Nova's Favorite 5 in Fiction - Nova Martin Author

In my daily writing sprint with Paperbacks & Co., our group discussed the following question: What is your favorite novel?

It was a short answer session because writers like us don’t have one favorite novel. We’d be lucky to narrow it down to ten. But I thought I’d try anyway to sit down and share a few of my all-time favorite fiction reads that continue to inspire and entertain me.

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin

This fun, yet dark, story follows a man whose dreams change the fabric of reality. The problem: He has no control over them. He races to understand and control his situation before he destroys life as he knows it.

I fell in love with this story about five years ago while taking a U/Dystopian Lit course for my master’s degree. It was certainly one of the most wacky and light-hearted of the bunch, portraying LeGuin’s vision of the end-of-the-world as a mashup of catastrophe, delight, and psychedelic nonsense. Oh, and there are flying turtles from outer space. Who can talk. I think I’ve made my case.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

I immediately fell in love with this classic in high school. The novel itself is self-absorbed in the same way that our hero/villian, Dorian, is obsessed with himself. It romantically waxes on the throes of youth and beauty while also making the dream of their permanence a gothic nightmare.

I love books with a just-off-the-nose metaphor and self-aware characters. The gothic element, however, was what captured my imagination.
A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin

The Game of Thrones series is something of a comfort food for me. Though the story and the characters are brilliantly conceived, it wasn’t page-turning excitement that made me fall in love with this book. Rather, it was the way Martin created an atmosphere that gently dropped you in a place in his imaginary world, playing up small moments of conversation and companionship, describing in detail the food his characters were about to eat, playing out small details that felt real and, even when they were inconsequential, still felt an important part of the story regardless.

‘Atmosphere’ is the word I think of when describing Martin’s writing. Not thrilling, dramatic, lustful, or any of the things you might associate with its TV show. Just simple, humble storytelling.
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

I’m not one to love reading thrillers. So why did this book stand out to me so sharp-ly?

I was a journalist for a number of years who lived in a small town, and the story of a woman with mental health issues and cornered into covering a murder in her hometown really sang a tune to me. But more than that was the clever way this story was not about whodunnit, but about how the danger of the character’s fragile mindset lingers menacingly as does the evil of the murderer among the town.

Flynn’s writing is beautiful and deceptive. She is easily my favorite thriller writer.

Plus, the ending is so shocking that, just when you forgot that murder was the main event, you’re gobsmacked not once, but twice.
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

I probably don’t need to explain this, but here I go.

I’ve always loved satire, but satire often comes with a masculine blasé that makes you an accomplice to egregious mishaps or unsavory misogyny. Vonnegut has none of these problems, and in fact, injects his work with such compassion and humbleness that you often find yourself laugh-crying, feeling the character’s heartbreak along with the narrator’s (or maybe the world’s) carelessness.

I didn’t expect this novel to be so serious when I went into it, based on the genre and with the added element of time travel. The last thing I expected was to be horrified and gutted. And also, somehow, feel a bit better about the world at the same time.