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\nThe Vampire Armand by Anne Rice<\/em><\/strong><\/center>
\nSo this is cheating a little bit, but for this entry it’s less of a single book but instead an entire series. I read my first Rice novel, The Vampire Armand<\/em> some time in middle school. I scraped pocket change wherever I could to pick up another book in the series from my local pharmacy. I loved the blend of gothic themes with richly detailed historical settings. It is Rice’s work that really sparked my interest in history, which I might add, is the field I ended up pursuing my bachelor’s degree in.<\/p>\n
The best part was that I wasn’t the only one that was crazy about this series, my two best friends were equally in love with her writing. The three of us exchanged books and discussed them together over years of friendship. We had each created our own characters and separate universe and began writing, with our shared characters making appearances in each other’s stories. I still have a love for writing because of this experience. Having close friends to share in the reading experience I think really helped make these books so memorable for me.<\/p>\n
To date I’ve read most of the books in the series and have stemmed into some of Rice’s other novels, but none of them captivated me quite like the Vampire Chronicles did. I still have all those little mass market paperbacks I saved up for stowed away, it’s hard for me to let them go.<\/p>\n
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In the Forests of the Night<\/h1>\n
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\nIn the Forests of the Night by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes<\/em><\/strong><\/center>
\nAs you may have already surmised, I was quite the edgy tween and I was obsessed with vampires and goth culture broadly. I still remember the day that I bought this book. I was 12 years old and it was a rainy day, but it was the first Scholastic Book Fair that I actually had a little money to buy a book or two. The cover jumped out at me immediately, and I was both shocked and amazed to find that the author was a bit of a teen superstar, having written this book when she was my age. I eagerly read the book and ate it up. Perhaps because I had been reading Rice’s more *ahem* mature novels, this book was a lot easier for me to relate to. I couldn’t tell you a thing about the book today unfortunately.<\/p>\n
\n
A Child Called “It”<\/h1>\n
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\nA Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer<\/em><\/strong><\/center>
\nFull disclosure, I was abused growing up. I won’t go into any details about the who or what, but it is important to preface this with that information. A Child Called “It”<\/em> is a memoir that details the abuse suffered under the care of his mother. It’s quite graphic, and I’m impressed that I was able to get my little paws on the book. Pelzer’s story had garnered some controversy over the validity of his story, but none of that matters here for me though. I’ll never forget how reading this book made me feel.<\/p>\n
It was the first book to ever make me cry, it made me feel seen<\/em>. At the age that I read the book, I was only starting to understand what had been happening to me, that not every kid experienced what I did, and that the fear and pain that I felt was justified. This book, along with a helpful PSA in health class, gave me the courage to get help from an adult, and it radically changed my life.<\/p>\n I followed the series throughout high school reading each new book as they were released. The Half-Blood Prince<\/em> was actually the last book that I read, having been released during my senior year of high school. Though I was gifted the last book in the series years later, I had lost interest at that point. I ended up watching the movies instead to finish off the series, though I had intended on eventually going back. Nowadays, I don’t really know anymore.<\/p>\n My friend didn’t have the third and final book so I was left on a cliffhanger for years<\/em>. The last book was already out of course, but I had no way of purchasing the book and I was pretty wrapped up in high school at the time and I steadily stopped reading, having immersed myself in other hobbies and going out with friends. It wasn’t until around 7 or 8 years later after I got my first ereader to start reading again that I circled back to this series. And though I was mad at the ending finishing it was really satisfying, and I think back fondly on this series overall.<\/p>\n \u2665 What were your favorite books during your teen years? I don’t know about you all, but my love of reading began at an early age. There are some books that really influenced me and made me passionate about reading…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1350],"tags":[],"book-author":[],"book-illustrator":[],"book-series":[],"book-publisher":[],"book-genre":[],"book-source":[],"book-format":[],"class_list":["post-28972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-5-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/book_thedarkangel-header.png?fit=1080%2C540&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28972"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31357,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28972\/revisions\/31357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28972"},{"taxonomy":"book-author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-author?post=28972"},{"taxonomy":"book-illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-illustrator?post=28972"},{"taxonomy":"book-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-series?post=28972"},{"taxonomy":"book-publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-publisher?post=28972"},{"taxonomy":"book-genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-genre?post=28972"},{"taxonomy":"book-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-source?post=28972"},{"taxonomy":"book-format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-format?post=28972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nHarry Potter (series)<\/h1>\n
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\nHarry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling<\/em><\/strong><\/center>
\nLook, I’m a millennial, of course I’ve read the Harry Potter series. Although I have dumped J.K. Rowling due to her transphobic views, when I was a teenager I was swept up in the Potter fandom like many people my age. You really couldn’t escape this series. I wasn’t even interested in the books at all initially, I thought I was too cool for a children’s series about wizards and was pretty stuck up about anything that didn’t involve vampires. However, my best friend (who I am still close to today) convinced me to watch the first film with her, and I got hooked.<\/p>\n
\nThe Darkangel<\/h1>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/book_thedarkangel.png?resize=250%2C402&ssl=1\")
\nThe Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce<\/em><\/strong><\/center>
\nThe Darkangel<\/em> was one of the last books I read during my teen years and it happened by chance. One of my best friends loaned the first two books in the trilogy to me sometime between my junior and senior year of high school. It was my first experience with a high fantasy novel and as soon as I saw the word vampyre I dove right in. The vampyre in this book was very different than the ones I had grown up reading and it was refreshing. I fell in love with this series and would stay up late listening to music and reading both books.<\/p>\n
\nLet\u2019s Discuss!<\/h2>\n
\n\u2665 Did you read any books outside of the ones assigned to you in school?
\n\u2665 Got a blog? Make your own list and link it in the comments!<\/strong><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"