Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Written by: JK Rowling

First line: The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive.

Why you should read this book: Although Harry Potter knows that the Dark Lord has arisen, most of the wizarding world refuses to accept the imminent danger, with many groups actively trying to discredit Harry's account. With the sadistic Dolores Umbridge infiltrating and gradually gaining influence at Hogwart's, school is no fun anymore and Harry is increasingly plagued by bad dreams that, at least on some occasions, are real. This book is notable for the return of a number of beloved characters from past books, as well as the introduction of some memorable new ones.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Wow, is it overwritten. Could easily have been a hundred pages shorter without losing any of the story.

Intro to Alien Invasion

Written by: Owen King, Mark Jude Poirier, and Nancy Ahn

First line: What is that you have.

Why you should read this book: A deeply tongue in cheek graphic novel that really puts the comic in comic book, this is the story of a socially awkward college student and the spring break of terror that results when her gross, inappropriate astrobiology professor illegally smuggles alien-infested soil samples from Russia back to America, resulting in a bunch of kids getting impregnated by extra-terrestrials. Stranded on campus during a hurricane, Stacey and her rapidly dwindling peer group must avoid being infected by tiny blue ladybugs who turn humans into enormous jelly-filled bags before erupting from their bodies to eat and infect more students. It's both silly in its depiction of B-movie horror tropes and touching in its depiction of young adult relationships.

Why you shouldn't read this book: People's bodies swell up and then explode, coating survivors in itchy alien goo, so if that's not your thing, you're going to have a bad time with this book.

Fragments of Horror

Written by: Junji Ito

First line: The man I eloped with and currently live with is terrifies of something and he won't come out from under the futon.

Why you should read this book: This is one of the strangest horror anthologies I've ever read, with the scary element of almost every story somehow revolving around some type of sexually creepy woman. "Dissection-chan," about a girl who is obsessed with being dissected and harasses medical students to cut her open, was one of my favorites, but other sexually creepy women feed men raw meat, have inappropriate relationships with historical buildings, and try to remove men's heads.There's also some time travel, some cross dressing, some justice, some injustice, some ghosts, some Lovecraftian terrors, and a decent body count.

Why you shouldn't read this book: If you're looking for any type of conventional slasher tale, you won't find it here; it's not even conventional within its supernatural genre; it's really far out.

The Answer

Written by: Rebecca Sugar and Elle Michalka and Tiffany Ford

First line: This is the story of Ruby and Sapphire's time on the planet Earth.

Why you should read this book: For fans of Steven Universe, the world's only children's television program about gay space rocks, the love story of Ruby and Sapphire is central to an understanding of the show's larger thesis about love. This book recreates the episode of the same name, illustrating and lingering in the  moments of the characters' first association and the beginning of their relationship, with some additional commentary by the characters themselves regarding the way people on earth can change perspective, take control of their own destinies, and express powerful emotions that may also be forbidden. A sweet little love story (and New York Times bestseller), which has been compared to a fairy tale, but with gay space rocks.

Why you shouldn't read this book: It probably doesn't make any sense if you're not familiar with the first two seasons of the show. Or, I suppose, if you're a raging homophobe.

Painting Their Portraits in Winter

Written by: Myrian Gurba

First line: It was December and it was just girls—Mom, my sister Ixchel, and I—staying in the damp house where Mom grew up in Guadalajara.

Why you should read this book: It calls itself a collection of short fiction but it reads like an alluring composite: memoir of growing up Mexican-American and lesbian, mixed with a collection of traditional and modern ghost stories, woven into a love letter to a beloved, departed grandmother. The voice rings with all the authenticity of an adolescent fumbling their way to adulthood as well as the wisdom of the adult looking back on the journey. Heartily enjoyable, creepy, funny, and rife with love and the little details that love summons.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Lots of death and creepiness.

The Water Cure

Written by: Sophie Mackintosh

First line: Once we had a father, but our father dies without us noticing.

Why you should read this book: Three sisters live with their mother and father on an isolated island, where, their parents promise them, they will be protected from the toxic influence of men that pervades the mainland, provided they participate in numerous healing rituals that read like old-school torture. When their father disappears without warning and three strangers—two men and a boy—appear on their shore their belief in their own beloved mythology is sorely tested. A dreamy, mythic story with multiple narrators who are unreliable not because they seek to deceive the reader or themselves, but because they have only a limited database from which to draw their understanding of reality.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Not the kind of story where everything is explained in the end.

Not My Idea: A Book about Whiteness

Written by: Anastasia Higginbottom

First line: When grown-ups try to hide scary things from kids...it's usually because they're scared too.

Why you should read this book: This book, written specifically for white children, begins to unpack the casual assumptions that lead to white people dismissing systemic racism, embracing "color blindness" as an alternative to confronting racism, and looking away from things that make them uncomfortable as acceptable responses to a problem they don't believe belongs to them. Racism, the little girl in this book comes to understand, is very much a white person's problem, and that ignoring it makes one complicit in inequality and human suffering. Understanding racism may feel uncomfortable, but, it is only the first step: opposing racism requires a series of conscious decisions to look at things that you might not want to see, be honest about truths that might be unpleasant, and to take action in the name of justice whenever and wherever the situation arises.

Why you shouldn't read this book: If you think you definitely shouldn't read this book, you definitely should.

Patternmaster

Written by: Octavia Butler

First line: Rayal had his lead wife, Jansee, with him on that last night.

Why you should read this book: I just realized that the final novel in this story arc was the first book that Butler wrote and published, that none of the other books in the series were written in the chronological order that they were presented, and that there's actually a fifth book that sort of goes with the others but is also wholly unrelated, which Butler never allowed to be reprinted because she wasn't proud of it, but from a creative writing perspective, this is the last story in the Patternist series, about a young man who doesn't think he has any desire for power, but is forced to gather it in retaliation against an older brother who will destroy him to keep the power for himself. Teray values his freedom above all else and has carefully arranged his life to ensure that he doesn't end up in the sort of mental bondage that is all-too-common among moderately strong psychics in his extremely hierarchical world. His jealous brother, Coransee, refuses to take Teray's word that his will not stand in Coransee's way, beginning a power struggle that forces the younger, less experienced man to grow up very quickly.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Some of the casual human bondage stuff is kind of disturbing; no one in this book has any rights.

Eight Days: A Story of Haiti

Written by: Edwidge Danticat and Alix Delinois

First line: When I was pulled from my house, eight days after the earthquake, my family was waiting.

Why you should read this book: Although it's the story of a boy buried in rubble for eight days after the great earthquake in Haiti, this is not a sad story, but rather a joyful tale that paints of a picture of the world that existed before the earthquake. A little boy, asked about his harrowing ordeal, explains how he used his beautiful memories of Haiti to keep his spirits up while he waited for rescue, focusing each day on a lovely image of place and community. In an afterword, Danticat explains how the country of Haiti has been irreparably changed by the earthquake, and the book is her effort to save a vision of a beautiful world that younger children might never know.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You are deathly afraid of earthquakes or being buried alive.

Bera the One-Headed Troll

Written by: Eric Orchard

First line: Somewhere north and east there is a secret cove.

Why you should read this book: Bera is a simple one-headed troll, happily tending her crop of pumpkins for the royal family, until the day she spots some wicked mermaids playing roughly with a human baby mislaid by a renegade witch. Accompanied by her owl friend, Winslowe, Bera sets off on what she is sure will be a mini-quest to seek out a true hero worthy to save the baby, but none of the heroes in her neck of the woods are sufficiently heroic to do the job. Now she's far from home, navigating a world of goblins, rats, hedgehog wizards, wolves, flying eyeballs, and, of course, much larger trolls with many more heads than she has.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You have a very strict definition of "family" and it doesn't include trolls, owls, rats, or goblins.