By: Ally Muterspaw
While we’re all staying at home, reading can be a little tough to focus on. Maybe you need an adventure that’s out of this world! Below is a list of books and comics available to you through Hoopla: some are magical, some take place in outer space, and some reflect the happenings in our world.
Are you into superhero stories? Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee takes place in Andover, where superpowers are common, but internships are complicated. Just ask high school nobody, Jessica Tran. Despite her heroic lineage, Jess is resigned to a life without superpowers and is merely looking to beef up her college applications when she stumbles upon the perfect (paid!) internship—only it turns out to be for the town’s most heinous supervillain.
Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughn and illustrated by Cliff Chiang and Matt Wilson tells the story of four twelve-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncovering the most important story of all time in 1988. Suburban drama and otherworldly mysteries collide in this smash-hit series about nostalgia, first jobs, and the last days of childhood.
Frankissstein: A Love Story by Jeanette Winterson, opens in 1816, where a young Mary Shelley is inspired to write the classic novel Frankenstein, which tells the story of a doctor trying to create new life. Winterson’s novel weaves itself through 1816 and Brexit Britain, where young doctor Ry has a love affair with Victor Stein, a professor leading the charge to create life through artificial intelligence.
Are you looking for a space opera? The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers is the story of Rosemary Harper, who joins the Wayfairer space ship. Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and becomes extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years. But risking her life was never part of the plan.
Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker, illustrated by Wendy Xu, is a magical story about teenage witch Nova Huang, who works in her grandmother’s bookshop. After unexpectedly running into her childhood crush, werewolf Tam Lang, the two come together to battle dark forces that want to claim their magical powers.
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon is about Aster, who lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. As Aster retraces the steps of her mother’s death many years before, she discovers a way to free herself and other members of the lower deck. But she’ll only be able to do it if she’s willing to start a revolution.