriages and her secrets that arose along the way.
2. The “Just One Day” series by Gayle Forman is also really engrossing. A girl travels to Paris on a school trip and quickly falls for a French boy she meets there, but they have limited time together.
3. The “One of Us is Lying” series are captivating murder mysteries by Karen M. McManus that even has a TV show on Peacock. Five students are sent to detention, but only four leave alive. The question then arises of how the student died.
4. McManus’ book “Two Can Keep a Secret” is another great murder mystery that follows deaths in a town that are oddly similar.
5. “We Were Liars” by E. Lockhart is a twisted family thriller with an ending you won’t expect. It details a young girl’s mistakes and her account of the story.
6. Lockhart’s “Genuine Fraud” is another interesting read about a girl who takes her friend’s identity. The book starts in present day and works backwards to tell the full story.
7. Lauren Oliver’s books are all great additions to your library. Some of my favorites are “Broken Things,” “Vanishing Girls” and “Panic.”
“Panic” even has a TV show on Amazon Prime Video. “Panic” is about extreme challenges that graduating seniors endure to escape their hometown and win prize money pooled together by the town.
8. Ruta Sepetys is another well-written author. My favorite book from her is “Out of the Easy,” which is about a teenager trying to escape her mother’s reputation of being a prostitute.
9. “Normal People” by Sally Rooney is a romance novel that is heartbreakingly realistic. This book also has a TV show on Hulu.
10. “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig is a philosophical sci-fi novel about many dimensions and many lives of one girl who is struggling to find her true self. Stuck in a place between life and death called The Midnight Library, she is forced to pick the life she wants, or the life she thinks she wants.
11. Lastly, “It Ends with Us” by Colleen Hoover is probably my all-time favorite book right now. It’s a heartbreaking love story that you won’t be able to put down. This book has toxic and healthy love stories represented, and a sequel is coming out in October of 2022 called, “It Starts with Us.”
Instead of scrolling on Tiktok or Instagram, pick up one of these books to read. I can promise you won’t regret it.
To contact Lifestyles Editor Ethan Pickering, email lifestyles@mtsusidelines.com.
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