Welcome back to the 90s! Book Break is going back in time. We are celebrating being 90s kids.
And before we get into it - what is a 90s kid is definitely a subject that has been up for debate.
I was born in the 90s, I was born in 91, so I have lots of memories of like childhood
in the 90s. So that's one definition of a 90s kid. But also people who are born
in the 80s - they're definitely also 90s kids because they got the experience of being a 90s
teenager! Honestly I'm very jealous. So wherever you fall in that age group there is a whole
generation of people who will find every book I'm about to mention very exciting, and so we are all
90s kids. So I have got 19 books on this list, which means I'm about to recommend you
19 90s books. Get it? Very clever, I was proud of that. So let's dive straight in. If you loved
Sister Sister back in the 90s, did you know there was a whole book series called Twintuition by none
other than Tia and Tamera Mowry themselves. This series is about a pair of twins, though the story
line is very different from Sister Sister. This is about a pair of psychic twins called Cassie and
Caitlyn. So whether or not you're in the target age group for the book series, there is a lot of
nostalgia to be had here. If you loved The Fresh Prince you will love Tiffany Sly lives here now by
Dana L. Davis. So this is about a teenager called Tiffany Sly, who hasn't had an easy life so far,
and now after the death of her mother she has to leave her hometown in Chicago and go and live with
the father that she's never known, who happens to be extremely rich. But this book is a lot
darker than The Fresh Prince. The father that she goes to live with is extremely controlling,
and there's also a whole dramatic mystery subplot as well. If you loved Friends in the 90s then you
should read I'll Be There For You: the one about Friends by Kelsey Miller. So this is a nonfiction,
it's a deep dive into the pop culture phenomenon that was Friends. It's really
really well researched, you get behind the scenes anecdotes, gossip about some of the guest stars,
and just this analysis on why this show had such a huge impact on 90s trends. Like for example,
who could forget the Rachel haircut. And of course true Friends fans will recognise the
significance of my jumper today. And then another non-fiction if you just loved all 90s teen movies,
then you will definitely love We're Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union, whose face you will
recognize from pretty much all of your favourite movies. Gabrielle Union was there in 10 Things I
Hate About You, she was there in She's All That, she was in Bring It On, which came out in 2000 but
it's like an honorary 90s movie. And the book is this really powerful essay collection about
Gabrielle Union's experiences in Hollywood, and also about race, about gender, about the
definitions of beauty. And 90s rom-coms don't always stand the test of time in a lot of ways
but a lot of the movies that Gabrielle Union was in were actually part of really important
conversations. Bring It On for example was all about race and cultural appropriation.
So now Gabrielle Union is speaking out on her own about these issues much more explicitly and
fearlessly, but with a lot of humour and wisdom. And then while we're on the theme of 90s movies,
if your favourite was Clueless then you will definitely love I Believe in a Thing Called Love
by Maurene Goo because the main character in this book is a modern day Cher Horowitz. So my main
character here is called Desi Lee. She's a super high achiever, she's the student body president,
really popular, but absolutely Clueless when it comes to love and dating.
So she uses the knowledge that she's built up from watching loads of Korean dramas to build a plan
that she is sure will land her the hottest guy in school. And so it's got just as many hilarious
dating misadventures as Clueless had, and a heroine who is every bit as lovable. If you're at
the younger end of the 90s kids age bracket, then one of your main memories from the 90s might be
hearing hilarious dating stories from your babysitter, in which case you should now
read Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding. This book is absolutely packed with all of those same
kind of hilarious stories. And I think growing up in the world before apps, I was very misled
as to what dating would look like when me and my friends were older, but actually even though the
dating scene has changed so much in the 25 years since Bridget Jones first met Mark Darcy, actually
Bridget is still just as relatable and hilarious as ever. And so many of these stories still ring
really true. If you remember your parents spending basically the whole 90s complaining
about the move from vinyl to CDs then you should read High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, which is about
a man who owns a record shop. This is a great one for music fans. Our main character basically
spends his days talking to his colleagues about all things music and pop culture and making their
kind of Desert Island Discs style lists in so many different themes. Including, our main
character has just broken up with his girlfriend Laura, and he makes a desert island discs style
all-time top five most memorable breakups list. If you loved 90s rock then you will absolutely
love How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran which is a semi-autobiographical novel. It's
about a young girl called Joanna growing up in a large working-class family in 90s Wolverhampton,
and her journey to becoming a music journalist. So this book really brings the 90s music scene back
to life, as well as with some fictional 90s rock stars who 100% could have actually been there. And
then if you loved 90s hip hop you should read Rani Patel in Full Effect by Sonia Patel. So warning,
this is a very hard-hitting YA novel. On the surface, Rani Patel is this kick-ass teenager
living on a Hawaiian island, smashing cultural norms as a hip-hop performer, breaking away from
all of the traditions of her Indian family. But behind the scenes she is actually coping with
some very serious abuse in her family, and being isolated from her peers. So the book contains a
lot of very difficult themes, from drug abuse to sexual assault, but ultimately it's about Rani
using rap to process her grief and her trauma and to empower her. If you loved shows like Buffy and
Sabrina in the 90s, then you should read Dead Girls by Abigail Tarttelin. This one is another
very hard hitting book, it's for adult readers this time although the main character is a 12
year old girl who is seeking revenge after the murder of her best friend. The book is set in
the 90s and Abigail Tarttelin has said that she was really inspired by the spookiness of 90s
culture shows like Buffy and Sabrina that she grew up on, to incorporate a ghostly element throughout
the book. So Thera is assisted in her quest for vengeance by the spirits of other murdered girls.
If you loved 90s slasher movies and remember sneaking in underage to the cinema to watch
films like I Know What You Did Last Summer, then you will love Final Girls by Riley Sager.
This is actually my old proof copy that I've got here with really fun pink pages,
the final cover looks like this. So this book has a very 90s feel even if it's not actually set in
the 90s. It's about three women who all survived terrifying massacres and were dubbed The Final
Girls by the media, which is a very horror movie trope. And the book really follows the format of
90s slasher movies like Scream. It opens with a gory scene, the murders all took place in iconic
horror movie locations (a sorority, a motel, a cabin in the woods), and of course the killer
is the person you least expect. And talking of movies, if you have very fond memories of renting
VHS films from your local Blockbuster, you should definitely read The Miseducation of Cameron Post
by Emily M Danforth. This is a really moving story of a young lesbian growing up in the 90s whose
family sent her to a conversion camp. It's very much a book of two parts. The second half, which
is set at the conversion camp, is the part that was adapted into a film with Chloe Grace Moretz
that you may have seen. But the first half of this book, which didn't make it into the film, is all
about Cameron's teenage relationships. And one part that made me very nostalgic was her reliance
on renting VHS movies. In particular she rents a lot of films with queer storylines and watches
them in secret from her family, rewinding certain scenes over and over again. Now all 90s kids will
remember the excitement of Scholastic book fairs, and American 90s kids in particular will remember
the Dear America Scholastic series as being super popular in the 90s. A lot of these titles made it
over to the UK as well, but renamed My Story. I had the Titanic one of these definitely,
as a kid who was completely obsessed with Titanic, but the full Dear America series included a bigger
range of more diverse voices. So it included books like Color Me Dark by Patricia McKissack,
which really didn't shy away from talking about the history of racism and segregation. And then
there's 90s TV which was really in a league of its own. So if you loved The Queen's Nose in the 90s
you should definitely read the book that it's based on, The Queen's Nose by Dick King-Smith. It
was actually a very close adaptation, they didn't change too much, so the book and the show are both
about a young girl called Harmony who uses a 50p coin to make wishes. And another of my favourites,
if you loved The Worst Witch TV show you should definitely read the books by Jill Murphy. So this
book series has been going on a long time. The first book actually came out in the 70s, the most
recent book came out just a few years ago, but the series definitely hit a height of popularity in
the 90s when the TV show came out. So this series is all about Mildred Hubble, such a fantastic
name, who is the worst student at her school of magic due to her clumsiness always getting her in
trouble. And then you also have iconic characters like Mildred's best friend Maud, her worst enemy
Ethel, and of course the formidable teacher Miss Hardbroom. And Jill Murphy actually brought us
a lot of iconic 90s content. She's also the author of the children's book Peace At Last
among many others. This book came out in the 80s so so many 90s kids will remember having this one
read to them. If you were old enough in the 90s to get into nightclubs, or at least old enough to
convincingly sneak into nightclubs, you will love Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea
Lawlor. This is a tour of queer 90s subculture all from the perspective of our main character Paul,
who is a shape-shifter and can change his body at will to suit his fluid gender identity. And then
on the flip side, if you were too young in the 90s to remember some of the decade’s biggest political
moments, it's really fascinating to read books about them and to understand more of the wider
context of the decade, that those of us who were still at home watching Animals of Farthing Wood
maybe weren't aware of at all. So as one example, a really good book is The Black Kids by Christina
Hammonds Reid. This one is a YA novel set during the 1992 LA riots, and it's about a young girl
called Ashley from a wealthy black family whose life is completely changed in the aftermath of the
police assault on Rodney King and the acquittal of the officers involved. Riots erupted across LA
and Ashley finds herself going from being just one of the girls to being one of the
black kids. And we were also mostly too young to remember the publishing phenomenon that was
Yardie by Victor Headley. This was described as the publishing story of 1992. The book is about
a young Jamaican man in London's rise to the top of the drug dealing underworld of Hackney. And
it was initially published by X Press, which was a two-man operation, and the books were sold in
clothing shops, hairdressers, outside nightclubs. It was the first, or one of the first, major
black titles to be aimed specifically at a Black audience, and it was a huge success. And recently
Idris Elba directed the film adaptation. And finally a book for 90s kids who are all grown up.
I've got here How to Save a Life by Eva Carter. This is my gorgeous proof copy, but the final
cover, it’s coming out at the end of this month, is going to look like this. This one is a full
nostalgia tour, even though it's only actually set in the 90s for a few hours at the beginning.
So the book starts on one iconic night that all of us 90s kids were there for, even if we weren't old
enough to stay up till midnight: the millennium. It begins on new year's eve 2000. Three teenagers
are at a party when one of them collapses, and the aftermath of this event will follow all
three characters throughout the next few decades. And this book is really like a highlights reel
of all of our lives, so the book follows the three characters and the ups and downs of their lives.
And the book covers issues like drug addiction and grief, love and loss, but the whole story is set
against the backdrop of all of these memorable moments from the 2000s, the 2010s. It's like
watching our whole generation grow up together. So do give us a shout in the comments below if you
are a 90s kid. And if there's another generation you'd like us to find book recommendations for,
let us know and we will do our best. In the meantime I will link here to a playlist of
loads of our other book recommendation videos for you to browse through, and I'll see you next time!