This is a hard time for our communities. I’ve been on this earth 34 years, came of age during 9/11 and the war in Iraq, and this might end up being the most trying time I’ve lived through so far, mostly because the immediate future seems so uncertain, and the parts that are certain are pretty scary. We are fighting an enemy we cannot see, which I think adds to the fear and anxiety that almost everyone is feeling right now.
At times like these, it’s helpful to turn away from the news sometimes and focus on lighter things. I’ve seen a lot of requests for fun, lightweight things to watch and read, to take our minds to happier places and provide some occasional relief from reality. This list is my contribution to the effort. All of the books below are ones that make me smile every time I think of them. They’re fun, funny, exciting, escapist, and have happy endings. I hope you find something that makes you smile, too.
Heist Society series by Ally Carter
Who doesn’t love a good heist story? This series is like if you took the tv show Leverage, changed all of the characters to teenagers, and set them loose on the art world. The ensemble cast is great, and you’ll love them just as much as they (eventually) love each other. Full of witty banter and exciting twists, this series is great fun for teens and adults alike. You can read my reviews of the second book here and the third book here. | Goodreads
Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters
I’ve loved this historical mystery series ever since I was a kid and my family listened to it on the many cross-country road trips we took during the summer. Its protagonist is Amelia Peabody, a not-so-proper Victorian-era Englishwoman who comes into a rather good-sized inheritance after her father passes away that enables her to travel the world. She develops a love for Egyptology, which goes hand-in-hand with her love for her husband, an Egyptologist of some renown whom Amelia meets in the first book. This initial volume serves as a romance novel, too, but Amelia and Emerson’s relationship throughout the entire series, as they age from young to old, is one of the primary joys of these books; the romance does not end with the marriage. Funny, more than a little silly, with a good mystery in each volume and lots of ancient Egyptian history, this series is a treat for fans of mysteries, historical fiction, feminist protagonists, humor, and romance. These are best read via audio, narrated by the truly outstanding Barbara Rosenblat, who for me will always be the voice of Amelia.
Author Elizabeth Peters (pen name of Barbara Mertz) was a great Egyptologist like her character, though she went what we could consider the more traditional route, earning a PhD in Egyptology from the University of Chicago in 1952 (certainly nontraditional at the time for women!) and authoring two works of nonfiction on ancient Egypt. Her life, while not full of catching murderers and breaking ancient curses, is pretty interesting in its own right. | Goodreads
The Brothers Sinister series by Courtney Milan
Courtney Milan writes great historical romances, and this series is my favorite of hers. Set in Victorian England, all of Milan’s protagonists are smart (smarter than their male counterparts, usually), many of them are employed or, if that’s not allowed, do research on their own (my favorite in the series is a scientist based on a real-life woman), and all the books are pretty explicitly feminist. The heat level is high, too, but never exploitative, and always completely consensual. If you’re looking for historical romance that feels really rooted in its time period, with accurate and interesting historical details and fun, unusual characters not often seen in romance novels, this series is for you. You can read my full review of the series from 2015 here. | Goodreads
The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex
If you’re looking for a book that will make you laugh out loud, you can’t go wrong with this one, which was the basis for the 2015 Dreamworks movie Home (but is much better, of course). The story begins when an alien race named the Boov invade Earth and decide to relocate all humans to Florida. Twelve year old Gratuity “Tip” Tucci finds herself in an unlikely alliance with a renegade Boov named J.Lo, and they team up to find her missing mother. This is a road trip book crossed with a buddy book set against the backdrop of an alien invasion. The pure silliness of the Boov undercuts the seriousness of the plot, reassuring the reader that everything will be OK in the end (and it is).
Crafted in the format of an essay that Tip has been forced to write by the new Boov rulers, the book also includes plenty of doodles, comics, photographs, and other visual treats, all of them funny. I hadn’t laughed this hard while reading a book before, and I haven’t since. This is a great pick for tweens on up. You can read my full review from 2010 here. | Goodreads
The Devil’s Intern by Donna Hosie
Mitchell was hit by a bus and now he’s dead. As luck would have it, he’s ended up in Hell, and he’s landed the prestigious position of intern to the Devil with a capital D (not to be confused with the lower-case devils as all other denizens of Hell are called). He spends his time hanging out with his three best friends – all teenagers who died in different eras of history, including a Viking warrior – and trying his best to please his immediate boss, Septimus, and avoid the Big Boss, the Devil. Things really get going when Mitchell learns that Septimus has a device that will take the user out of Hell and fling him – plus any tagalongs – to any point in history. Naturally, Mitchell decides to use the device to prevent his death. He initially tries to do it alone, but his friends insist on coming along. This is a really enjoyable, funny, and often moving read – just don’t think about the premise too hard. | Goodreads
The Klaatu Diskos series by Pete Hautman
This series is for readers who like their science fiction a little (or a lot) weird. When both of Tucker’s parents disappear, gone through the strange shimmery orb above their home, Tucker vows to find them. This sets him on a journey both backward and forward in time, including such times/places as the death of Christ, a ritual sacrifice at the top of a futuristic pyramid, and his own town thousands of years in the future, unrecognizable and strange. He meets benevolent people who try to help him, murderous people who try to kill him, and strange people/non-people who may be trying to help and harm him at the same time.
This series is wild, and I mean that in a good way. It’s full of time travel and aliens (maybe?) and robots (maybe?) and new religions and cultures and futuristic technology, and it presents the reader with all of this in such a way that every page is a new discovery of something bizarrely fascinating. It’s so solidly science fiction that it makes other “science fiction” books seem like impostors. What’s more, Hautman refuses to hold your hand as you read it, so you’ll be lost a good portion of the time (but in a good way!). Every time I turned the page, I read something that made me exclaim “What?!” (and I do mean audibly). You’ll be so engrossed trying to figure out what the hell is going on that you won’t have time to think about anything else. You can read my full review from 2012 here. | Goodreads