Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is:

Top Ten Books Dealing With Tough Subjects

While last week’s post was all about the light and fluffy, this week’s is about books that tackle difficult subjects. Here’s my top ten:

1. Hate List by Jennifer Brown

This book nearly brought me to tears. It follows the story of a girl whose boyfriend shot a bunch of other students at their high school – from a list of names they had put together – before shooting himself, and how she lives with the aftermath.

2. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

This is brief, with great illustrations, and is about a boy whose mother is sick. Really really good.

3. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

Not really sure that this belongs on this list, but it’s a tough, gritty, violent book about students forced to kill each other to survive. It’s over 600 pages and I read the whole thing in a weekend. I couldn’t put it down!

4. Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

A mean girl is somehow forced to live the last day of her life over and over. I loved this book.

5. Columbine by Dave Cullen

This is a non-fiction look into the Columbine school shooting in 1999.  Fascinating and absorbing.

6. Counting Backwards by Laura Lascarso

Taylor is sentenced to a juvenile psychiatric correctional facility – Sunny Meadows – and learns a lot about her anger, her relationships with her parents, and how to deal with her feelings in non-destructive ways.

7. Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff

Hananh is trying to solve a murder mystery, while aided at times by the ghost of her dead best friend, Lillian, who had anorexia.

8. The List by Siobhan Vivian

This is a book about a mysterious list that appears in a high school year after year, naming the prettiest and ugliest girl in each grade, and what this does to the girls who are named on the list. We get a glimpse into each girl’s life and reaction to being on the list, as well as the way others in the school treat them after making the list.

9. This Is Not A Test by Courtney Summers

Take some zombies, a bunch of students trapped in their high school, and a main character who may not even want to live, and you have one terrific story.

10. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

This is one of the first books I read and reviewed on this blog and it has stayed with me. It tells the story of Lia and her eating disorder, and how she is haunted by her now-dead friend Cassie, who had an eating disorder as well.

I think I could easily have come up with more than ten, but I’ll stop there for now! I’m looking forward to reading other top ten lists!