Why am I passionate about this?

I love people who are totally lost because they are on the brink of their greatest discovery–their true nature. Even as a little boy I remember seeing that everyone has a purpose in life, but that is hidden to them. I have always felt that every step of the way, life seems to be a little off-track. But through authentic stories, I came to an understanding that right now, everyone is doing great things with their lives, even if they can’t see it.


I wrote...

Alex Detail's Revolution

By Darren Campo,

Book cover of Alex Detail's Revolution

What is my book about?

18-year-old Alex Detail has been kidnapped and forced to lead a secret military mission. Alex used to be a child…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of More Happy Than Not

Darren Campo Why did I love this book?

I love the main character’s horrible, deep, dark depression. Aaron’s life as a kid in the projects of New York City means he can’t be gay. So many bad things happen to Aaron that he wants to get a procedure to erase parts of his memory.

I love that just as it seems like Aaron’s life, his friends, his romantic life, his mom and brother, all seem to be somewhat in balance, everything goes to shit and his life is worse than he thought. His father, who he thought died of a heart attack, actually killed himself in the bathtub they use every day.

In the first version of the book, the ending is so sad and depressing, the author went back and added a new chapter just to give me some hope for Aaron. The updated ending is amazing.

By Adam Silvera,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked More Happy Than Not as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 14, 15, 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

A special Deluxe Edition of Adam Silvera’s groundbreaking debut featuring an introduction by Angie Thomas, New York Times bestselling author of The Hate U Give; a new final chapter, "More Happy Ending"; and an afterword about where it all began.
 
In his twisty, heartbreaking, profoundly moving New York Times bestselling debut, Adam Silvera brings to life a charged, dangerous near-future summer in the Bronx.

In the months following his father's suicide, sixteen-year-old Aaron Soto can’t seem to find happiness again, despite the support of his girlfriend, Genevieve, and his overworked mom. Grief and the smile-shaped scar on his wrist won’t…


Book cover of We Are the Ants

Darren Campo Why did I love this book?

I love this book because gay teen Henry keeps getting abducted by aliens. He’s trying to have a normal life as a high school student in Florida, but people think he’s a flake because he keeps going missing when the aliens take him.

The aliens give him a button to push if he wants to save the world from getting destroyed. Henry’s classmates f*ck around with him so much I wanted him to find something to give him hope not to destroy the world. His new boyfriend seems to be helping, but during a visit, Henry is taken by aliens and goes missing for a while, messing up his new romance.

It’s hard enough to be a gay teen, but to be a gay teen who is abducted by aliens on a weekly basis is something that I love about this book.

By Shaun David Hutchinson,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked We Are the Ants as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 13, 14, 15, and 16.

What is this book about?

A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021)

From the “author to watch” (Kirkus Reviews) of The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley comes an “equal parts sarcastic and profound” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) novel about a teenage boy who must decide whether or not the world is worth saving.

Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button.

Only he isn’t sure he wants to.

After all, life hasn’t…


Book cover of American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology

Darren Campo Why did I love this book?

This is the real-life account of a professor who gets caught up in “The Phenomena,” a term used to describe the appearance and interaction with extraterrestrial activity and encounters.

Diana Pasulka is a professor of religious studies who is researching the similarities between encounters with angels and demons, which are very similar in description to encounters with aliens and UFOs. Professor Pasulka is blindfolded and driven by a NASA scientist to a desert in New Mexico, where she is shown a secret  “UFO crash site.”  She doesn’t believe any of it. She says the ground is covered for miles by deteriorating aluminum cans that the government placed there over fifty years ago to obscure the UFO crash site and hide it. Later, her friend, Dr. Gary Nolan, a Stanford University scientist, verifies the objects from the crash site are not from this “universe.” 

I love this book because it is real life, and it shows what happens when a scientist who does not believe in anything unexplainable, mystical or alien has to change her opinion. It shows the great mystery in the world we live in and makes me more open the mysteries and possibilities that are beyond our understanding.

By D. W. Pasulka,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked American Cosmic as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

More than half of American adults and more than seventy-five percent of young Americans believe in intelligent extraterrestrial life. This level of belief rivals that of belief in God. American Cosmic examines the mechanisms at work behind the thriving belief system in extraterrestrial life, a system that is changing and even supplanting traditional religions.

Over the course of a six-year ethnographic study, D.W. Pasulka interviewed successful and influential scientists, professionals, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who believe in extraterrestrial intelligence, thereby disproving the common misconception that only fringe members of society believe in UFOs. She argues that widespread belief in aliens…


Book cover of The Darkness Outside Us

Darren Campo Why did I love this book?

I love how smart this book is, even as it takes us to very dark and depressing places and forces the characters to contemplate life over huge spans of time.

At first, it’s just a book about two guys on a spaceship, running a routine mission to a nearby planet. But the ship or someone is deceiving them. They find out they aren’t on a simple mission, they find out they’re probably the last two people left in the world, they fall in love and then they are killed by the ship (but that’s not the end of their lives).

I love that this book is about a new take on a generation ship–where the inhabitants are indented, never to return home. This is somewhat like The Dark Beyond the Starswhere the characters are intentionally kept in the dark by the people who designed the mission. I really like how the huge amounts of time allow for their relationship to develop from the first urge of attraction to love to living a life together to living multiple lives together.

By Eliot Schrefer,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Darkness Outside Us as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

They Both Die at the End meets The Loneliest Girl in the Universe in this mind-bending sci-fi mystery and tender love story about two boys aboard a spaceship sent on a rescue mission, from two-time National Book Award finalist Eliot Schrefer. Stonewall Honor Award winner!

Two boys, alone in space. Sworn enemies sent on the same rescue mission.

Ambrose wakes up on the Coordinated Endeavor with no memory of a launch. There's more that doesn't add up: evidence indicates strangers have been on board, the ship's operating system is voiced by his mother, and his handsome, brooding shipmate has barricaded…


Book cover of Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Darren Campo Why did I love this book?

I love Carl Jung’s ability to see into the nature of consciousness and make the connection between the experience of being a being on Earth and the true nature of our being. He is one of the first scientists to describe the near-death experience and to see it as another trick of the dualistic world.

Jung explains how, during his heart attack, he died and was transported above the earth to a doorway guarded by a cosmically dangerous spike. Jung’s observations as a scientist and doctor about what makes us tick are a foundation for people realizing their true nature through people like David Bingham today.

By C.G. Jung, Aniela Jaffe (editor), Clara Winston (translator) , Richard Winston (translator)

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Memories, Dreams, Reflections as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'I can understand myself only in the light of inner happenings. It is these that make up the singularity of my life, and with these my autobiography deals' Carl Jung

An eye-opening biography of one of the most influential psychiatrists of the modern age, drawing from his lectures, conversations, and own writings.

In the spring of 1957, when he was eighty-one years old, Carl Gustav Jung undertook the telling of his life story. Memories, Dreams, Reflections is that book, composed of conversations with his colleague and friend Aniela Jaffe, as well as chapters written in his own hand, and other…


Don't forget about my book 😀

Alex Detail's Revolution

By Darren Campo,

Book cover of Alex Detail's Revolution

What is my book about?

18-year-old Alex Detail has been kidnapped and forced to lead a secret military mission. Alex used to be a child prodigy who helped defeat an alien invasion when he was 8 years old. But something’s wrong with Alex, and he’s not getting better.

Now Alex finds himself trapped on a spaceship, bullied by its captain, belittled by a jealous first officer, and hurtling to the edge of the solar system, where they hope to find the key to saving the world.

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We Had Fun and Nobody Died: Adventures of a Milwaukee Music Promoter

By Amy T. Waldman, Peter Jest,

Book cover of We Had Fun and Nobody Died: Adventures of a Milwaukee Music Promoter

Amy T. Waldman

New book alert!

What is my book about?

This irreverent biography provides a rare window into the music industry from a promoter’s perspective. From a young age, Peter Jest was determined to make a career in live music, and despite naysayers and obstacles, he did just that, bringing national acts to his college campus atUW-Milwaukee, booking thousands of concerts across Wisconsin and the Midwest, and opening Shank Hall, the beloved Milwaukee venue named after a club in the cult film This Is Spinal Tap.

Jest established lasting friendships with John Prine, Arlo Guthrie, and others, but ultimately, this book tells a universal story of love and hope…

We Had Fun and Nobody Died: Adventures of a Milwaukee Music Promoter

By Amy T. Waldman, Peter Jest,

What is this book about?

The entertaining and inspiring story of a stubbornly independent promoter and club owner 

This irreverent biography provides a rare window into the music industry from a promoter’s perspective. From a young age, Peter Jest was determined to make a career in live music, and despite naysayers and obstacles, he did just that, bringing national acts to his college campus at UW–Milwaukee, booking thousands of concerts across Wisconsin and the Midwest, and opening Shank Hall, the beloved Milwaukee venue named after a club in the cult film This Is Spinal Tap.

This funny, nostalgia-inducing book details the lasting friendships Jest established…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in gay teenagers, grief, and extraterrestrial life?

Gay Teenagers 37 books
Grief 84 books