The Dreaming Jewels

Written by: Theodore Sturgeon

First line: They caught the kid doing something disgusting out under the bleachers at the high-school stadium, and he was sent home from the grammar school across the street.

Why you should read this book: It's pure old school science fiction, which posits an alien sort of life form living side by side with earthlings, interacting in surprising and unexpected ways with the inhabitants of our planet. In this story, we perceive them through their relationship with Horty Bluett, an unfortunate abused child who runs away from his extra-villainous adopted father and ends up being taken in by some loving circus freaks. Zena, a little person with undetectable but extraordinary abilities, knows more than she can say about Horty's enemies, and raises him to take revenge on his abuser, but Zena doesn't know everything, yet.

Why you shouldn't read this book: The villains are perhaps a bit one-dimensional; they're just so villainous.

Hello, My Name Is Octicorn

Written by: Kevin Diller and Justin Love

First line: Hi, everyone, I'm Octi.

Why you should read this book: For everyone who is sui generis but also just like everyone else (or for people who don't know how to handle people like that) a story about a unique being, the product of a loving relationship between an octopus and a unicorn. Octi explains how he is different from unicorns and octopodes, but also how is the same, and why he is, as he is, a great friend. He just wants love and the simple pleasures of life, like cupcakes and a jet ski.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You conform and so does everyone you know.

Nobody's Fool: The Life and Times of Schlitzie the Pinhead

Written by: Bill Griffith

First line: Gather round, folks, gather round!!

Why you should read this book: Here is the never-before told life story of Schlitzie the Pinhead, a microcephalic individual who was sold to a sideshow manager as a child and spent nearly his entire life working as a circus freak. Schlitzie's immortality was cemented by his turn in the 1932 cult classic, Freaks, a film that decades later stirred the imagination of author Bill Griffith, inspiring his popular comic, Zippy the Pinhead (as well as the imagination of the author of this blog, some decades later). Schlitzie's story, reconstructed here through Griffith's research and in the words of those who knew him, is by turns inspiring, heartbreaking, hilarious, and provocative.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You find the very idea of a freak show "loathsome, obscene, grotesque, and bizarre" and would prefer all human anomalies to be safely ensconced within the very high, very thick walls of an asylum.

Rat Queens Volume One: Sass and Sorcery

Written by: Kurtis J. Wiebe

First line: ...and what we face now is, alarmingly, one of Palisade's greatest threats.

Why you should read this book: Betty, Hannah, Dee, and Violet are a ragtag group of mercenaries, adventurers for hire who take jobs requiring their unique combination of magic, aggression, and snark, and leave a trail of mayhem, destruction, and bodies in their wake. When every single adventurer is the city of Palisade is forcible recruited by the local government for civic jobs just a bit more dangerous than the ordinary, they begin to realize that someone has it in for the Rat Queens and their kind. Beautifully illustrated, tongue-in-cheek, action-packed, feminist, sexy, and queer-friendly.

Why you shouldn't read this book: I felt the pacing was a bit lopsided; it took a while to get to the point, and then resolved really quickly.

Angry Youth Comix

Written by: Johnny Ryan

First line: Get the hell outta here.

Why you should read this book: This is the most (intentionally) offensive work I’ve ever read in my entire life, comprising gratuitous violence, racist stereotypes, extreme misogyny and misanthropy, and a tedious repetition of gross-out humor, drawn in a style reminiscent of stupid newspaper comics or Mad Magazine fillers. There are a couple legitimate jokes, but the sense here is that the author wrote down the most awful thing he could imagine and then, like a twelve-year-old seeking to retain his audience of schoolyard admirers, worked to top himself over and over again, creating what is essentially endurance test for any reader outside the “angry youth” demographic. I may never overcome the rage that it inspired in me, an adult person who has devoted her entire life to creating beauty in the world, but has never been offered a publishing contract for four hundred pages in a gorgeous hardbound, gold stamped cover; what the author has accomplished here is truly monumental, in a sad way.

Why you shouldn't read this book: This is the most (intentionally) offensive work I’ve ever read in my entire life, comprising gratuitous violence, racist stereotypes, extreme misogyny and misanthropy, and a tedious repetition of gross-out humor, drawn in a style reminiscent of stupid newspaper comics or Mad Magazine fillers....

Before Watchmen: Comedian/Rorschach

Written by: Brian Azzarello

First line: "I'm open!"

Why you should read this book: I don't know: normally I don't review books I don't like, or even finish them, but I kept trying to figure out what part of this prequel to the bestselling graphic novel of all time was so important that it had to be told in this format. There's something almost interesting about the relationship between the Kennedy family and the Comedian, but it doesn't really add up to anything, whereas Rorschach's story is completely pointless; obviously, this book was written solely for the purpose of making money, not to communicate something that Alan Moore might have missed in his seminal work. Rorschach already had a fully fleshed origin story, and Comedian didn't really need one, so I would only recommend this book if you somehow loved either character so much you wanted to read some kind of half-baked fan fiction.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You can articulate some qualities that make the work of Alan Moore so compelling.

Circus Shoes

Written by: Noel Streatfeild

First line: Peter and Santa were orphans.

Why you should read this book: It's not their fault that they are complete idiots and ridiculously snobby: Peter and Santa were raised to idiocy by their stupid, high-toned aunt, who most likely did them a favor by dying before they reached adolescence. Terrified at the thought of being sent to separate orphanages, the two children run away to find their uncle, a talented "artiste," which is to say, he performs in the circus. Thrown into an alien world where none of their prejudices make sense and none of their education comes into play, Peter and Santa must determine who they want to be, what they want to do with their lives, and how hard they're willing to work to achieve their goals.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You absolutely believe that your children are too good to talk to other people. Or go to school. Or basically do anything.

Freaks

Written by: Kieran Larwood

First line: Sheba gazed through her tiny window to the seaside view beyond.

Why you should read this book: A really lovely offering in the steampunk genre for young readers, Freaks shares the journey of Sheba, a sideshow attraction with wolfish features and, sometimes, a wolfish personality. Lonely throughout life, she is happy to be purchased by a larger sideshow and taken to Victorian London in the company of other career freaks, but when she finds herself embroiled in a scheme to kidnap impoverished children for diabolical purposes, Sheba is imbued with purpose. Along with her new friends, Monkeyboy, Sister Moon, Gigantus, Mama Rat, and six trained rodents, Sheba is determined to crack the conspiracy and save some children even less fortunate than she is.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: A fair amount of poo throwing may be off-putting to some readers.

Monster High

Written by: Lisi Harrison

First line: The fourteen-hour drive from Beverly Hills, California, to Salem, Oregon, had been total Gitmo.

Why you should read this book: Melody's parents force her to get a nose job, supposedly to help her asthma, but really because their family's only value is ageless beauty. Frankie's parents force her to wear wool pants suits and full bodied makeup because she has green skin and they want her to lead a normal life even though she's a monster they built in their home laboratory. A bunch of teenagers without enough personality to even pass as cliches roll woodenly around this nonsensical book, ostensibly worrying about clothes, boys, brand names, and identity, but in reality doing nothing more than selling plastic Mattel dolls with interchangeable body parts and outfits that would make a whore blush.

Why you shouldn't read this book: This is literally the worst book I have ever read. And I have read the entire Twilight series.

My Friend Dahmer

Written by: Derf Backderf

First line: It's the next path on the left.

Why you should read this book: You've never read anything like this detailed, visual, honest, and often humorous account of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's adolescent years, as recalled by one of the boys he considered his closest friends in school. Dahmer's early obsession with death, his horrible home life, his full-blown alcoholism, and the terrifying pull of his frightening sexuality are all here, but so are the elements that, according to the author, make Dahmer a sympathetic character and his story—to a point—a tragedy. Here is the portrait of young man desperate to belong but destined to remain separate from the world, quashing his own myriad demons just as long as he can before the world caves in around him.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Depressing moments, gruesome moments, and the inevitable awful outcome.

I Wish That I Had Duck Feet

Written by: Dr. Seuss (writing as Theo LeSieg)

First line: I wish that I had duck feet.

Why you should read this book: A classic easy reader, this book follows an imaginative boy's flights of fancy as he considers how various mutations would make him more popular around town, particularly with local girls, while creating problems with his parents and the school bully. Hearkens back to its origins in the 60s, when the debate over conformity really began to heat up, but concludes that being a freak is dangerous and unfulfilling. Seuss used this pseudonym for books he wrote but did not illustrate; both the text and the pictures are darling.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You constantly assure your precious little snowflake that they can be anything they want to be. 

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Written by: Gregory Maguire

First line: A mile above Oz, the Witch balanced on the wind's forward edge, as it she were a green fleck of the land itself, flung up and sent wheeling away by the turbulent air.

Why you should read this book: I know I'm pretty late to the party, but I really adored this intense, imaginative work, which paints a full picture of the life of the so-called Wicked Witch of the West, who, in other works, tormented Dorothy during her journey through Oz. Glinda (bubble-headed and class-conscious, but essentially kind-hearted), the Wizard (cruel, calculating, amoral, and self-serving), and even the Wicked Witch of the East (crippled and full of pious self-righteousness) are given detailed treatments and complex personalities, but it is Elphaba, the green-skinned Animal-rights activist and lifelong outsider who becomes the most sympathetic protagonist. Civil rights, political machinations, religious argument, and, above all, a running discussion on the nature of good and evil are among the thought-provoking terrain covered in this ground-breaking fantasy novel.

Why you shouldn't read this book: For you, it was all about Judy Garland and those ruby slippers.

Every Thing On It

Written by: Shel Silverstein

First line: Although I cannot see your face/As you flip these poems awhile,/Somewhere from some far-off place/I hear you laughing—and I smile.

Why you should read this book: Fans of Silverstein’s previous collections of ridiculous rhymes for precocious children and immature adults have cause to rejoice. Every Thing On It is more of what made the author’s poetry for young people famous: ridiculous reversals, tender magic, bad manners, creatures that eat children, and illustrations that feature strangely proportioned humans and unusual animals. Mixed in with the giggle-worthy poems are some more thought-provoking themes demonstrating Silverstein’s growth as a writer and his more introspective side.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You disapprove of nonsense, bad behavior, and whimsical deaths.

Beauty & the Beast: A Pop-Up Book of the Classic Fairy Tale

Written by: Robert Sabuda

First line: There once lived a rich and kind merchant who had six children: three boys and three girls.

Why you should read this book: This insanely impressive pop-up book was clearly a labor of love, with enormous and elaborate three-dimensional illustrations, numerous smaller pop-up pages on each of the big pages, and surprising motion for paper cut-outs: we literally see actions such as Beauty turning the corner as she explores Beast's castle, the magic mirror revealing the scene back home, and the Beast's miraculous transformation. The story recounted is the traditional tale, unblemished by any attempt to update or add a modern message to the text, and balances nicely with the intricacy of the visual aspects of this book. Children will be fascinated by the stunning detail and wish to linger and explore every pop-up.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Children will be fascinated by the stunning details and wish to linger and explore every pop-up, but that doesn't mean that children should be allowed to touch this book, which probably wouldn't last five minutes in the hands of the average inquisitive child.

The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God & Other Stories

Written by: Etgar Keret

First line: This is the story about a bus driver who would never open the door of the bus for people who were late.

Why you should read this book: Minor miracles, unremarkable afterlives, heroes who are less than heroic, and imperfect relationships fill the pages of this short story collection, creating a world like a disconcerting dream that never quite reaches the level of nightmare but leaves you scratching your head in the morning, wondering where the heck you've been. There are dashed hopes, strange confrontations between Jews and Arabs, and a fascination with death and near-death experiences: sometimes the world seems utterly bleak and hopeless, and other times, a thin ray of hope penetrates the dark shroud of characters' disappointments. These stories are short, fast reads, two of which were made into feature-length films, all of which force the reader to examine their own notions of morality and self-determination.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You just can't imagine what would drive another human being to take their own life.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Written by: Patrick Süskind

First line: In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages.

Why you should read this book: Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born in a trash heap, raised under the indifferent supervision of series of uncommitted caregivers, and is interested in nothing but the ever-growing catalog of odors discovered by his prodigy olfactory organ. With his magnificent nose, he become a valuable apprentice perfumer, but lacking a scent of his own, or any connection to the human race, he grows into a single-minded psychopath, intent on distilling the most powerful essence in the world: the smell of a beautiful young girl. With great descriptive strokes, this novel seduces the reader into Grenouille’s dark inner world of intense and amoral drives, many-splendored scents, and single-minded devotion to a horrifying goal.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You reject the glorification of the criminally insane and refuse to feel sympathy or identification for an intricately written literary character who just happens to need to commit acts of hideous evil.

Gypsy Girl

Author: Rumer Godden

First line: "If anyone," said the teacher, Mrs. Blount, in the classroom, "any one" and her eyes looked sternly along the lines of tables filled with boys and girls, "teases or bullies or jeers at Kizzy Lovell, they will answer for it to me."

Why you should read this book: This engaging story discusses the issue of Gypsies, now known as Travellers, living in England in the 1970s, glossing over civil rights for a more powerful examination of pure civility. When Kizzy's teacher uses threats to ask for more respect toward the unusual girl in her first grade class, others suggest she has made a mistake, and should have tried to romanticize the girl's life, but Kizzy cares nothing for their world, preferring the company of her great-great-grandmother and her geriatric horse, Joe, in the solitary caravan in the woods. When fate steal both Gram and the caravan away from her, Kizzy is forced to venture into the world she hates, teaching the people of the village to love her for her true self.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You continue your campaign to wipe those who refuse to conform off the face of the planet.

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd

Editors: Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci

First line: it didn't matter which one of us had married a rival Dungeon Master (that would be Holly) or lived for six weeks in the line for Star Wars (that would be Cecil), the moment that we met one another, we knew instantly that we were of the same tribe.

Why you should read this book: This collection of modern short fiction focuses on the multifaceted and often overlooked world of the geek (that segment of social outcast deeply involved in the practice and trivia of particular areas, such as theater, comic books, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, RPGs, speculative fiction, and music), edging into the territory of nerd (that segment of social outcast deeply involved in knowledge, education, and facts). From LARPing, Quizbowl, and character orientation to Internet relationships, astronomy, and sex, this book reveals the full range of loserdom to reveal that we are all geeks, and none of us are alone. A fun selection of fast reads, interspersed with page-long comics illustrating the finer points of geekspeak.

Why you shouldn't read this book: The painful wounds of public school are still too fresh, and you're furiously engaged in hiding your inner geek from the world.

Breaking Dawn

Author: Stephenie Meyer

First line: I'd had more than my fair share of near-death experiences; it wasn't something you ever really got used to.

Why you should read this book: If you've come this far in the Twilight series, you really don't have any other choice, do you? While the first quarter of the book basically comprises a lot of trite teenage wish-fulfillment, and the second quarter of the book is completely superfluous to the story and something of a literary offense, the second half of this book is easily the best part of the series. Bella comes into her own, substantially less annoying once her unending self-sacrifice has a focus and some muscle to back it up, characterization becomes integral to the plot, and even though you know a happy ending is in the cards, there's at least some suspense regarding who's going to die (not Bella).

Why you shouldn't read this book: You fear the unknown and believe it should be destroyed. Or you have anything better to do.

Savvy

Author: Ingrid Law

First line: When my brother Fish turned thirteen, we moved to the deepest part of inland because of the hurricane and, of course, the fact that he'd caused it.

Why you should read this book: When you're a Beaumont, thirteen is a very special birthday, because that is the day when you first experience your savvy--a remarkable, unpredictable, and often violent power that may take years to control--so when Mibs' dad has a car wreck and ends up in a coma the day before she turns thirteen, she knows the trouble's only starting. Next thing she knows, the well-meaning but meddling preacher's wife determines that Mibs must have a big, public party, despite the family's tragedy, and Mibs decides it's time to stowaway on a bible-delivery bus and get to her father's side in the hospital. Accompanied by two of her brothers, and the preacher's two kids, she sets out on a magical ride through the midwest, destined to learn more about herself and the people around her than she ever wanted to know.

Why you shouldn't read this book: In your opinion, all tattoos are trashy, and writing on your skin is both wrong and dangerous.