8 Books That Will Actually Change the Way You Think About Life

"I read Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters in college (because, of course), and there's a passage in it that really molded the way I think about my past and future: 'All you can talk about is trash that's already happened. You can't base your life on the past or the present . . . You are going to tell me your story like you just did. Write it all down. Tell that story over and over . . . When you understand that what you're telling is just a story. It isn't happening anymore. When you realize the story you're telling is just words, when you can crumble it up and throw your past in the trashcan, then we'll figure out who you're going to be.'

It was a reminder that everyone has mistakes in their past, but if you dwell on them, you're going to doom your future. Every time I get caught in an anxiety spiral, I imagine crumpling up those negative thoughts and throwing them in the trashcan." — Maggie Panos, editor, Voices and SEO

"When I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower in college, I had just broken up with an abusive boyfriend. I wrote the quote, "We accept the love we think we deserve" on a piece of paper and stuck it to my wall because it really resonated with me, and vowed to start valuing myself more. While it's an ongoing journey, that book forever changed the way I feel about love and how others treat me." — Sarah Siegel, assistant editor, Beauty and Shop

"The book that changed, or I guess to put it more aptly, directed how I live my life is Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. I read it in the fourth grade at the recommendation of my older brother, and absolutely fell in love with the quirky, confident girl at the center of the story. Being so young, and entering a very vulnerable time (hello, puberty), Stargirl completely changed the way I thought about myself and my place in the world. I felt I had a pretty weird name, like her, and the similarities only began there.

The passage which I've forever carried with me is the way the narrator, Leo, describes her: 'She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.'" — Charisandra Perez, assistant coordinator, Social and Partnerships

"Their Eyes Were Watching God was life-changing for me. Not in the sense that it helped me get organized or make a ton of money by opening investment accounts, but it introduced me to one of the best writers, Zora Neale Hurston. This excerpt, 'There are years that ask questions, and years that answer,' always stuck with me. Zora's work is considered required reading by many, and I couldn't agree more." — Tamara Pridgett, assistant editor, Fitness

"I was a senior in high school when I was first introduced to Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country, a book in which one of the most important characters, Paton tells you in his introduction, 'is the land of South Africa itself,' which was immediately compelling to me. Published in 1948, it is ever-present and relevant, and as a 17-year-old youth, it was a truly eye-opening read. Having grown up in a mostly white town with mostly white peers from junior high on, this was the first book that really spoke to me about racial divide and injustice. I soaked up every word and even today reflect on its wisdom. Seventy years later, it still feels current.

'What kind of book is it?' Paton writes in his Note on the 1987 Edition. "It is a song of love for one's far distant country, it is informed with longing for that land where they shall not hurt or destroy . . . for that unattainable and ineffable land where there shall be nor more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, for the land that cannot be again . . . the land where you were born. It is a story of the beauty and terror of human life, and it cannot be written again because it cannot be felt again.'" — Courtney Shultz, copy editor

"You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero genuinely changed my life. It taught me to get out of my own way and reminded me that everything I needed I already had. I'm lucky to have had a pretty good relationship with myself but this book taught me to never underestimate my power — and that everything I want is totally in my reach. I recommend this book to anyone who's in a rut in their life or about to go through a major life transition (like graduating or leaving a job). It's a great book to recenter your thoughts, and one I'd come back to time and time again." — Tembe Denton-Hurst, assistant editor, Makeup.com

"I had just graduated from college and had NO clue what I wanted to do with my life. I was working at a job that I hated and studying for the LSAT. A friend of mine had just told me about the year he spent in Nepal and India and the travel bug hit. Shantaram had been on my reading list after another friend recommended it to me more than a year earlier, and I finally got the nerve to dive into this massive book. I don't have a favorite passage, but the way Roberts wrote about India and his experiences was so romantic and over-the-top, I found myself reading and re-reading entire paragraphs and pages, just to enjoy the way he strung words together to make the most beautiful sentences.

His book inspired me to travel to Nepal and India for a few months. The trip itself was incredible — I got to visit his favorite cafe and talk to people who knew him — but it wasn't in itself life-changing. It was on this trip that I realized I probably shouldn't go to law school, so I would say reading this book set me on the path to save myself a lot of time and money and find the career path that was actually right for me." — Stacey Hersher, director, Social & Partnerships

"I read Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones when I was 12-years-old after stealing it off of my mom's bookshelf, and it was the first book that really shook me to my core. The themes within the novel are obviously as dark as it gets — a teenage girl is raped and murdered by her neighbor, and goes on to narrate the events that unfold for years afterward from her own version of heaven. It's a brutally sad story that still manages to find beauty within an unimaginable tragedy, and opened my eyes to a lot of things about womanhood, life, death, and grief that my pre-teen brain had yet to consider." — Quinn Keaney, editor, Entertainment