I saw this on another website and thought it might be an interesting topic. For me It was Burned by Ella Hopkins and Looking for Alaska. Burned: It made me realize that your life can go from bearable to enjoyable in a short time the go completely down hill and crumble just as fast . Looking For Alaska: It taught me that you should go after something you want instead of waiting for it to come to you because it will be gone before you know it.
Really not a lot of books have changed the way I view the world that much. Maybe a little, but nothing drastic. The ones that have had the most impact on me are many of the ones written from a soldier's perspective in a war. Those ones opened up my eyes to what it was really like, and gave me a much better understanding to how things were, and caused me to hate wars just a little more.
For me it was probably the book IT by Stephen King. Made me become hopelessly addicted to the horror genre, and it also made me realize that childhood traumas are real and an issue.
Go ask Alice by Anonomys. This was the first nonfiction book I read that meant so much to me. I remember reading it and crying harder then I can ever remember. The way her life was and why she choose it made me angry but so sad. It made me curious but scared of the world and actually reminded me to chose wisely before doing anything I would consider reckless.
I recently picked up Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher and I haven't been able to get it out of my mind just as Ellen Hopkins said. It's brilliant but devastating. I'd recommend people read it cause it will certainly change the way you see and treat others.
I can probably cite Fahrenheit 451 as a turning point for my views on authority and blind trust of elders/superiors. It's been in flux since then but now I've settled to a point where, to put it one way, I lean more 'chaotic' than 'lawful' by just a hair. I now fully understand that, no matter what you hear from someone or what power/authority they claim, in the end their words are really just a suggestion; your own personal truth may be quite different, and orders should only be followed if they are fair or you trust the source. 451 taught me a bit about complacency, apathy, and self-awareness that stuck with me even as I forgot the words that inspired it.
I read that book a couple of years ago. I was actually just thinking about it the other day, not gonna lie. That book is intense, but great. When I was in Speech in high school one of my friends performed it for the Prose category. I had a few people close to me that killed themselves and reading that book just really kind of hit home in a weird way. I also find the way it's told just really unique and different.
