Seven books I loved as a teen

Featuring the book I stole from my sister, and the series I couldn't get enough of...

Boy did I love to read as a kid. Boy did I love to read. I’m often asked which book made me a reader, and the truth is there’s no single book that shaped my love for reading. There never was a before; there didn’t exist a time in which I wasn’t an obsessive reader, one that devoured books as though they were air.

So many of my childhood memories are wrapped up in books. I remember roller-skating to the library on Saturdays, making a beeline for the shelves where I’d find my favourite authors—Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton—before moving on to the books I adored as a teen, nearly all of which were set in the States. I remember summer reading challenges at my local library, the thrill of the borrowing limit increasing from three books to seven, the first Baby-Sitters Club book I read, the first Sweet Valley High book I picked up. I even remember each bookshop I used to frequent as a kid—writing this sent me down such a rabbit hole of nostalgia that I stumbled across someone selling a vintage blue leather bookmark from Hammicks in Horsham on eBay (a bookstore that has long since closed) for the princely sum of £5.76. It’s funny how books don’t just hold stories—they hold memories, too, bringing us back to the places and the moments that made us.

So, consider this your bookish stroll down memory lane. I’d love to hear—what books shaped your childhood? Which stories kept you up past bedtime, flashlight in hand? Which characters felt like old friends? Let me know in the comments—and if you enjoy reading this, please hit the like button at the bottom, or consider becoming a paid subscriber to support my work.

Anastasia Ask Your Analyst by Lois Lowry

I cannot for the life of me remember who I was discussing this with recently (make yourself known if it was you in the comments), but I’ve spent the last twenty-five years convinced that the Anastasia series was set in San Francisco. I think it’s because the house they lived in had a turret—far more of a staple in Bay Area homes than in New York City, no? And in researching this piece, I discovered: 'In the second book, Anastasia and her family move to the suburbs of Boston, and her one request is to have her room in a turret. Of course, the house the Krupnick family finds contains a turret for Anastasia, a huge library for her father, a light-filled studio for her mother, and a grassy neighbourhood filled with interesting people.'

Talk about a dream home. I loved the entire series, but had a particular penchant for Anastasia Ask Your Analyst, in which the titular character starts consulting a plaster bust of Sigmund Freud she buys at a garage sale. Living in a turreted house with a huge library and buying busts of scholars at garage sales? My actual dream life.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

Look, I know this is a staple on any millennial’s teen reading list, but there’s a reason for that, okay? And while Forever (and Ralph, lest we forget) was a cultural touchstone for many, I was firmly in the Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret camp. Judy Blume truly is the doyenne of teen lit, and this is undoubtedly her pièce de résistance. There are boys and periods and training bras—all the awkward milestones of adolescence—but re-reading it as an adult (as I’ve done more times than I care to admit), I’ve realised it also explores heavier topics like family conflict and religion that went right over my head the first time around.

I absolutely adored the recent movie adaptation too. The cast and set design were pitch-perfect, bringing the story to life brilliantly. I spent a wonderful evening in Barnes watching it with my best friend, Beth, and I’m fairly certain we both shed a few happy tears—though we were also both slightly horrified by the realisation that we’ve officially reached the age where we’re more likely to be cast as Margaret’s mum than Margaret herself. Which—despite pushing forty—still somehow came as a shock.

The Babysitter by R. L Stine

My boyfriend is forever threatening to get rid of my books if I bring any more home. I have no idea how many we have in our apartment, but my book collecting has long been an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, and a fate. Our apartment quite literally groans under the weight of all the unread books that lie therein. But I can’t help it. And what I really can’t help is passing by street libraries on my morning walk, and coming home armed with yet more books for which we don’t have space.

Lately, one of these street libraries has been piled high with Point Horrors, which—my gosh—did I love as a teen. Twins, The Babysitter (my personal favourite), The Hitchhiker, The Lifeguard—I couldn’t get enough of them. I even remember renting the cassette tapes (yes, I know, I sound geriatric) from the library and scaring myself shitless listening to them before bed. Also, I can’t help but think that this generation of readers have been truly done a dirty by the God-awful covers these brilliant books now get saddled with. Compare the 1995 edition of Twins, to this absolutely heinous more recent one.