Basically what the title says: Is there any fiction book you’ve ever read that has emotionally or intellectually connected with you so much it changed the way you viewed the world, changed the way you viewed yourself or changed the way you viewed life (your own or in general)?
If so…
- What book was it?
- Why did it connect so well with you?
- How did it make you feel?
- And how did it change you?
Just to emphasize, I’m solely asking about works of fiction here. So nothing like reading just an academic book on philosophy or a self-help book or something.
Breakfast of Champions, my intro to Vonnegut, but it’s the sum of his work that affected me. His humor and his humanism cured my existential crisis. He helped me make peace with humanity; to fear it, to pity it, and most of all to laugh at it.
I grew up in a religious Catholic home. None of it ever made any sense to me. What I was hearing simply didn’t match what I was seeing in the world. One of my older brothers had a copy of Breakfast of Champions sitting around, and I read it. Completely blew my mind. Finally, here was someone speaking in an honest way about the way the world really is. Totally life changing for me.