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A Reflection on My Reading Autobiography

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A Reflection on My Reading Autobiography

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I’m surprised I don’t need glasses, because when I was a child, just beginning to read independently, I vividly recall staying up long past my bedtime to read in the dim glow of my Barbie night light. There was always a paperback shoved under my pillow. My first best friends were paper and ink and pictures, and every book I read led me down a path of stories to create the person I am today.

Creating this assignment was a wonderful trip down that bookish memory lane. Not every book on this list is one that I would consider a favorite. However, they did all change my life and my reading in significant ways. Connection, in particular, is a recurring theme in this autobiography. I look at this collection of covers and I am awash with nostalgia, because I remember not just the stories contained inside of them but also the time when I read them and the people I read them with. Reading can be a solitary hobby, but those books that stand out to me when I look back on my history are those that helped me bridge the gaps between my consciousness and that of my family, of my peers, and of my friends.

My middle school years stand out in particular, not necessarily because of the books I read, but because of the trusted adults in my life who recommended those books to me and helped me form my identity as a reader. In middle school, I felt like I really had a chance to explore and discover, and thank goodness I did, because the older I got, the more I felt like I had to wade through a torturous sea of assigned reading. I want to offer that safe space now to the children and teens who come into my library. I want to help them explore, escape, find themselves or discover a community--whatever they are looking for in their books, I want to help them find it.

I know how crucial these books were for me at that time in my life. I know how crucial they still are, and I hope this course will teach me how to match these young readers with the books that will show up in their own autobiographies in ten years’ time. The books that reside on my home bookshelf are all well-worn and well-read. I revisit them from time to time when I miss my old fictional friends, and they always have some new perspective to offer me as I grow and change. I know they will be there when I come home, and when I have nothing or no one else, I will always have my bedtime stories.

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Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, illustrated by Sheila McGraw (1986)

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Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, illustrated by Sheila McGraw (1986)

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I made my mom and dad read me this book over and over and over again. I think I saw myself and my family in these pages--a young child loved and cared for by his mother, slowly growing up until the roles become reversed. I didn't realize until years later how sad this book actually is. I don't know how my parents made it though this book without crying every time. Sorry, mom and dad!

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This book is already bittersweet, but while doing this project I stumbled upon Robert Munsch's website where he tells the story of how this book came to be. It's definitely worth a read!

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Love You Forever started as a song.
"I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
as long as I'm living
my baby you'll be."
I made that up after my wife and I had two babies born dead. The song was my song to my dead babies. For a long time I had it in my head and I couldn't even sing it because every time I tried to sing it I cried. It was very strange having a song in my head that I couldn't sing.

For a long time it was just a song but one day, while telling stories at a big theatre at the University of Guelph, it occurred to me that I might be able to make a story around the song.

Out popped Love You Forever, pretty much the way it is in the book.

My regular publisher felt that it was not really a kid's book and I ended up doing it with another publisher.

One day the publisher called up and said "This is very strange. It is selling very well in retirement communities in Arizona. It is selling in retirement communities where kids are illegal. This is supposed to be a children's book. What is going on?"

"Grownups are buying it for grownups!"

In fact, it turned out that parents buy it for grandparents and grandparents buy it for parents and kids buy it for everybody and everybody buys it for kids.

As a matter of fact, everybody buys it for everybody. That's why it sells a lot of copies. I think it's my best book. So far it has sold about 15,000,000 copies.

Everybody makes up their own song for this book. I would like to put different versions of the song up on this site, now that the site has sound on it. If you send me your version, either as a tape or an audio file or a MR3 file, I will try to put it up in the LOVE YOU page. If lots of people send me their versions, I will not be able to put them all up, but I would like to hear them even if I can't put them on the site.

The way I sing it in the story is just MY version. You are supposed to make up your own.

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Love You Forever started as a song. "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be." I made that up after my wife and I had two babies born dead. The song was my song to my dead babies.

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Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish, illustrated by Fritz Siebel (1963)

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Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish, illustrated by Fritz Siebel (1963)

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When we had a Scholastic Book Sale, my pocket money was definitely being used to buy the latest Amelia Bedelia book! Wordplay was peak comedy when I was six. These books made me cry laughing. They made me associate books and reading with joy and laughter.

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These are books that I look upon fondly because they made me love the magic of stories. 

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These are books that I look upon fondly because they made me love the magic of stories. 

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These are books that helped me connect with my peers and form my identity during a crucial time in middle school. 

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These are books that helped me connect with my peers and form my identity during a crucial time in middle school. 

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These are books that helped me discover an important part of myself during high school. 

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These are books that helped me discover an important part of myself during high school. 

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These are books that I’ve found and loved throughout college and adulthood now that I understand my personal reading tastes much better. In recent years, I’ve branched out into more adult books, especially in the last year or so as I’ve learned to appreciate romance as a genre, but I still reach for YA about 75% of the time!

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These are books that I’ve found and loved throughout college and adulthood now that I understand my personal reading tastes much better. In recent years, I’ve branched out into more adult books, especially in the last year or so as I’ve learned to appreciate romance as a genre, but I still reach for YA about 75% of the time!

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A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (2015)

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A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (2015)

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During high school, I didn't have much time to read recreationally because I was so busy with clubs and extracurricular activities. In college, I had much more free time, and I decided to start a Bookstagram account to connect with other readers online. I didn't know many people in my offline life that were big readers--until I made a post about A Court of Thorns and Roses, and someone I knew in high school commented that they were reading it at the same time. Izzy and I were never close in high school, but Sarah J. Maas books made us fast friends, and to this day, she's one of my favorite people to buddy read with! This trilogy has helped me connect with so many people in my adult life, from college friends to current library coworkers. In fact, it was the inaugural choice for the new book club I started at my library. For those reasons, it has earned its place in my reading autobiography!

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Sarah J. Maas seems to get impossibly more popular every day. I love this summary from Today.com: "Many BookTokers will say these books have the extraordinary world-building of “Harry Potter,” the romanticism of a Taylor Swift album, and the jaw-dropping crossovers of Marvel movies."

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Warning! This article contains spoilers about the three fantasy series by Sarah J. Maas: "Throne of Glass," "A Court of Thorns and Roses" and "Crescent City."
So you've reached the corner of TikTok where book fanatics cannot stop talking about "A Court of Thorns and Roses." (Seriously: The hashtag #ACOTAR has over 5 billion views).

It's piqued your interest - but the book cover, an illustration of a dragon-type creature before a crimson backdrop, doesn't tell you much. Maybe you've stumbled upon more clips with obscure references like "Tamlin" and "the Bat Boys" and "under the mountain" and "Helloooo, Feyre darling."

"ACOTAR!" the people are shouting. "What is this?!" you're shouting back.

The simple answer? "ACOTAR" is a fantasy-romance series for "new adults," a publishing term that denotes a book for people in their 20s who have graduated from the YA genre (and maybe moved onto things playfully called "fairy smut"), about a young huntress taken captive to mystical faerie lands. She finds love in a powerful Fae who's half man and half beast.

Except, "ACOTAR" readers know this series is not about that at all, yet it's still entirely about that. (If you know, you know.)

The long answer is that "ACOTAR" is this immersive and epic saga, but - and here's where spoilers may come in - it set the groundwork for author Sarah J. Maas to spin a web of a magical universe that expands to other fantasy series she's written: "Throne of Glass," the first of which was published in 2012, and "Crescent City," which came in 2020.

These made-up worlds are expansive and picturesque, the romances are lyrical and intense, the adventures are thrilling and agonizing, and all of it is held together through intelligent planning and foresight.

Many BookTokers will say these books have the extraordinary world-building of "Harry Potter," the romanticism of a Taylor Swift album, and the jaw-dropping crossovers of Marvel movies.

SJM's publishers are certainly seeing the hype too. Bloomsbury this month not only revealed a third "Crescent City" book coming in January 2024, but also said Maas signed a new four-book deal in addition to her existing three books currently under contract.

So if you're sold, come along further for the ride. There's so much more to know.

I want to read SJM's books. What's the proper reading order?

Sarah J. Maas fans out there will have differing opinions on this. Sarah Mori, 28, a reader from Austin, Texas, who's been leading a virtual SJM read-along book club since 2021 and also runs an SJM-centric TikTok, says that SJM series to start with depends on your interests.

"Anyone who loves fantasy first should read 'Throne of Glass' (this is what I read first). It is the first thing SJM wrote and it is just an incredible series to dive into," she tells TODAY.com by email. "For my romance ladies, I recommend starting with 'A Court of Thorns and Roses.' It is the perfect thing to (dip) your toe into Sarah J. Maas."

One thing all SJM readers will agree on is that "Crescent City" should be read last.

Let's say you start with "A Court of Thorns and Roses," aka "ACOTAR." Like most readers, Mori says to read this series in publishing order:

1. "A Court of Thorns and Roses" (2015)

2. "A Court of Mist and Fury" (2016)

3. "A Court of Wings and Ruin" (2017)

4. "A Court of Frost and Starlight" (2018)

5. "A Court of Silver Flames" (2021)

1. "Throne of Glass" (2012)

2. "Crown of Midnight" (2013)

3. "The Assassin's Blade" (2014, a prequel book)

4. "Heir of Fire" (2014)

5. "Queen of Shadows" (2015)

6. "Empire of Storms" (2016) and "Tower of Dawn" (2017) in tandem

7. "Kingdom of Ash" (2018)

Now, let's turn to "Throne of Glass." This is where readers will debate about the reading order. Mori created a TikTok of her recommendation.

The biggest sticking points in this reading order are when to read "The Assassin's Blade," the prequel book, and whether the two penultimate books, "Empire of Storms" and "Tower of Dawn," should be read in tandem or as separate novels.

Mori notes that SJM herself recommends reading the prequel book first. As for the tandem read, that's up to you. If you decide to tackle it, Mori created a chapter list to follow for her book club, so you can alternate.

(Writer's note: I did the tandem read as a first-time reader and it was very fun. I'd recommend it.)

1. "House of Earth and Blood" (2020)

2. "House of Sky and Breath" (2022)

3. "House of Flame and Shadow" (2024)

After "ACOTAR" and "TOG," you'll read the "Crescent City" books. There are only two books published so far, the third coming in January of next year. Here's your (breathtakingly straightforward) reading order:

I read all of SJM's books, and I think I missed the crossover moments. What were they?

Here's the part where we'll delve into some spoilers.

Let's start with the most prominent crossover event, which comes in the conclusion of SJM's most recent book, "House of Sky and Breath," in the "Crescent City" series.

Its protagonist, Bryce Quinlan, jumps through a port that ends up taking her to Velaris, a setting in "A Court of Thorns and Roses," and right into the arms of familiar characters. She beholds the "ACOTAR" crew and clocks some uncanny physical similarities to her brother Ruhn and friends back in Crescent City.

Bryce also comes bearing a blade, dubbed the Starsword in "Crescent City," which turns out to be an ancient weapon called Gwydion that's gone missing in "ACOTAR."

Characters in "Crown of Midnight" (page 276) and "A Court of Silver Flames" (page 154) referring to different "worlds" and "realms."

Aelin, the "Throne of Glass" protagonist, in "Kingdom of Ash" falls through worlds and sees Feyre and Rhys in Velaris (page 800).

Bryce in "House of Earth and Blood" notices two book titles - "The Walking Dead" and "The Book of Breathings" - that respectively play roles in the "Throne of Glass" and "ACOTAR" books (page 691).

This was a major turning point in the SJM universe, as the author confirmed what readers suspected all along - these worlds are tied. Before this, SJM had left possible easter eggs throughout her books. Mori provided some notable ones:

What's going to happen in "Crescent City" 3?

Now that the "ACOTAR" and "Crescent City" worlds have officially crossed over at the end of "House of Sky and Breath," the forthcoming third "Crescent City" book could go in so many directions.

What most predict is a full-blown "Captain America: Civil War" moment, where you think you're getting a "Captain America" movie but it's actually a "Spider-Man" and "Iron Man" and everybody-else movie.

So, while this is a "Crescent City" book, its protagonist has landed in the "ACOTAR" world - so we'll expect to see how all these characters intertwine. (Particularly how Elain's fated mate shakes out, but that's a much longer story for another day.)

As for actual plot points, Mori says she expects "lots of pain but a happy ending."

"Sarah has hinted we should be worried about Ruhn and we know he is most likely not doing well. I am trying to remember this is the same author who put Aelin in a coffin and tortured her for (over) 20 chapters. But on an exciting note, I expect a lot of answers to the Maas Universe."

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Inside the sprawling fantasy universe of Sarah J. Maas - and the fans who want to live there

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Warning! This article contains spoilers about the three fantasy series by Sarah J. Maas: "Throne of Glass," "A Court of Thorns and Roses" and "Crescent City." So you've reached the corner of TikTok where book fanatics cannot stop talking about "A Court of Thorns and Roses."

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Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire (2016)

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Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire (2016)

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Every Heart a Doorway was one of my first ventures into adult fantasy fiction. Seanan McGuire's book Middlegame is another favorite of mine. The recommendation came from a bookish YouTuber I follow, BooksandLala. This series of novellas was a really amazing transition for me between YA and adult books with its young characters and short length but mature narrative voice.

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Reading Vlog from BooksandLala, who inspired me to try out this series in the first place!

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Reading Vlog from BooksandLala, who inspired me to try out this series in the first place!

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Re-reading these along with BooksandLala and the other community members in her audience was a really wonderful way to connect with other people who have similar reading tastes. I love the whole bookish culture on YouTube, especially readathons and reading sprints, which make reading a more social activity instead of an isolating experience.

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Wayward Children Series ✨ Re-Reading Vlog

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The Shadowhunters Chronicles by Cassandra Clare (2007-)

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The Shadowhunters Chronicles by Cassandra Clare (2007-)

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The Shadowhunters series holds a lot of nostalgic value for me--they’re books that grew up with me, and when there are new releases, I’m the first one in line at Barnes & Noble to purchase a copy of the latest book. But looking back, the thing that stands out the most to me is my memory of Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn--the first LGBTQ+ character I ever remember reading about as a pre-teen, a bisexual warlock with Indonesian roots who is not just out, but also proud. He’s fun and fashionable and unashamed, and to this day, I think I would call him my favorite fictional character of all time. I didn’t know at the time that I was LGBTQ+, but I remember being inexplicably enthralled. As the series went on, more queer characters started cropping up in the later books - Kit Herondale, Tiberius Blackthorn, Thomas Lightwood, Alastair Carstairs, Charles Fairchild, Raphael Santiago. Cassandra Clare’s world grows more diverse alongside our own, often times a bit ahead of the curve. Not only do her books offer me an incredible fantasy world and magic system to sink my teeth into, they also offer a safe place to learn and grow for teens who might be discovering things about themselves. I talk a bit more about this in my undergrad thesis, which I linked in the previous column under the Harry Potter section!

Also, on a smaller note, it meant a lot, and continues to mean a lot to me, to see a plus-sized woman like myself finding success in the publishing industry.

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The Rainbow Magic Fairy Books - Written by Daisy Meadows, illustrated by Georgie Ripper (2003-2014)

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The Rainbow Magic Fairy Books - Written by Daisy Meadows, illustrated by Georgie Ripper (2003-2014)

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I probably only read the first fifty or so before I outgrew them, but I adored these short chapter books when I was in first-third grade. I was getting to an age where my classmates had started telling me Santa wasn't real and magic tricks are just tricks. I think I was drawn to books with a fantastical element like these because they kept the magic alive for me for a bit longer. In a similar vein, I really enjoyed the Disney tie-in books about Tinkerbell and the other fairies of Pixie Hollow!

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If they had this website back in my day, my friends and I would have used it like crazy! Instead, we spent recess periods tracing the outlines of the book illustrations against the classroom windows so we could design new characters of our own and write stories about them. A few memorable ones that would have been spectacular flops: "50 States" fairies and "Ice Cream Flavor" fairies! My school friends and I were pretty much writing the elementary version of fanfiction. Not only did these books allow me to connect with some of my closest friends, they also inspired me to write and make art, which brought me a lot of joy.

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The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (2005)

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The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (2005)

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This is the first book series I can ever remember being truly obsessed with. Mythology was a special interest of mine as a kid. My family is from Greece--my grandmother came here from Kalamata when she was twelve--and I really felt like learning about these famous mythological characters and stories was like learning about my own personal history. Percy Jackson made those stories more accessible and fun for my young brain, and I fell in love with the universe and its characters.

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Since skyrocketing to Percy Jackson fame, Rick Riordan has developed his own imprint at Disney Hyperion books. Founded in 2018, the Rick Riordan Presents imprint gives him a chance to please his fanbase, who are eager for more mythological magic, and support authors of various cultural backgrounds. Riordan has done fabulous work to promote diversity in middle grade publishing. As a kid, I loved him for his books. Today, I love him for the way he has given back to his community of readers and made significant changes in the publishing industry that open doors for underrepresented communities.

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The Fairy-Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley, illustrated by Peter Ferguson (2005)

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The Fairy-Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley, illustrated by Peter Ferguson (2005)

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Like Percy Jackson and the Rainbow Magic Fairy books, the Sisters Grimm had a magical element that brought fairy tales closer to home for me. I loved these twists on classic tales that made them more modern--more for me. And as a special bonus, this book was actually a pick for the first book club I was ever a part of. My library started a Tween Book Club when I was in fourth grade and I can proudly say I was an inaugural member. This was the second book we read. (The first was Diary of a Wimpy Kid). For the first time, reading became a social activity for me instead of something I did in the privacy of my home with my parents and my younger brother or at school with the guidance of a teacher.

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Vicious was perhaps the first truly adult book that I read and loved. It holds up, too--I reread it for book club recently and I think I liked it even more the second time around! This dark and gritty sci-fi universe is memorable and engaging in all the best ways, and I would be remiss not to include it as an example of my current reading tastes. I'll pick up anything Schwab writes because it's always dark and fantastical in my favorite ways.

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The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2008)

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The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2008)

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The seventh grade was my prime reading era. I started my Goodreads account that year. I racked up so many Accelerated Reader points every semester that I was practically personally responsible for the class pizza party. I visited the middle school library multiple times a week, and I’m still in close contact with my English teacher from that year.

I have a vivid memory of the first time I read about The Hunger Games in a Costco magazine. I can't find it now, but it was an advertisement, or maybe an interview, that described it as being inspired by the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. Coming off of my Percy Jackson high, I was pumped to find something new. I have a vivid memory of staying up late to finish the book and forcing my mom to drive me to the bookstore the next day to purchase Catching Fire immediately. I read that sequel in less than 24 hours and had to wait the longest week for my life after that cliffhanger because Mockingjay didn’t come out for seven more days. When the school year started, I pushed the book onto everyone, the teacher included, and by a few months into the school year, my entire class had read the Hunger Games. My copy of the book is worn and beat up from being read by so many different people. We had a countdown on the whiteboard of the English classroom for the first movie release that March. It felt like being a part of the best, biggest book club in the world, and I have nothing but fond memories of that entire school year.

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The Shadowhunters universe gets long and complicated, but I think they set me up to enjoy the complex fantasy worlds and magic systems that appear in adult sci-fi and fantasy.

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The Mortal InstrumentsThe Infernal DevicesThe Dark ArtificesTales from the Shadowhunter AcademyThe Bane ChroniclesThe Last HoursThe Shadowhunter's CodexGhosts of the Shadow MarketThe Eldest CursesShadowhunters Novels Official Timeline

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The Tween and Teen Book Clubs are still going strong at my library. I went from a book club member to a volunteer during middle and high school, and now I work there full time as a library assistant! Since I started full time a little more than a year ago, I've actually started another book club we call the Bingeable Book Club. It's open to both teens and adults, and we've got a wide range of members from age 16 to 60+. We read a mix of YA and adult, including things that have gone viral on TikTok, NYT Bestsellers, and more, searching for the best bingeable books that you want to sit down and read in one sitting.

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Children who read 10 books or have 10 read to them receive a free book to keep. Read at your own speed and build your home library.

Tween Book Club

Students in grades 4-7 can get a free book to keep. A great way to earn Accelerated Reader Points. Meetings are once a month and include food, friends and fun!
Meetings are the 4th Wed. of the month at 3:30

Teen Book Club

Teens in grades 7-12 pick their own books to keep, meet monthly, have snacks, and make new friends!
Meetings are the 2nd Wed. of the month at 3:30

Reader's Choice Book Club

Reading selections are chosen by our members who then provide feedback on the books that are read. Refreshments compliment the theme or locale of the book.

Bingeable Book Club

Reading selections are voted on by members based on a monthly theme. Books typically include popular novels in a variety of genres, from sci-fi/fantasy to mystery/thriller. Come join and pick up the latest "bingeable" book that you want to sit down and devour in one sitting!

Writing Club

Writers of all ages share their work, critique each other, and have an opportunity to have their writings published on our blog. Share their Imagination, Creativity, and Inspiration!

Book Club in a Bag

Eight copies of each title come in a bag with discussion questions, author information and reviews. Over 100 titles are available for 8-week loans to book clubs. Contact hoat@neptunepubliclibrary.org to reserve a title.

Have any questions? Call us at 732.775.8241

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Children who read 10 books or have 10 read to them receive a free book to keep. Read at your own speed and build your home library. Students in grades 4-7 can get a free book to keep. A great way to earn Accelerated Reader Points.

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The Hunger Games Book Trailer from I Read YA

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The Hunger Games Book Trailer from I Read YA

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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling (1997)

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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling (1997)

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I feel so basic for including this, but it would be dishonest not to. I devoured the whole series in about a month, racked up 250 Accelerated Reader points, and basically personally guaranteed the class pizza party that semester. It was the first time that being a book fan became a key part of my identity. I embraced this fictional world in a way that I hadn’t ever really experienced before. I started reading fanfiction. I attended LeakyCon twice in 2012 and 2014. Harry Potter helped me bond with two of my closest friends at the time.

My relationship with these books has changed significantly in the last few years. It’s no secret that the LGBTQ+ community’s relationship to J.K. Rowling is strained at best. If anyone is interested to hear my thoughts on this, I included a link below to my undergraduate thesis from 2017 where I talked about LGBTQ+ representation in YA genre fiction, and I talked about this a bit more in depth!

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Harry Potter and the Cursed (Queer?) Child: The Evolution of LGBTQ+ Representation in Young Adult Genre Fiction

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Harry Potter and the Cursed (Queer?) Child: The Evolution of LGBTQ+ Representation in Young Adult Genre Fiction

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A link to my undergraduate thesis!

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Harry Potter and the Cursed (Queer_) Child_ The Evolution of LGBTQ+ Representation in YA Genre Fiction.docx

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I read this for a summer reading assignment going into the ninth grade and cried for probably an hour when I finished it. I had never been so emotionally affected by a book before, and to this day, I think it's one of the most stunningly creative historical fiction books I have ever read. I reread it from time to time whenever I need a good cry!

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Carry On is one of the first fantasy books I can remember reading that featured LGBTQ+ main characters. I had read books like Will Grayson, Will Grayson and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, but this one was different because it was magical. On top of that, with the magical school elements that connect it back to books like Harry Potter, this book was a recipe for perfection in my eyes. It’s more than 500 pages, but I read the whole thing in one sitting, and it sparked a journey of me seeking out queer YA content more actively and intentionally. To this day, I still reread this book at least once a year. It has become a comfort read to me--sinking into these pages is the same as putting on an old comfortable sweater, and I don't think I will ever tire of it.

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The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (2012)

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The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (2012)

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John Green’s work marks a crucial moment in my reading life, but not because of his books themselves. I would never list The Fault in Our Stars or Looking for Alaska in my favorite books of all time. They were all books that everyone in the seventh grade classroom was reading, and I read them largely because of that. The seventh grade was a time of exploration and discovery for me in that regard; I don’t tend to pick up books like this anymore. Now I’m primarily a genre fiction reader that favors fantasy and science fiction, because years of reading widely allowed me to discover my personal tastes. However, I reflect on John Green and his work fondly because I can recognize the immense value it had in helping me find a community of like-minded people.

I was (and still am) a devout online follower of his content on YouTube and across other platforms. I remember watching videos of John Green updating everyone on the 100,000 signatures for signed copies. I remember watching the video of the cover reveal. But mostly, I remember being proud to call myself a “nerdfighter,” part of a positive online subculture that’s made of awesome and fights to decrease “world suck.” I felt safe in that space, a crucial affordance to a nerdy twelve-year-old girl who needed help feeling comfortable in her own skin. DFTBA!

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A Note on Nerdfighters from The New Yorker

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A Note on Nerdfighters from The New Yorker

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This New Yorker article from back in 2013 is a great summary of the beginning of the "nerdfighteria" phenomenon.

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In her article about transgender teens in the magazine this week, Margaret Talbot quotes Annette Bening and Warren Beatty's son Stephen calling himself, among other things, a "nerdfighter." It might escape the average reader's notice that this term is more than the sum of its parts. In the teen-age population, "nerdfighter" has a very specific meaning and etymology. Primarily, it identifies the teen-ager in question as a follower of John Green. Green is a former divinity student who dropped his plans to join the ordained ministry after a stint as a hospital chaplain. But you could say that, in his career as a young-adult novelist, he's become another sort of evangelist. His "A Fault in Our Stars" débuted at No. 1 on the children's best-seller lists about a year ago. It is about a love affair between two teen-aged cancer sufferers, and was drawn, in part, from his experience as a chaplain.

Green has been writing about teen-agers who don't quite fit in, albeit in less epidemiologically significant ways, for some time. His first novel, "Looking for Alaska," in which a boarding-school student puzzles out what happened to his friend when she died in murky circumstances, showed a knack for the alienated-whip-smart-teen-ager genre. Some people might mutter something here about formula. But, for his readers, Green did what David Foster Wallace said good fiction did: he made them feel less alone. The book was not an instant best-seller when it appeared, in 2006, but it was something almost better: a cult hit. And, as such, it gave Green the beginnings of an online following.

In 2007, Green and his brother, Hank, began video blogging, or vlogging, as a hobby. They called their efforts "Brotherhood 2.0." The idea was that the two brothers would communicate exclusively in that fashion for an entire year. "When we started making videos," he wrote to me by e-mail, "we hoped that we'd build a small but active community of viewers who would join us in projects." Their first one had about ten thousand participants, who were already calling themselves the "nerdfighters." Their mission is to "increase awesome and decrease suck" in the world, largely through charity initiatives, but also through developing a sense of a community for the otherwise out-of-sync.

The idea caught on. At the end of their 2007 "experiment," the Green brothers just kept going, setting up a Web site for their followers and continuing to put out videos. As of this writing, their YouTube channel has 1,018,140 subscribers and 301,759,611 individual views of its videos. There is also a Wiki and a hand sign derived from the old Vulcan greeting. About a month ago, after the State of the Union, Green was one of five citizens that President Obama joined in a Google hangout. Green and his wife, Sarah, asked the President if he preferred the name Eleanor or Alice for their unborn child. Ever the diplomat, the President declined to answer, saying he worried that if he went the wrong way on the question the child would forever know that the President didn't like her name. Then he told Green and his wife to tell the child "not to forget to be awesome," one of the nerdfighter mantras. "I assume someone whispered that into the President's ear while he was talking to me," Green wrote to me, "but, regardless, it was a very generous thing of him to say."

The history of "nerdfighteria" suggests that Green perennially underestimates his influence. The term "nerdfighter" itself was originally just a joke. Early in 2007, Green filmed one of his vlogs in the Savannah, Georgia, airport, in front of an arcade game whose logo appeared to read "Nerdfighters." (In fact, the game was called Aero Fighters.) Green found the name funny, and said, in a later video, "Here's my question about Nerdfighters: Is Nerdfighters a game about people who fight against nerds, or is it a game about nerds who fight against other people? I've come to believe that Nerdfighters is a game about nerds who fight, nerds who tackle the scourge of popular people. And I've been thinking to myself... this would be a great video game." Quickly, his viewers, in their own vlogs and blogs, began to refer to themselves as nerdfighters, and a social movement was born. That might sound glib. Yet one measure of the popularity of the term is the very active nerdfighter tag on Tumblr, which, when I checked it yesterday, contained, among other entries, a comparison of Green to a modern-day Dante, leading his followers through the circles of Hell. That only sounds hyperbolic until you confront the profound loneliness at the heart of a lot of youthful angst. The totemic possibilities of the right book, the right video, the right kind word, are naturally larger.

But there can be such a thing as too big. "One of the reasons Hank and I have always resisted being on television is that we don't really want nerdfighters to be a mainstream cultural phenomenon," Green wrote me. "I worry that mainstream cultural phenomena need, like, Message Singularity and A Brand and an Institutional Voice and stuff. That kind of thing does not interest us at all. We just want to make cool stuff with people we like." You can see his point: the more everyone knows just what a nerdfighter is, the more the definition hardens. The most beautiful and intriguing parts of any identity tend to be the fluid ones. And the young people nerdfighteria attracts, after all, are often as confused and lonely and frustrated as they are because they don't fit into the boxes, a problem that can hardly be resolved by creating a new one.

We hear a lot about the perils of the Internet for the young. And yet, it does have another function. It is a place where the horizons of self-definition are widely set, where those interesting, fluid moments of identity can be explored. As Green puts it, "I am very proud that Stephen [Ira] considers himself a nerdfighter, and I hope that nerdfighteria is a place where young trans people feel welcome and safe, because there aren't enough of those places, online or off." An in-joke of a name, it turns out, is a signpost of a much-needed port in the storm.
Read Margaret Talbot's article on transgender adolescents. She also blogged about the video diaries of transgender teens.

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In her article about transgender teens in the magazine this week, Margaret Talbot quotes Annette Bening and Warren Beatty's son Stephen calling himself, among other things, a "nerdfighter." It might escape the average reader's notice that this term is more than the sum of its parts.

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Other than the two books above, there aren't a lot of books that stand out from my high school years. This was before I really discovered online communities of bookish people like Bookstagram or BookTok, so my reading was not as influenced by mainstream media. I was reading randomly; my book buying and reading was less guided by intention, which unfortunately means that, upon going through my Goodreads history, there were a lot of flops or just things that aren't particularly memorable. This is also a period where I started branching out into adult books for the first time with things like Gone Girl, but I don't think I was quite ready for them - none of the adult books I read were rating very highly.

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The Fault in Our Stars Book Announcement Video

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The Fault in Our Stars Book Announcement Video

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I can't recommend V.E. Schwab's books enough if you enjoy fantasy and science fiction. And, in addition to her stunning books, she's also just a great human! She keeps it real on her social media pages, but always has an inspirational and positive thought to share. I also had the opportunity to meet her briefly at BookCon in 2019 and she was incredibly kind.

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Bonus: My favorite books according to my mom

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Bonus: My favorite books according to my mom

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My memory from this time isn't the greatest, so I consulted an expert. My mom went into the attic and brought down a box of books she kept from my childhood because I requested them over and over again at bedtime! Aside from the books listed above, I apparently also loved Mig the Pig by Colin and Jackie Hawkins and Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina and Ann Marie Mulhearn Sayer.