Fans pick 100 books like Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism

Fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross has got grit.

This book was recommended to me by my firefighter brother, who often reads what I call “he-man” books. The titles always have words like mutiny, bullets, gangsters, firestorm, etc. So, when he suggested I read this book, I had my reservations. (In fairness, the books he recommends consistently end up on my list of all-time favorites–I guess that’s what I get for pre-judging!) In any case, over the years, I have learned the one thing we both love in a protagonist–and now I have a name for it–is grit. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

A misfit loner is chosen to save the world. I know, it’s been done before. But this story is special. Firstly, it is set against the backdrop of Nigerian culture and lore. And secondly, Sunny. The main character is memorable for more than just her “differences.” She is determined and fierce, making her a hero you want to see bring home a “w” over and over again.

I. Love. This. Book.

Author Adam Rex and I apparently have the same sense of humor because I think this book is laugh-out-loud-fall-on-the-floor-hold-your-stomach funny. Not only are the situations and dialogue hysterical, I love its satirical social commentary that pokes fun at human folly. It’s wonderfully ridiculous. 

Intermixed with the funny are these poignant moments between our heroine, Gratuity, and her new Boov alien travel mate, J.Lo. Gratuity and J.Lo are thrown together on a quest to find Gratuity’s mother after the Boovs invade Earth… and then a second alien invasion happens on top of the first. And the second aliens are much meaner. 

You can see their friendship developing from a mile away, but it still feels warm, fuzzy, and genuine. And the very, very end of the story was so surprisingly moving. How often does a middle-grade book make you both laugh and cry? It’s one of those… show more.

Like Hermione, Courtney comes from a non-magical background and discovers her own magical heritage. Her stubborn curiosity propels her into a fantastical world operating under our own. She also has a sense of justice and would deffo have allied with Hermione in S.P.E.W. Unlike Hermione, Courtney isn’t studious or diligent. She’s a bit of a slacker and a grump. What I love about this series is the prickly heroine and the treatment of the fantastical world. Like the Wizarding World, the fantastical worldbuilding in this series is built on familiar Western fantasy creatures and tropes. What’s special about it is the stylish Goth-chic interpretation through the author/artist’s artwork and the examination of the ethical conundrums latent in fantasy since fantasy is often about power.

Plot and style matter, but character is what I engage with. This book is a hilarious and touching portrait. Lionel Essrog doesn’t ‘suffer’ from Tourette’s Syndrome, but he happens to have it. He’s so natural that he completely normalizes his condition.

The plot involves an investigation that is told in Chandleresque prose, a very private-eye noir. Essrog is an unexpected narrator who nevertheless manages to own the story. I don’t use the phrase ‘pitch-perfect’ very often, but it fits here. 

Kim Van Alkemade wrote this New York Times bestselling novel based upon a series of real-life experiences, including those of her great-grandmother who worked as a counselor in New York’s Hebrew Orphan Asylum.

Orphan #8 is a powerful and unforgettable book about Rachel, who after being placed in New York’s Hebrew Infant Home, is subjected to experimental radiation treatments as Dr. Mildred Solomon bolsters her medical reputation at the expense of the little girl’s health.

The story focuses on Rachel, now an adult nurse, when Dr. Solomon becomes her patient. Given the widespread popularity of this book, I know I was not the only reader riveted by Rachel’s choice between compassion and retribution, and the extraordinary human capacity to cause harm and to love. 

Lorrie Moore is another one of my favorite writers and someone I’ve been lucky enough to write about on multiple occasions. Her first novel, Anagrams, is smart, fun, and resolutely—even defiantly—weird. Her second novel, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? is all those things and more.

Berie, the narrator, is on a bad vacation in Paris, where her marriage is teetering on the brink of collapse. Instead of dealing with her obnoxious husband, she thinks back to the summer she turned fifteen and the profound friendship she forged with a girl she worked with at a Disney-knockoff theme park in upstate New York.

Like Home Land, this novel has its cultists, and I’m happy to count myself among them. Moore, like Lipsyte, is a stylist as unmistakable as she is unprecedented, someone whose sentences I would recognize anywhere. This slim coming-of-age novel bears all her hallmarks—comic timing, gimlet… show more.

Unlike the other recommendations, the plus-sized protagonist in this book is a man. Arthur Opp is a lonely shut-in who has lost his career, his friend, and his family of origin. His main solace is his correspondence with a former student, who, one day, asks him for help in guiding her son, Kel. 

From that point forward, the story is told from the alternating perspectives of Arthur and Kel. Both are plagued by isolation and tragedy. Though Arthur views himself as part of the shared soul of the lonely, he nonetheless begins to welcome people back into his life again and extols the virtues of found family to Kel.

This is a haunting, yet hopeful, book that stays with the reader for a very long time.

I was overwhelmed with the loving simplicity of this beautifully rendered and highly charged romantic graphic novel. Reading it was akin to watching a film–I was drawn in and held tight until I had finished the last page.

Tender, emotional, cross-cultural, and cross-class, it resonated with me on so many levels but especially reaffirmed my belief that love is possible at any age and despite any obstacle.

As much about ideas and the nature of friendship as it is about the city, this slim volume captures, better than any other I know, the visceral feel of living in New York. Fiercely independent, Gornick wanders the city’s streets in the “habit of loneliness,” ever watching, listening, and thinking. A child of working-class Jewish immigrants, she grew up in the Bronx in the 1940s and 1950s, and writes in a funny, smart, rueful, and tell-it-like-it-is voice that is unmistakably New York.