Another book I forgot to mention that has deeply affected me is Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It's actually a graphic novel, but it's treated as one of the best pieces of literature, and feminist literature, in the world. I had to read it for my graphic novel class in college, and I was five pages away from finishing it before we were allowed to go over it in class! Not only that, I read it right after I was bullied by SJWs on the Precure Tumblr fandom. Even though we went through vastly different struggles, I could relate to Marjane and her plights, especially her existential crisis. I'm going through one of my own, but it also helped me put a lot of my thoughts together and realize some people do really bad things to innocents in order to push their own agendas, and oppression is downright stupid. It also gave me a new view on Middle Easterns and Muslims. I was never prejudiced against them anyway (I was too young when 9/11 happened. About eight years old, and all I cared about was school and cartoons), but reading Persepolis showed me that even Muslims are negatively affected by the oppression that extremists go through. I also love the book's message in that we shouldn't judge an entire race all because of the actions of a few extremists (sound familiar?).

One of the books that changed my life was The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery. The protagonist is a woman who is just turning 30, learns that she is dying, and realizes that she will die without having ever been happy. The book follows her as she tries to figure out what she wants to do to make her remaining years meaningful. I was much younger than that when I read this book for the first time, but it really helped me through my teenage years. It changed my perspective on what I should value in my life and made me determined not to have Valancy's problem of a disappointing existence someday.

Another book that I think about constantly is George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. I love the themes of group dynamics and political control via propaganda. Even though he wrote it in 1949, it's still relevant today and will be in future years. That's a world I don't ever want to live in. Not to mention that the writing is GORGEOUS and he created "nonsense" words that we've adapted into our vocabulary and still use today. *_*