10 Best Light Novels Capturing Social Issues in the Modern Society!
Crack open a book and step into a different world! But who says that world can't reflect our own? This ain't your typical top 10 list, my friends; today, we're diving into the depths of society's intricacies, challenging the norms, and sparking conversations through some of the raddest light novels around. These aren't your run-of-the-mill romance or fantasy-fueled escapades, oh no. The authors of these light novels have a keen eye for picking out the quirks, qualms, contestations—and yeah, even the oft-unseen beauty—of modern society, transforming them into narratives that will hook you, heart and mind.
Using compelling characters and even more riveting storylines, these novels invite us to explore societal issues, dissect them, empathize with them, and better understand our own role in all the hubbub. Prepare to have your worldviews flipped, flopped, and fire-roasted as you delve into topics like gender equality, mental health, disability, racial prejudice, and more. It doesn't matter if you're a bookworm looking for the next big read or a comic geek wondering what's beyond the world of capes and spandex; these light novels are not just books but mirrors of the society we live in. So, buckle up and get ready to rock! So, what's on the docket, you ask? Well, let's find out!
『13 Reasons Why』
THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES AND INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER Featuring cover art from the Netflix original series executive produced by Selena Gomez! “Eerie, beautiful, and devastating.” —Chicago Tribune “A stealthy hit with staying power. . . . thriller-like pacing.” —The New York Times “Thirteen Reasons Why will leave you with chills long after you have finished reading.” —Amber Gibson, NPR’s “All Things Considered” You can’t stop the future. You can’t rewind the past. The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play. Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker—his classmate and crush—who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why. Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah's pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever. Need to talk? Call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) anytime if you are in the United States. It’s free and confidential. Find more resources at 13reasonswhy.info. Find out how you can help someone in crisis at bethe1to.com.
Author | Jay Asher |
---|---|
Price | unknown |
Publisher | Penguin |
Release Date | Mar 07, 2017 |
Source | Google Books |
『Everything I Never Told You』
Warning: This is an independent addition to Everything I Never Told You: A Novel, meant to enhance your experience of the original book. If you have not yet bought the original copy, make sure to purchase it before buying this unofficial summary from aBookaDay. SUMMARY/ANALYSISINTRODUCTIONEverything I Never Told You is a very different kind of mystery. It opens like countless other thrillers - a young girl vanishes from her home and is later found at the bottom of a lake, drowned. The town is shocked and fascinated by the tragedy, and the police launch an investigation. But as the mystery unfolds, we find that the clues to Lydia Lee's untimely demise are embedded deep within the history of the girl's family. At first, the Lees seem like the perfect all-American clan, with sixteen-year-old Lydia as the flawless, favored child. However as the Lees mourn and desperately search for answers, the ugly truth of the pursuit of perfection is revealed. The Lees are mixed-race Chinese and white family and in 1977 small town Ohio, they stick out like a sore thumb. Lydia's parents, James and Marilyn each carry deep regrets - James always longed to fit in and have friends, and Marilyn dreamt of being among the ranks of the first woman doctors in America, before pregnancy and marriage dashed her ambitions. So instead they turned their hopes and expectations on Lydia, forcing her to resort to lies and deception to keep them happy. Meanwhile, their other children, Nath and Hannah, watched from the fringes, knowing they would never have their parents' full attention. But Nath knew that Lydia was buckling under the pressure - and something had to give.This novel bounces back and forth in time, detailing the investigation in Lydia's death alongside the Lee's backstory. Each of the remaining family members is keeping secrets from the others, and each holds a piece of the puzzle. Don't expect a stereotypical thriller with this book. Instead, Celeste Ng beautifully reveals the struggle of new kind of family desperately seeking acceptance in America, as well as the darker side of parental pride and ambition. This is a highly entertaining and thought-provoking read that will linger in your mind long after you put it down.Available on PC, Mac, smart phone, tablet or Kindle device. (c) 2015 All Rights Reserved
Author | Abookaday |
---|---|
Price | unknown |
Publisher | |
Release Date | Aug 20, 2016 |
Source | Google Books |
『Burial Rites』
Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tv=ti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard. Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?
Author | Hannah Kent |
---|---|
Price | $10.99 |
Publisher | Little, Brown |
Release Date | Sep 10, 2013 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Hate U Give』
8 starred reviews · Goodreads Choice Awards Best of the Best · William C. Morris Award Winner · National Book Award Longlist · Printz Honor Book · Coretta Scott King Honor Book · #1 New York Times Bestseller! "Absolutely riveting!" —Jason Reynolds "Stunning." —John Green "This story is necessary. This story is important." —Kirkus (starred review) "Heartbreakingly topical." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) "A marvel of verisimilitude." —Booklist (starred review) "A powerful, in-your-face novel." —Horn Book (starred review) Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life. Want more of Garden Heights? Catch Maverick and Seven’s story in Concrete Rose, Angie Thomas's powerful prequel to The Hate U Give.
Author | Angie Thomas |
---|---|
Price | $14.99 |
Publisher | HarperCollins |
Release Date | Feb 28, 2017 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Handmaid's Tale』
An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from “the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction” (New York Times). Now an award-winning Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss. In this multi-award-winning, bestselling novel, Margaret Atwood has created a stunning Orwellian vision of the near future. This is the story of Offred, one of the unfortunate “Handmaids” under the new social order who have only one purpose: to breed. In Gilead, where women are prohibited from holding jobs, reading, and forming friendships, Offred’ s persistent memories of life in the “time before” and her will to survive are acts of rebellion. Provocative, startling, prophetic, and with Margaret Atwood’s devastating irony, wit, and acute perceptive powers in full force, The Handmaid’s Tale is at once a mordant satire and a dire warning.
Author | Margaret Atwood |
---|---|
Price | unknown |
Publisher | Emblem Editions |
Release Date | Dec 10, 2010 |
Source | Google Books |
『Invisible Women』
#1 International Bestseller Winner of the 2019 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award Winner of the 2019 Royal Society Science Book Prize A landmark, prize-winning, international bestselling examination of how a gender gap in data perpetuates bias and disadvantages women, now in paperback Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development to health care to education and public policy, we rely on numbers to allocate resources and make crucial decisions. But because so much data fails to take into account gender, because it treats men as the default and women as atypical, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. And women pay tremendous costs for this insidious bias, in time, in money, and often with their lives. Celebrated feminist advocate Caroline Criado Perez investigates this shocking root cause of gender inequality in the award-winning, #1 international bestseller Invisible Women. Examining the home, the workplace, the public square, the doctor’s office, and more, Criado Perez unearths a dangerous pattern in data and its consequences on women’s lives. Product designers use a “one-size-fits-all” approach to everything from pianos to cell phones to voice recognition software, when in fact this approach is designed to fit men. Cities prioritize men’s needs when designing public transportation, roads, and even snow removal, neglecting to consider women’s safety or unique responsibilities and travel patterns. And in medical research, women have largely been excluded from studies and textbooks, leaving them chronically misunderstood, mistreated, and misdiagnosed. Built on hundreds of studies in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and around the world, and written with energy, wit, and sparkling intelligence, this is a groundbreaking, highly readable exposé that will change the way you look at the world.
Author | Caroline Criado Perez |
---|---|
Price | $15.54 |
Publisher | Abrams |
Release Date | Mar 12, 2019 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Sharp Edge of a Snowflake』
The captivating, feminist YA thriller. The snow is falling thick and fast now. Snow in Iceland is dangerous. Hannah Eiríksdóttir has been banished from her home in London to a place of eternal punishment for the wicked. No, not Hell, but close: Iceland. There, she faces a new life working as a journalist for her father's newspaper - a man she barely knows. Imogen Collins has the perfect life as a social media influencer, showing off her glamorous London existence to adoring fans. But behind the filters lies a dark secret. She thought she'd buried it: But the Beast is back - a ghost from her past who's threatening to ruin her future. When a man is found murdered at the edge of the road in snowy Iceland the girls' lives collide. Imogen had the motive. Can Hannah find out the truth, and discover the reality of the girl beneath the filters? Behind perfection often lies unbearable ugliness. 'A sharp, relevant tale' The Sun
Author | Sif Sigmarsdottir |
---|---|
Price | unknown |
Publisher | Hachette UK |
Release Date | Jun 27, 2019 |
Source | Google Books |
『Redeployment』
Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction "Redeployment is hilarious, biting, whipsawing and sad. It’s the best thing written so far on what the war did to people’s souls.” —Dexter Filkins, The New York Times Book Review Selected as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post Book World, Amazon, and more Phil Klay's Redeployment takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival, the characters in these stories struggle to make meaning out of chaos. In "Redeployment", a soldier who has had to shoot dogs because they were eating human corpses must learn what it is like to return to domestic life in suburbia, surrounded by people "who have no idea where Fallujah is, where three members of your platoon died." In "After Action Report", a Lance Corporal seeks expiation for a killing he didn't commit, in order that his best friend will be unburdened. A Morturary Affairs Marine tells about his experiences collecting remains—of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers both. A chaplain sees his understanding of Christianity, and his ability to provide solace through religion, tested by the actions of a ferocious Colonel. And in the darkly comic "Money as a Weapons System", a young Foreign Service Officer is given the absurd task of helping Iraqis improve their lives by teaching them to play baseball. These stories reveal the intricate combination of monotony, bureaucracy, comradeship and violence that make up a soldier's daily life at war, and the isolation, remorse, and despair that can accompany a soldier's homecoming. Redeployment has become a classic in the tradition of war writing. Across nations and continents, Klay sets in devastating relief the two worlds a soldier inhabits: one of extremes and one of loss. Written with a hard-eyed realism and stunning emotional depth, this work marks Phil Klay as one of the most talented new voices of his generation.
Author | Phil Klay |
---|---|
Price | unknown |
Publisher | Penguin |
Release Date | Feb 24, 2015 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Queens of New York』
From acclaimed author E. L. Shen comes a sun-drenched, cinematic YA novel about three Asian American girls, their unbreakable bond, and one life-changing summer, perfect for fans of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Best friends Jia Lee, Ariel Kim, and Everett Hoang are inseparable. But this summer, they won’t be together. Everett, aspiring Broadway star, hopes to nab the lead role in an Ohio theater production, but soon realizes that talent and drive can only get her so far. Brainy Ariel is flying to San Francisco for a prestigious STEM scholarship, even though her heart is in South Korea, where her sister died last year. And stable, solid Jia will be home in Flushing, juggling her parents’ Chinatown restaurant, a cute new neighbor, and dreams for an uncertain future. As the girls navigate heartbreaking surprises and shocking self-discoveries, they find that even though they’re physically apart, they are still mighty together.
Author | E. L. Shen |
---|---|
Price | $8.99 |
Publisher | HarperCollins |
Release Date | Jun 06, 2023 |
Source | Google Books |
『The Silence that Binds Us』
“A grieving teen fights Asian hate by finding her voice in this complex, timely story.” —Kirkus (starred review) "With a layered, sensitive voice, Ho’s weighty novel delves into themes of racism, classism, loss, and healing." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Inspired by the recent rise in hate crimes against AAPI, Ho’s story of inclusion, diversity, and social action rings true. Maybelline is a multifaceted narrator whose drive to right wrongs and stand up to injustice deserves applause. Ho illuminates both activism and mental health in marginalized communities, showing that even a bright, young achiever can experience depression without anyone knowing.”—Booklist "A powerful, hopeful YA debut. May’s journey through personal and familial grief is poignant and questions of power and privilege are explored with nuance that will spark conversation among teen readers." —School Library Journal “This sensitive novel does an impressive balancing act, examining mental illness and its stigma among Asian Americans while weaving in themes of racism and grief. The overarching messages—listening with empathy, and seeking help—ring loud and clear.” —Horn Book Joanna Ho, New York Times bestselling author of Eyes That Kiss in the Corners, has written an exquisite, heart-rending debut young adult novel that will inspire all to speak truth to power. Maybelline Chen isn’t the Chinese Taiwanese American daughter her mother expects her to be. May prefers hoodies over dresses and wants to become a writer. When asked, her mom can’t come up with one specific reason for why she's proud of her only daughter. May’s beloved brother, Danny, on the other hand, has just been admitted to Princeton. But Danny secretly struggles with depression, and when he dies by suicide, May's world is shattered. In the aftermath, racist accusations are hurled against May's parents for putting too much “pressure” on him. May’s father tells her to keep her head down. Instead, May challenges these ugly stereotypes through her writing. Yet the consequences of speaking out run much deeper than anyone could foresee. Who gets to tell our stories, and who gets silenced? It’s up to May to take back the narrative. Joanna Ho masterfully explores timely themes of mental health, racism, and classism. A Bank Street Books Best Children's Book of the Year for ages 14 and older in Family/School/Community and noted for outstanding merit (2023) "An ornately carved window into the core of shared humanity. Read and re-read. Then read it again." —Nic Stone, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin "Powerful and piercing, filled with truth, love, and a heroine who takes back the narrative." —Abigail Hing Wen, New York Times bestselling author of Loveboat, Taipei “A held-breath of a novel that finds courage amidst brokenness, and holds a candle to the dark.” —Stacey Lee, New York Times bestselling author of The Downstairs Girl “Ho confronts racism with care and nuance, capturing the complexities of grief and growth. A poignant call to action.” —Randy Ribay, National Book Award finalist for Patron Saints of Nothing
Author | Joanna Ho |
---|---|
Price | $13.99 |
Publisher | HarperCollins |
Release Date | Jun 14, 2022 |
Source | Google Books |
In wrapping up, folks, it's only fitting we applaud these winning light novels for their fantastic job of spotlighting modern society's most compelling issues. Each one, in its own unique way, effectively fuses wit, humor, and a hefty dash of drama to craft stories that are both highly entertaining and thought-provoking. They lay bare the complexities of societal issues — be it racism, sexism, environmental degradation, or class warfare — all while having you on the edge of your seat, pulling at your heartstrings, or making you belly-laugh. The effortless blend of serious topics and engaging narrative is a testament to the authors' sheer creative genius. Whether an avid reader or a newbie to the world of light novels, these ten gems will undoubtedly make you see the world from a whole new perspective. So grab a cup of coffee, find your comfy spot, and dive into these socially conscious masterpieces. Trust me, they'll leave you thinking, questioning, and wanting more. Happy reading!
The articles on this site are solely intended to create opportunities for encountering new books, and we do not guarantee the accuracy of the information. Therefore, we kindly ask that you thoroughly research the product information and details of each work on your own before making a purchase. We have no connection to the services provided by each e-commerce site, so please use them at your own responsibility.