Top Five Life Changing Books

All of these books hold a special place in my heart, because they've truly changed my perspective on several different subjects. If you haven't read any of the books on this list, you need to get to your nearest library or bookstore and MAKE IT HAPPEN.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This was the first book that I've ever marked up of my own free will. My copy of this is fairly worn out, since I've read it at least five times and every time I read it I find something new that strikes me.

Here is Amazon's description of The Book Thief:

The extraordinary #1 New York Times bestseller that is now a major motion picture, Markus Zusak's unforgettable story is about the ability of books to feed the soul.
It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.
Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can't resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement. 
In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

I read this book a few years ago, and when I recently read John Green's Paper Towns it reminded me a lot of this for some reason. Maybe it just has a John Green-ish vibe, I'm not sure. Either way, I LOVE this book.

Here is Amazon's description of Thirteen Reasons Why:

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker—his classmate and crush—who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why. 
Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah's pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.

As Simple As Snow by Gregory Galloway

This was the first young adult book I ever reread. The first time I read it I was around 14 or 15, and it just hit me incredibly hard. Such a beautiful (but frustrating) story.

Here is Amazon's description of As Simple As Snow:

Anna—who prefers to be called Anastasia—is a spooky and complicated high school girl with a penchant for riddles, Houdini tricks, and ghost stories. She is unlike anyone the narrator has ever known, and they make an unlikely, though happy, pair. Then Anna disappears, leaving behind only a dress near a hole in the frozen river, and a string of unanswered questions. Desperate to find out what happened the narrator begins to reconstruct the past five months. And soon the fragments of curious events, intimate conversations, secrets, letters—and the anonymous messages that continue to arrive—coalesce into haunting and surprising revelations that may implicate friends, relatives, and even Anna herself.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I'm not unlike many other young adults when I say that this is one of the few required readings from
high school that I actually really enjoyed.

Here is Amazon's description of To Kill A Mockingbird:

The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.
Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

This book is an interesting twist on the concept of groundhog day, and I think about it often. In my opinion if a book is on your mind often, it's either incredible or just plain awful. And this book was definitely incredible.

Here is Amazon's description of Before I Fall:

With this stunning debut novel, New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver emerged as one of today's foremost authors of young adult fiction. Like Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why and Gayle Forman's If I Stay, Before I Fall raises thought-provoking questions about love, death, and how one person's life can affect so many others.For popular high school senior Samantha Kingston, February 12—"Cupid Day"—should be one big party, a day of valentines and roses and the privileges that come with being at the top of the social pyramid. And it is…until she dies in a terrible accident that night.However, she still wakes up the next morning. In fact, Sam lives the last day of her life seven times, until she realizes that by making even the slightest changes, she may hold more power than she ever imagined.