Hello everyone! Welcome back for another Top 5 Tuesday! The prompt for today is the top 5 books that changed my life. This was a really hard one for me this week. Each of these has changed my life in different ways, and it was weird to sit and think about how much they have each impacted my life. Top 5 Tuesday was created by Shanah @ Bionic Book Worm, and is now being hosted at Meeghan Reads!

The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper

I happened to see this book on the shelf at my school library in my early teens. The title stuck out to me, probably because I was a rebellious teen looking for something to read centered around darkness. I grew up in a pretty conservative, Christian household and was on the prowl for something my parents wouldn’t want me to read. lol. Ultimately, this is the book that started my obsession with Arthurian legends and subsequently my foray into reading fantasy, which has become a life-long hobby.

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

This was a relatively recent read that completely changed my life and TBR for the better. I borrowed it from the library because it seemed like a fun read based on similar tropes/themes to Harry Potter. It ended up being so much more as the book that opened my eyes to the availability of queer literature. I had read some books before that had queer characters in them, but I’d never read a book that openly centered on the experience of a queer person. This was a game-changer, and now I have shelves of queer books at home and even more on my TBR. 🙂

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

This book broke me. Like shattered me into a million pieces that I then had to figure out how to put back together. I was an emotional mess for days after finishing this one, and I still think about this book frequently despite having read it months ago. Just thinking about it now while writing this has me tearing up. Needless to say, the book tapped into some deep-seated issues and has helped me process them in a way I don’t think I ever have before. I didn’t even realize I needed to until I read the book. It was that powerful.

The Gift of Therapy by Irvin Yalom

This is a book that had a huge impact on me professionally. It completely changed the way I looked at therapy. I’ve always leaned heavily towards utilizing cognitive behavior therapy and/or solution-focused therapy in my clinical work, which is very skills based and oriented to solving a problem. I had never framed therapy as just a relationship between two people that could be healing in its own right. I always knew the relationship was important, but I viewed it as a means to an end to get the skills to clients. So, this book changed the way I looked at my work and gave me tools to use that broadened my approach to therapy.

Star Wars (2015) #1 by Jason Aaron

This is the first comic book I ever bought. I picked it up during a visit to Disney World at the Star Wars themed shops that were there at the time. I wanted it as a souvenir. Little did I know that it would spark a love for this medium of storytelling. I now have thousands of comics, and it all started with this one.

So, there you have it. My top 5 books that changed my life. They’ve all impacted me in very different ways, but each one has left an indelible mark on my life. What books have been the most impactful to you? Let me know what they are down in the comments!