Mei Li’s Favorite Books

Hello, my name is Mei Li, I’m fifteen and I will be in tenth grade at Park City High School next year. I like to read, swim, and mountain bike. I interned at the library in 2022. Here are some of my favorite books I recommend reading. 

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is one of my all-time favorite books for good reason. It’s full of heart, sorrow, joy, and family. It’s a book about many things, but most of all, it’s about life.

Francie Nolan is a young girl growing up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the early 1900’s. Her family is an eclectic group of people – from her alcoholic father, Johnny, who is a singing waiter, her hard-working mother, Katie, who loves her son more than her daughter, and her loving aunt Sissy, who marries man after man but still has no children. 

Nothing much happens in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but at the same time, everything does. If you’re looking for an adventure book, this is not it. However, if you want a book that will make you laugh and cry, a book you can read over and over again, to be reminded what life is really about, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is that book.

For some reason, nobody ever reads this book. It’s been forgotten, but wrongly so. It’s one of the most unique, most beautifully written books that I’ve ever read.

Blue Sargent is the only non-psychic in a family of clairvoyants. Her one rule in life is this: stay away from the Aglionby boys, because they are trouble. But she is fated to collide with them, no matter how hard she tries to stay away from the private school boys. There is Gansey, destined to die in the search of a dead Welsh king, a quest  that consumes his every waking moment, Ronan, who is angry at the world, and whose dreams are more than they seem, Adam, who wants a life of his own, and Noah, who is not really one of them, but is at the center of the mystery. When their lives collide in an unexpected way, all five of them are drawn into a world they could never have imagined.

At once a mystery, a horror story, a fantasy, The Raven Boys is a book you won’t forget. Maggie Stiefvater’s haunting prose unfolds a unique and wonderful world. Once you read this book, you’ll be wondering why you didn’t know of it before!

Ruta Septys is known for her moving and well-researched historical fiction books that illuminate forgotten events. The Fountains of Silence is, in my opinion, the best of her books. 

The year is 1957, the setting Madrid, Spain. The country is gripped in the fist of Generalissimo Fransico Franco, a tyrant whom history has forgotten. 

Ana Moreno is a maid at the Castellana Hilton, one of the first hotels to open to visiting foreigners. She is entranced by the glimpses of the world outside Spain, but she is hiding secrets that threaten to destroy her life.

Daniel Matheson is the son of a wealthy Texas oil tycoon and an aspiring photo-journalist. When his father brings him to Madrid, he is fascinated by the people and the city. He photographs a story that he hopes to share to the world.

Rafael Moreno hides a dark past, but he will do anything to protect his family and his best friend, Fuga, who dreams of becoming a bullfighter.

Purificacion Perez is a training to become a nun at the Madrid orphanage, but she soon stumbles across secrets that upend the world as she knows it.

The stories of these four teenagers from different worlds paint a dazzling and horrifying picture of Madrid under dictatorship, and bring to light a forgotten period of history.

If you want a book that will make you cry, read this one. It’s sad, lovely, and it will stick with you for a long time!

Markus Zusak is an astounding author. He does something that’s not seen very often – he writes in second person. And he does it well. Known mostly for his bestselling WWII novel, The Book Thief, all of his works are masterpieces, and none of them more so than Bridge of Clay.

The Dunbar family has loved and lost, laughed and cried, broken and then been made whole again. Their story is one of tragedy and triumph.

The five Dunbar brothers live alone in a house on Archer Street. Their mother is dead, and their father gone. But it wasn’t always that way. When their long-lost father returns home, asking his sons to help him build a bridge, they refuse.

All but one.

Clay Dunbar is a mystery. He runs, but he doesn’t know what he’s running for. But as he builds a bridge, between past and present, between father and son, it seems like maybe past wrongs can be forgiven. 

Bridge of Clay is a masterpiece. It’s a confusing, beautiful picture of family and love and life. This book will break your heart into pieces, yes, but then it will put it back together more whole than it was before. If you want a book that you will never forget, read Bridge of Clay. You won’t regret it.