With spring break approaching, a great way to pass time is reading books. Whether you are staying at home or traveling for spring break, immersing yourself in a good book can make for a much-needed relaxing and restful break. For this reason, students at McNeil share their favorite books.

Kadian McNulty, Junior

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman

McNulty enjoys this book because it is not written in a traditional book format.

“It doesn’t have pages that are normal pages it has files and recordings, and the pages are made to look like recordings and graphs and such,” McNulty said. “It’s also a really good story and has really good characters.” 

McNulty believes that even though this book is fiction, it is still very much worth the read. 

“I feel like some people don’t read science fiction a lot,” McNulty said. “This is a good book that kinda shows that science fiction can be just as engaging as the other genres, and have the same plot development and character development and it’s just a very good book.”

Through this book, McNulty was able to learn about artificial intelligence and some of the effects it has.

“[The book]has an artificial intelligence character in it and that’s kinda what got me started looking into artificial intelligence,” McNulty said. “I read it when I was in the fourth grade and so it was kind of one of the first books that I read that had nonhuman characters and showed a bunch of different perspectives.”

Chelsea Sanchez, Senior 

The Selection by Kiera Cass

“My favorite book is the selection by Kiera Cass, it’s an easy read and it gets your emotions in there,” Sanchez said. “It also makes you mad at some points.”

Sanchez finds the main character very appealing.

“[The main character]is very strong and very independent,” Sanchez said. “She didn’t care what anyone around her thought of her, she was sort of rebelling against what everybody had been telling her to do throughout her life.” 

Juliana Lindo, Junior

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

“My favorite book is The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, I learned a lot,” Lindo said. “ I like the main character. He is really interesting, he is an antique salesman and I’ve never heard of anyone who is an antique salesman.”  

Lindo believes that this book has a lot of useful information. 

“This book is very information-packed, I learned that friendships can be maintained over long distances,” Lindo said. “It also taught me about the importance of art, and how art can connect but can also separate.” 

Harvey Flynn, Sophomore 

The Holy Bible

“My favorite book is The Bible,” Flynn said. “It is a really good book and there are a lot of good stories. I feel like it was written such a long time ago and it still has a lot of impact on the world today, it’s just really interesting how some of the things back then still carry on today.”

Flynn finds Jesus Christ in The Bible very inspiring in the way that he lived.

“The main character of The Bible is a man named Jesus, and Jesus is this guy who was sent by God to save everybody from their sin, which is when people don’t do what’s right,” Flynn said. 

The bible has had a big impact on Flynn’s life and he believes that it could have a lot of impact on other people’s lives, too.

Hayden Ebeling, Freshman 

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

“My favorite book is Catching Fire, the second book in the Hunger Games series, by Suzanne Collins,” Ebeling said. “It made me a better person and taught me the impact of killing people and how it can change your life.” 

Ebeling believes the development of the plot and the characters is really good and interesting. 

“It’s really violent if you like violent books and you get to know the characters really well and you just really want to keep reading,” Ebeling said. “It has good cliffhangers and it makes you want to read the next chapter and the next book.”