Book synopses copied from publishers’ website
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Scientist Victor Frankenstein learns how to create life, but his discovery goes quickly awry when he creates a monster larger and stronger than an ordinary man. As the monster uses its power to destroy everything Victor loves, the young scientist is forced to embark on a treacherous journey to end the monster’s existence. It’s an epic, enthralling tale of horror from a master of suspense.
Carrie, Stephen King
Unpopular at school and subjected to her mother’s religious fanaticism at home, Carrie White does not have it easy. But while she may be picked on by her classmates, she has a gift she’s kept secret since she was a little girl: she can move things with her mind. Doors lock. Candles fall. Her ability has been both a power and a problem. And when she finds herself the recipient of a sudden act of kindness, Carrie feels like she’s finally been given a chance to be normal. She hopes that the nightmare of her classmates’ vicious taunts is over . . . but an unexpected and cruel prank turns her gift into a weapon of horror so destructive that the town may never recover.
Hamlet, William Shakespeare
Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most popular, and most puzzling, play. It follows the form of a “revenge tragedy,” in which the hero, Hamlet, seeks vengeance against his father’s murderer, his uncle Claudius, now the king of Denmark. Much of its fascination, however, lies in its uncertainties.
Among them: What is the Ghost—Hamlet’s father demanding justice, a tempting demon, an angelic messenger? Does Hamlet go mad, or merely pretend to? Once he is sure that Claudius is a murderer, why does he not act? Was his mother, Gertrude, unfaithful to her husband or complicit in his murder?
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
Part of Penguin’s beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colorful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. In a house haunted by memories, the past is everywhere … As darkness falls, a man caught in a snowstorm is forced to shelter at the strange, grim house Wuthering Heights. It is a place he will never forget. There he will come to learn the story of Catherine and Heathcliff: how she was forced to choose between her well-meaning husband and the dangerous man she had loved since she was young. How her choice led to betrayal and terrible revenge – and continues to torment those in the present. How love can transgress authority, convention, even death.
Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn
Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family’s Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.
The Boys, Katie Hafner
When introverted Ethan Fawcett marries the vivacious Barb, he has every reason to believe he will be delivered from a lifetime of solitude. One day, Barb brings home two young brothers, Tommy and Sam, for them to foster, and when the pandemic hits, Ethan becomes obsessed with providing a perfect life for them. Instead of bringing Barb and Ethan closer, though, the boys become a wedge in their relationship, as Ethan is unable to tell Barb something that has been haunting him since childhood.
Ethan takes the boys on a biking trip in Italy, and it becomes clear just how unusual Ethan and his children are – and what it will take for Ethan to repair his marriage. This wise and compassionate debut novel is a bold high-wire feat – and the introduction of an exciting and daring new voice in fiction. *
Lorraine Durbin ’26 is a creative writing major at Susquehanna University with a specialization in creative non-fiction
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