100 books like Mortal Engines

Ransom Riggs has created quite the extraordinary book here. It also reads like a graphic novel of sorts as there are a lot of odd photos to accompany the text. It crosses genres rather seamlessly as well, between Urban YA to Fantasy to Horror to a Speculative fictional realm where Miss Peregrines' home resides. It is a rare read with well-developed characters and plot. The children are all quite odd, though strangely likable. If you want different, this is as different as it gets. Gave me chills of the good and ill-feeling variety. That’s what you want, yes? I do.   

A wildly imaginative tale from the wildly underrated writer, Oisin McGann. A lot of the ideas here stem from his fantastic artwork. (So impressed was I with the read, I Googled his webpage!)

The Wildenstern family is a power-hungry lot, set in a slightly removed, Steampunk/Dystopian idea of a long-ago Ireland. Competitive cousins, Gerald and Nate Wildenstern are wonderful characters, and Nate’s sister-in-law, Daisy, is quite the uppity aristocrat (you can’t help but like!).

There are wild animal-like machines, a lot of deaths, twisted family values, and mystery to be had within this book. Very much a page-turner. I am rereading again – and the rest of the series as well!

This was my very first read in the Steampunk genre. 

What a great book and series this is. 

As a baby, Modo is purchased from a travelling gypsy by a well-to-do aristocrat, the mysterious Mr. Socrates. Modo is hideously ugly. Mr. Socrates raises and educates Modo in proper English and manners and fight craft. He lives his life tucked away in a manor, hiding his face from society. 

One day, on a rare carriage ride through London, a grown Modo is abandoned in the streets by Mr. Socrates and has to fend for himself. He becomes a detective, yet he can never show his real face to anyone – he meets the beautiful Octavia Milkweed – she finds him curious and befriends him. The evil Clockwork Guild is causing chaos throughout London and Modo must get to the bottom of it. Then find a way to stop it. The adventure… show more.

This book won a few awards and it is easy to see why. It has a brilliantly written plot of old-world small country European nostalgia of the Dickensian spirit. It twists and turns and is told from different perspectives. Deliciously sinister and greedy and secretive. Wonderful to read by the fireplace. The story creeps and flows to a heart drumming climax and Ludlow is a wonderful character. You have to love a book about an awful broker type that trades in people’s secrets! 

Highly recommended – hard to believe it was a debut novel by the author as well – but it was!

In this slow-burn literary horror, Ren Yu is an obsessive swimmer on her high school team. But beyond these human concerns, she is convinced that she is actually a mermaid. Her determination to assume her true form comes with no reservations, and she will achieve her transformation by any means necessary.

This book is strange. It’s both lyrical in some places and purposefully dry in others. It is an examination of an obsessive descent into madness, working to draw the reader into the protagonist’s unsettling perspective.

I found myself falling into Ren Yu’s world and swimming in her insanity, which Wednesday (and all the Addams) find quite satisfying.

This author blows me away with her unflinching approach to sex and sexuality.

This exposes complex and rarely approached relationships in a fresh and startling way. The issue of pain transference isn’t something often dealt with in fiction.

I think I love this book because it’s unsettling and honest. I like a book that upends me and makes me consider life in ways I hadn’t before.

So, I’m stretching the definition of “dystopia” here, but I’ll use any excuse to tout this gorgeous graphic novel. It’s about a young crew who travel around in a goldfish-shaped craft fixing up free-floating space ruins until embarking on a mission to help one member reconnect with a lost love. My elementary school best friend and I bonded over drawing comics and On A Sunbeam made me wonder what might have been if we never stopped. 

In this book Laurie Halse Anderson lets us inside the mind of Melinda, a high schooler who finds herself increasingly isolated from friends and family.

As a reader, it was easy to share her frustration with how others treat her, because it was clear that her inner world didn’t match up with what others perceived outside of her. She has experienced a traumatic event, a violation that she doesn’t know how to process or talk about.

This novel masterfully captures the way Melinda compartmentalizes what has happened to her and grasps for coping mechanisms. Some of my favorite scenes occur in art class, where art-making becomes a key part of Melinda’s journey of gaining the courage to speak up about her trauma, and of reconnecting with others. 

Brit Bennett writes with a steady hand as she immerses us into the minds and lives of three people. Nadia and Aubrey are haunted to womanhood by maternal abandonment. They are friends as well as rivals for the affection of the same man. Luke would have made a mother out of Nadia had they chosen to parent, and he eventually makes a wife and mother of Aubrey. His mother is the first lady of the church that plays a prominent role in their lives. The mothers in Bennett's exceptional novel are hurt and betrayed by callous men and by each other. I rooted for each of them to persevere, but like many of my favorite novels, this is not a happily ever after for everyone type of story.

Sawkill Girls is so scary that I couldn’t read it before bed. In fact, I wouldn’t even bring it into my bedroom! But it’s also gorgeously written—eerie and atmospheric, with the most immersive worldbuilding. Its monster is terrifying, but the main characters—all girls—are so, so powerful. This is one of my top YA novels of all time.