When you pack up your life, seemingly your entire room to move countless miles away (actually, thanks to Google Maps I know it’s only 154 miles away), you have to choose which books to take with you.

Now, risking similarities to Laura Numeroff’s If you Give a _______ a _______ circular tales, but if you give an introvert some books, you’re going to have to allow them to bring some to college.

Throughout a reader’s reading experience, there will always be specific books that make a lasting impact, books that you’ll always look back on with fondness, no matter the quality of the plot or the quality of the writing, because all that matters is the imprint it left on you, and the lessons learned from it. They are your comfort books, that just by looking at you feel at ease. Here are my five...

1. The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini
   
   I read Eragon and Eldest both in fifth grade, and I was absolutely enamored. These books witnessed my first traumatic character death (maybe my first overall character death?). They saw my first batch of tears for a fictional character. They prompted obsessions over new releases, and the magic of meeting an author as a real life tangible person that I could meet and talk to.
   Eventually, The Inheritance Cycle would also become the first series I critiqued, the first series I would look back on and really wonder why I read it. I’d be able to see the author’s progression through each book as a novelist and mark mistakes I would never want to make. It was my first love, and my first regret.
2. Little Women (Parts One and Two) by Louisa May Alcott
   
   I was first introduced to Little Women when my mom took me to one of those giant Scholastic warehouse sales that seem to exist only in the Midwest and she gave me an abridged version of Little Women to read. A copy with text only on the right pages, and on the left there was vocab. I finished it within a day, and immediately asked for the full version, which granted, took me a bit more than a day to read. Yet, instantaneously, I identified with Josephine March, the heroine of the novel. She was brash and uncouth, but wanted to be better, she was a writer and a dreamer, she wanted to travel but refused to succumb to societies expectations. Jo, in every sense of the word, was my childhood hero, and the lessons learned through that story, and those that followed it have stuck with me for over seven years, and will never leave. (Also featured my second literary cry.)
   
   
3. (Finally) The Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling
   
   Specifically, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Like the two previous titles, I read this series in fifth grade (a very influential year for me, looking back). Harry Potter, while the other titles have stuck with me, is the one that continues to influence me more. With the active production of new materials, I have been able to maintain a steady analysis of the materials I am consuming, and reflecting on how what we choose to focus on is seen in society, and when it’s appropriate for people to comment on troublesome things they see. Harry Potter is the series that has grown with me, and has given me a community of book lovers and fans to call home. (Featured my third literary cry)
   
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
   
   I have read this book every year since sixth grade. That is six consecutive years of rereading this book (three of which have been for school purposes), and each time something else draws my attention. As I have aged, and become more socially and culturally aware I have received different takeaways from the story and Scout’s interactions with her neighbors, classmates, and the other townsfolk. In correlation, a book which I haven’t and am not planning on reading due to its morally ambiguous road to publication, Go Set a Watchman, has particular character developments which bring up great topics of discussion fora different post.
5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
   
   While every other book on this list I read for the first time between the ages of nine and eleven, I didn’t read Pride and Prejudice until I was fourteen and in my freshman year of high school. Yet, the impact has been just as drastic. Not only in bolstering my appreciation for the literary classics, but for making me take stock in my own motivations. Pride and Prejudice, and my compatibility with both Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy showed me the weaknesses in my own outlook and started a journey of self improvement which I am still travelling down. It is through Lizzie and Darcy that I (book number six) want to become worthy of Jane Eyre.