Writer's Guide 101 (Wattpad Edition)

LVIII. October Book Recs

To celebrate National Book Month, here are my top personal picks ranging from illustrated YA novels to comics. Only this time it's non-Wattpad books. So grab yourself a cup of cocoa and blanket as we check out these awesome gems.

🟦 YA Category

• "Cool. Awkward. Black." by Karen Strong

This multi-genre anthology edited by Karen Strong shares captivating stories that feature exclusively Black characters and per the book's official description, "challenge the concept of 'the geek.'"

• "Live Your Best Lie" by Jessie Weaver

Summer Cartwright is a high school student and social media influencer who chronicles her seemingly perfect life in beautifully curated posts.
She's even landed a book deal, but during her annual Halloween party, Summer is found dead - and it's up to those closest to her to find out what happened.

• "The Next New Syrian Girl" by Ream Shukairy

This dual narrative takes the perspective of Khadija Shami, a Syrian-American high school student who cannot wait to escape her sheltered life, and Leene Tahir, a Syrian refugee who feels lost in her new suburban Detroit high school.

🟥 Illustration & Graphic Novels

• "Eliza And Her Monsters" by Francesca Zappia (Illustration Novel)

Eliza has always been known as the socially awkward kid at school. At home, however, she's known as LadyConstellation, creator of the incredibly popular webcomic Monstrous Sea.
When Wallace Warland, the biggest writer of Monstrous Sea fan fiction, transfers to Eliza's school, he thinks he's met another lover of the comic. But slowly, he learns who she really is and when the truth slips out, Eliza's world begins to shatter.

• "DURARARA!!" by Ryohgo Narita

Tired of his mundane life, Mikado Ryugamine decides to move to Ikebukuro, a district in Tokyo, when a friend invites him. With everything from invisible gangs to rumored beings, Ikebukuro is full of connected mysteries where people's pasts intertwine with the present.
It was through the anime that I learned it was originally a light novel (a.k.a. the Japanese version of short stories) and what stood out to me was there are various characters you get to follow, instead of just one protagonist.

• "Baccano!" by Ryohgo Narita

With the title translating to "ruckus" in Italian, you are in for some serious shenanigans. The series, told from multiple points of view, is mostly set within the fictional USA during the Prohibition era. To those who don't know, this was a critical time in the U.S. when liquor was banned.
You have alchemists, thieves, thugs, the mafia running rampant across the country. After an immortality elixir is recreated in 1930 Manhattan, the characters begin to cross paths, setting off events that spiral further and further out of control.

• "Speak: The Graphic Novel" by Laurie Halse Anderson and Emily Carroll

"Speak up for yourself-we want to know what you have to say."
From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her.
As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her.

• "83 Days in Mariupol" by Don Brown

A young adult graphic novel that captures the complexities of the war in Ukraine, focusing on the siege of Mariupol (Feb '22 - May '22) and the brave people who stayed to defend their city against Russian forces as well as the resulting effects on global politics.

• "Displacement" by Kiku Hughes

Kiku is on vacation in San Francisco when suddenly she finds herself displaced to the 1940s Japanese-American internment camp that her late grandmother, Ernestina, was forcibly relocated to during World War II.
These displacements keep occurring until Kiku finds herself ""stuck"" back in time. Living alongside her young grandmother and other Japanese-American citizens in internment camps, Kiku gets the education she never received in history class.

🟩 Comics

• "Lackadaisy" by Tracy J. Butler

Originally a webcomic made in 2006, the series later got an animated pilot as we follow a group of anthropomorphic cats going on crazy adventures across in Mississippi during the Prohibition Era.

• "Homesick" by Ms. Freaky

Nineteen-year-old Rayne Leibert wakes up on top of a building, holding a knife, in the middle of an apocalypse where everybody starts turning into these freaky, cannibalistic monsters known as The Murk. The problem is she has no prior memory of what happened.
Along the way, she is joined by a guy name Sammy, his cousin Kenny (a former inmate), his cat Ogre and an old friend name Tomoha.

• "Schoolbus Graveyard" by Red

Ashley has always struggled to get along with everybody. She never had any friends for most of her life and that is, until she and a bunch of unlikely classmates wind up on a field trip where they started being haunted by these creepy shadowy monsters.

• "Welcome Home" by Partycoffin

A colorful, serendipitous world filled with sentient puppets, games and a cunning mystery that is haunting the neighborhood. Follow Wally Darling and his friends as they investigate on what had caused the show of Welcome Home to suddenly disappear.
Oh wait! You thought this was an actual book? Hahaha! Silly reader, there is no such thing. (≧∀≦)