Fortnight of Fright | Books + Halloween Candies

Books + Halloween Candies

What two things go better together than books and candy? Or books and ANYTHING for that matter? Not much, in my opinion. I’m so excited to have Angela from Angela’s Library here to share this awesome book-and-candy-pairing list with Halloween candy!

Hi everybody – I’m happy to once again be participating in A Fortnight of Fright! My husband and I were recently shopping for candy to pass out to trick-or-treaters, and while we were browsing I started thinking about the clever names the various candies had. That led to me thinking about how some of those names could be equated with different types of books, and the idea for this post was born. Below is a recommended reading list, inspired by popular candies. I hope you enjoy it!

Snickers: Funny Books

• My Best Friend, The Atlantic Ocean and Other Great Bodies Standing Between Me and My Life With Giulio by Jane Harrington: Written in the form of a journal for English class, this book details a ditzy teenager’s hilarious attempts to steal her best friend’s sexy Italian boyfriend. (Read my review here.)
• Beauty Queens by Libba Bray: I like to think of Beauty Queens as a comedic version of what The Lord of the Flies would have been like if the plane that crashed on a “deserted” island had carried teen beauty pageant contestants instead of British schoolboys.
• Play Me Backwards by Adam Selzer: This book had me laughing until my cheeks ached. It features a deadbeat teen whose best friend claims to be Satan, parents who plan “disaster dinners” complete with costumes and alter egos, an epic slushie quest, and lots of hijinks and goofiness.

Skittles: Diverse Books

• If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo: This book follows your typical “new girl at school struggles to fit in and find love” plot, with one important exception: that new girl was born a boy. As a heterosexual, cisgender reader, If I Was Your Girl challenged me to view the world from a new perspective and opened my eyes to the various struggles transgender men and women face every day.
• OCD, The Dude and Me by Lauren Roedy Vaughn: The quirky yet lovable heroine of Vaughn’s novel battles severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Reading about her struggles and endless idiosyncrasies is humorous at times and heartbreaking at others. (Read my review here).
• Push by Sapphire: Although it’s a short book, I found it incredibly challenging to make it the whole way through Push, as it features horrific abuse and is emotionally draining. All the same, I’m glad I read it, as it let me see through the eyes of someone totally different from myself: a young black girl living in poverty who’s been impregnated multiple times by her own father.

3 Musketeers: Books Featuring Strong Friendships

• Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor: Karou, the blue-haired heroine of this trilogy, and Zuzana, her tiny but fierce BFF, share one of my favorite fictional friendships. They’re intensely devoted to one another and are as hilarious individually as they are as a pair.
• The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater: The Raven Cycle series is about magic and fast cars and dreams and psychics, but its heartbeat is the all-consuming friendship shared by the titular Raven Boys and a girl named Blue, who finds herself swept up in the boys’ quest to find an ancient Welsh king.
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky: Charlie is a quiet, troubled loner when he starts high school, but that all changes when a group of upperclassmen take him under their wing. Never underestimate the power of friendship to change your life for the better!

Milky Way: Books Set In Outer Space

• Lightless by C.A. Higgins: Written by an author with a physics degree from Cornell University, Lightless tells the story of those on board a military spaceship: the terrorists who were caught trying to hijack the ship, the computer scientist who is developing a relationship with the ship, and the artificial intelligence system that is rapidly developing a will of its own.
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams: When Earth is destroyed in order to build a interplanetary superhighway, a hapless Brit finds himself hitching his way across the universe on a wild and ridiculously funny journey.
• These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner: Described by many as “The Titanic in space,” this novel follows a young man and woman from very different walks of life who are forced to rely on one another after they’re (space)shipwrecked on an unfamiliar planet.

Pixie Stix: Books About Fairy Tales

• Enchanted by Alethea Kontis: This first book in Kontis’ Woodcutter Sisters series is a delightful mash-up of various fairy tales, such as “The Frog Prince,” “Jack and the Beanstalk” and “The 12 Dancing Princesses.” (Read my review here.)
• Nameless by Lili St. Crow: What would the tale of “Snow White” look like if the princess had been taken in by the Mafia, instead of by seven dwarves? And what if the members of that Mafia were vampires? Well, it’d probably look a lot like this book. (Read my review here.)
• Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross: Cross’ novel is set in a town where each inhabitant is destined to live out a predetermined role in a fairy tale, whether as villain, hero, princess, etc. It’s brilliant and edgy and one of my favorite fairy tale stories yet.