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What is the one book that left you speechless, rocked your world, made you rethink your entire life, and changed the way you see life itself?
Share your story about that book, the one that might not be your favourite, but impacted you the most.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
I might be silly, but for me it will always be Harry Potter. I literally grew up reading them. During that time I lost both of my grandmas and they really helped me cope. There is this one quote that made an impact on how I understand death: "to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure".
Whenever I feel lonely or sad, I turn to those books. And somehow after reading even just a few pages filled with friendship, sorrow, happiness and magic, everything seems okay again.
Final score:
20points
Zori the degu 7 years ago
It's one of my two favorite book series. I too, whenever I feel bad read a few pages and I remember the few but important things in my life worth living for.
RELATED:
#2
I'm going to be the one posting about a comic-BOOK! Sure, I like novels too. I even write as a hobby! But while I did read plenty and still enjoy me some, Dai No Daibouken was one that left an impact in my life, as it was my first manga experience (not anime, I've been watching Japanese cartoons literally since my mother brought me home from hospital after I wa born). And if you're a fellow nerd/geek for Japanese (pop)culture, there's nothing that needs explaining to understand the feeling.
Final score:
14points
Elena Ciuciulin 7 years ago
That manga was the first that I ever read and I must say it really gives you a feeling you can't describe. I'm glad that I had the chance to put my hands on it!
#3
A stolen life by Jaycee Dugard.
It is a memoir about her life when she was held captive for 18 years. it changed my life because i also am being held captive but not by an individual but by my depression and anxiety and her book gives me hope that one day thing will be normal.
Final score:
8points
#4
The Percy Jackson Series by Rick Riordan, which made me fall down the rabbit hole that is tumblr.
Final score:
7points
#5
Hunger Games. I, as a young mom, hadn't read a book in years until I watched the first Hunger Games movie. That storyline touched something in me and I had to read the book. They say that the book is always better. Well, 2.5 days later I had read the entire series. And now, some 5 years later, I have read hundreds of books. So, Hunger Games turned this non-reader into someone that would rather read than sleep. I am getting my kids into reading also.
Final score:
7points
#6
Martian by Andy Weir
It was the book that is helping me to go through my depression. Mark Watney - an astronaut tries to survive becouse he has been left alone on Mars. Even if it is hard for him sometimes, he keeps working, step by step, one simple task after another. I... somehow managed to do something similar. Step by step. With some trashy disco in the background.
Final score:
6points
#7
Definitely Terry Pratchet books. All of them. It's the best way for little girl to growing up when your authority is Esme Weatherwax not one the Disney princesses.
Final score:
6points
#8
This is one of the lesser known books because it exists solely online but I would have to say the 'Strangers in the Vents' Saga. It was a book that I found online in my high school days and read during 3rd period every day, I cannot for the life of me remember what website I was on but it was an amazing tale of misfits, wallflowers and all around ignored people in the background, finding a way to survive in a corrupted nearly apocalyptic kingdom. A more known book that I love would be The Host.
Final score:
6points
#9
Definitely the Anne of Green Gables series. I grew up with Anne and she never left me. I learned a lot of her. Every books are full of poetry and optimism. The work of L.M. Montgomery doesn't have age and travel the time.
Final score:
6points
#10
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. A controversial story, the one that you can only love or hate in my opinion. After all the classic literature that I had to read while in high school, this was a great change that definitely made an impact on me. At first I saw the movie, but since I got the actual book I've read it again and again. I got more interested in biographies of travelers, which I really like until now. Not to mention that it actually made me visit Alaska.
Final score:
5points
#11
“I can't stand it to think my life is going so fast and I'm not really living it."
This is a quote from "The Sun Also Rises"by Ernest Hemingway, also known as my favorite book of all time. After reading this book, I found myself to be more driven. I needed to find out what I was passionate about, and I had to roll with it. This book showed me that simply going through life's routine isn't enough. You need to have a passion that drives you.
#12
Fantasy is my galaxy(yes I know I am cheesy). The book that changed my life is probably The Mortal Instruments series. I was in 8th grade and at the time, my parents were getting a divorce, she was single mom with me and my two sisters. Since mom had to be a stay at home mom, we did not have much. But during the time my grandma had a lot of books and she loved fantasy. So I became a book worm :D
Final score:
5points
#13
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. This was the first “adult” book I’ve ever read. A very mature one for an 11-year-old and that’s why I’ve read it again multiple times throughout the years. This is the book that opened the door to a whole new world of literature for me, turning a pre-teen rebel into a bookworm, which I was never mad about.
Final score:
4points
Melody Lanzatella 7 years ago
I have done the same with Great Expectations. It is remarkable how you read a book as a pre teen, then an adult and so on. You read it differently as you age.
#14
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
It's the fragile poetry of everyday life that is mundane and special at the same time. For the urge of finding a home where people and their surroundings truly belong together and for the painful beauty of discovering love just short moment after it's forever gone.
Final score:
4points
Kateřina Eff (Submission author) 7 years ago
Everytime the world seems bleak I read this book to realize there's color in every shade of grey and streams are shifting beneath still surface.
#15
A Wrinkle in Time was the most influential for me, then The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. A Wrinkle in Time really sparked my love of reading and helped me find an outlet at a difficult time in life, I read the whole series in 4th grade and have read thousands of books since then.
Final score:
4points
Melody Lanzatella 7 years ago
I know EXACTLY how you feel! My book was Great Expectations, it took me faaar away.
#16
Many to choose from, but probably Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Read during the last year of school, turned my whole world upside down. Made me question everything, starting from God and morality. Shattered my beliefs. Thanks to Fyodor I am an atheist now.
Final score:
4points
#17
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It spoke to me of endurance and justice and showed me that there are many ways of being strong. Even though the book was written a long time ago the themes of judgement and exclusion still ring very true today. I'm an avid reader, and I have read more entertaining books and more moving ones, but reading this book made me a better person.
Final score:
4points
#18
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.
In seventh grade, my science teacher read to us every Friday from this book about humans colonizing Mars. While I may not have grasped the social criticism, I was bowled over by the gripping writing and by how the stories offered deep insights into life. That a book could give me (existential) goosebumps helped me internalize the power of the written word.
#19
Ask the Passengers, by A.S. King. I read this book at a point when I was struggling with my sexuality immensely and seeing Astrid go through the same process as she fell in love with a girl was incredibly moving and inspiring for me. The love she sent to the passengers really touched me. Without this book, I may never have come out and ended up the happy queer girl that I am today.
Final score:
3points
#20
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I read it for an English class assignment in high school. The ideas were so profound, it blew my young teenage mind. It's one of those books that have stuck in my mind ever since.
Final score:
3points
#21
Voyage of a Summer Sun. Read it my first year in college, and caught a longing for adventure that never went away. I ended up joining the military, moving 3000 miles away from home, and meeting my husband. We are both out of the military now but the adventures continue...
Reading this book set me on a path to the life I have now.
Final score:
3points
#22
Keepers of the Lost Cities. This is a lesser known series but a WONDERFUL one nonetheless. I'm going through some hard times right now and I started reading it and got hooked. Reading the books in general, just makes me calmer and less stressed. Definitely reccomend.
Final score:
3points
#23
For me it was "To Kill A Mockingbird". Read it while i'm still in senior high school and really change the way i see to everything. Taught me to be more open with anything, taught me to be less judgemental than i was before. A great story wrapped with a great point of view really makes the story and the message easy to be accepted by audience.
Final score:
3points
Faturrahman (Submission author) 7 years ago
oh, i forgot this is a book by Harper Lee. Cheers!
#24
Outwitting the devil by Napoleon Hill. It opened my mind completely in a so many different ways. I understood so much more about life and people, and why the world does certain things that I have questioned myself growing up before. But yes its a MUST READ book.
#25
Embraced by the Light by Betty Eadie. Wow what a powerful book, it gave me reason to live, and love. It's a book about the author's experience dying and coming back to life. My heart sang through the whole thing. It's a quick read for anyone going through a hard time, I guarantee it'll make you cry (a good cry). There's something behind those words that'll speak to your soul.
Final score:
2points
#26
Impossibly hard question, but perhaps The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster. Full of nostalgia and humour, cynicism and innocence, yet somehow a satire and meaningful commentary of modern-day life, it opened up points of view I'd never thought of before. Hardly a day goes by when I don't think of or quote it.
Final score:
2points
#27
The Beach by Alex Garland because it shows how crazy people, we all, can get when put in absurd scenarios & Ted should be an international holiday!
Final score:
2points
#28
The cat who lived a million times. This is my favorite book when I was little. A bit sad but I love this book. I recommend reading this book!
Final score:
2points
#29
Mine would definitely have to be The Edge Chronicles. The first book i ever read was Beyond the Deepwoods from the Twig saga (my brother would read it to me as a bed time story) and to this day the Twig saga is still my favourite saga out of the whole series. Paul Stewart's books are just so awesome.
Final score:
2points
#30
Mine is definitely The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows by Brian Castner.
It is not my all-time favourite one, but it helped me overcome my PSTD, and it helped my family understand what I was going through. It helped me stop feeling alone and misunderstood. It was the trigger for me to get back on the right path and overcome adversity. Can't thank Brian Castner enough for writing this book.
Final score:
2points
#31
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
It's look at life and view points came into my life in my senor year of high school and still to this day I reread it yearly to gain a broader perspective on life.
Final score:
2points
Becky Kane 7 years ago
Mine too. It helped me deal with death and loss, gave me a understanding of life and God.
#32
The Unfortunates by B.S. Johnson. I don't know if it changed my life, but it changed every view I had on literature, and the world.
Final score:
1point
#33
Mine was a book on an app called wattpad, and it was called the last healer. It made me reall like reading, for the first time in my life. I discovered the app because of my brother who also got it. I was in grade 4, and now I'm in grade 8 and i still use the app.
Final score:
1point
#34
Vango by Timothee de Fombelle. it's translated from French and has an almost poetic feel to it. I was nine when I read it and it opened up a world of amazing books. I have, to this date, read it thirty-two times.
Final score:
1point
#35
Mine was definitely "Rebecca" by Daphne Du Maurier. There was something about the way it was written. The mystery that surrounded you till the end and in so many ways, I could relate to the narrator. Her insecurity and loneliness somehow changed me and still influences the way I write.
Final score:
1point
#36
The Harry Potter series and the autobiographical books of Gerald Durrell. I read the former ones in one cold winter away from home together with my friend and my sister. And they simply changed my understandings of some things. The second ones made me look the life from it's funnier side and completely convinced me that zoology must be the path I choose.These books made me turn to a new chapter.
Final score:
0points
Deeps 5 years ago
Well books r always my friend..bt the book that changed my life was harry potter series nd sherlock holmes..when i started reding sherlock ..i found myself in a world of imagination completey diferent from those daily fictions..story was very great. Nd i finished that whole buk in 2 days .harry poter series taught me meaning f friendships nd that struggles r important for one's success..today also whenever i get time i read these buks
#37
The Lord of the Rings. This is the one book who give the taste for reading. After this one i try some classics (Shakespeare, Verne, Dumas, Moliere, Poe, etc...) and i really grow up with those.
Final score:
0points
bork_laser 7 years ago
The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are one of the most influential books for me, too. I even have a Tolkien symbol tattoo :)
#38
"Warriors" by Erin Hunter. It was popular in the 2000's. I was about to throw the books away, but I read the blurb of one, and I've been hooked. I do get teased by my friends non-stop about my new fondness for cats, and for my love of reading which I already had, they just never brought it up. Now, I follow the Warriors topic on QuizUp, a social media and trivia app you should totally get.
Final score:
0points
#39
Watership Down by Richard Adams was transformative for me because even as a child, I could recognize the power of an allegory about the deepest roots of human nature. I reread it as I grew older and even as an adult, I am touched by the resilience of the human spirit and the profound power of love as demonstrated by unlikely heroes (a colony of rabbits).
Final score:
0points
Becky Lane 6 years ago
The day of the triffids by John wynham read at aged 9 and it blow my f*****g socks off
#40
Without a doubt it is Great Expectations! It was the first novel I ever read. It taught me to have a love of reading and demonstrated how books could take me to far away places and adventures!
Final score:
-2points
Alloydog 3 years ago
Monkey, by Wu Ch'êg-ên, translated by Arthur Waley.
I watched the Japanese TV series as a child and really enjoyed it. Years later, as a young adult, I saw the book in a shop. I bought it, thinking it would be as funny as the series.
It wasn't, rather is was quite deep. I found it quite meaningful and drew parallels with my own life. Monkey was a small god who let his arrogance get the better of him and was brought down - the greater gods dropped a mountain on him...
He then has to work his way back up through life, becoming a better person.
I have had the book now for over 30-years. I pick it up from time to time and read a story or two. My bookmark is a train ticket from way back when I still lived in the UK - the ticket itself is nearly 20-years old! Monkey-606...ad486d.png 
What do you think ?
Doglover45 4 years ago
Not me but my dad read the giver when he was young and decided to go to college and read
Doglover45 4 years ago
Not me but my dad read the giver when he was young and decided to go to college and read
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