Staff Picks: Lauren Taglienti’s Favorites
Lauren Taglienti is a poet, playwright, and novelist who also writes essays and anything else she feels called to. She recently finished writing her forthcoming debut novel, in which she explores how everything is dystopian yet has occasional glimmers of joy. When she’s not writing, she’s probably sick, again, curled up with a bleak speculative fiction novel, an LGBTQ+ narrative, or a re-read of the classics. When she’s not writing or reading, she’s traveling or trying something new. You can find her posting about all this and more at @tags_101 on Instagram.
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Add to BookshelfThe Handmaid’s Tale (Movie Tie-in)
by Margaret Atwood
Studying The Handmaid’s Tale in college solidified Margaret Atwood as my favorite author. An absolutely heartbreaking speculation of a patriarchal oppressive future, this novel has provoked my thoughts nearly every day since I first picked it up. It highlights real-life sociopolitical issues by displacing them into the dystopian world of Gilead. I was able to contemplate parts of the real world that horrify me by reading this book, and that somehow made me feel completely seen and validated.
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Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
This novel is a completely chilling depiction of a dystopian world where a population of children grows to discover that they are considered sub-human, cannot have children, or grow old naturally. The full extent of the reason they are treated as such is a major plot point that’s horrifying to learn. This novel had me wondering what it means to be human, why some lives are treated as more precious than others, what is ethical in medicine, and countless other questions. I love exploring these topics, and Ishiguro enabled me to do just that with this novel.
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Bolla
by Pajtim Statovci
Reading this novel was a whirlwind of emotions for me, and I loved the experience. Two men, Arsim and Miloš, on opposite sides of the conflict between Albania and Serbia in 1995, fall in love. But their clandestine romance is anything but happy, as both men tragically devolve in their respective ways after their relationship is interrupted by war. Because of the multiple moral quandaries that this book raises, it was incredibly difficult for me to figure out which characters I was rooting for and which I had empathy for — and if there’s even a difference between the two feelings. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys complex characters.
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