I typically stay away from science fiction. I'm not deterred by science itself, rather the fact that the entire genre is based on the single question, "What if?" For me, pure speculation doesn't move me like realistic fiction does because characters tend to be less developed. After all, authors must focus on air-tight realities.

One of my favorite aspects of reading fiction is learning about history through a character's lense. History textbooks are often drab, and nonfiction, while informative, is designed to teach rather than to engage. But strong works of fiction that can captivate my attention while giving me a history lesson make are even more well-rounded than simply stories themselves.

In high school, I loved Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo. Ten years after high school, I decided to read the full unabridged version, since we hadn't read the full version in class. The unabridged version is close to 1,200 pages! And I'm starting to see why my tenth grade English teacher had us read the reduced word count.

Every now and then, I come across a book that piques my interest because of its setting in today's society. When I heard about Rosey Storey's debut novel Dandelion Is Dead set in present-day London, I was intrigued. It's not every day you read about a woman impersonating her dead sister on a dating app. I expected social commentary on modern dating and how it relates to singles in their late-thirties. What I got, however, was a contemporary mess.

I'm not a fan of religious allegory in books–I wasn't raised Christian, so Biblical references tend to go over my head. To me, religious allegory is a cop-out for actual writing. Unless writing a religious novel, why would an author allude to something that's not universally known? The best works tell stories that illustrate the depths of human emotion; they're classics because everyone can relate to them.