My absolute favorite book of all time. A masterclass in character writing, Holden Caulfield’s narration is a character in itself, raw, unfiltered, and it feels like intruding into someone’s head. It made me obsessed with how people talk and how they reveal themselves through dialogue.

No wasted words. A story about greed, power, and how people twist hope into a weapon. It’s tragic, inevitable, and utterly symbolic. My favorite aspect of the story was how power operates on a micro level. How the character succumbs to the forces around him, not through fate but by design.

This book changed the way I think about how to craft a system that feels hauntingly real, not because it's dystopian but because it's entirely possible. Orwell doesn't just show the oppressive regime, he shows how the oppression sustains itself.

This book shaped the way I write about forced democratization and colonialism. The story doesn’t start with war or violence; it starts with the everyday, with tradition, with the culture that has existed for centuries. And then, piece by piece, it unravels. It taught me that colonization isn’t just about taking land; it’s about taking narratives and rewriting identities.