Mackenzi Lee holds a BA in history and an MFA from Simmons College in writing for children and young adults. She's the award-winning author of nine fiction and nonfiction books, including the bestselling Montague siblings series; the final book in the series, The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks, was just published by Katherine Tegen Books. Lee is also an independent bookseller and Diet Coke enthusiast.
On your nightstand now:
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. It's so huge and I am not usually a reader of long books so I'm working myself up to it. I also just finished the first book in the Green Bone Saga, Jade City by Fonda Lee, and the sequel, Jade War, is elbowing its way in front of every other book on my TBR.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Looking back on my childhood, I realize I was a voracious reader but not a very good reader. I liked being read to, whether by my dad or audiobook narrators, and I was easily scared off books that felt too hard or too long or pushed me. My favorite books as a kid were the Star Wars novels I got through the Scholastic Book Clubs, particularly those from the Jedi Apprentice series.
Book you've faked reading:
I am a notorious faker, partly because in high school I refused to read anything assigned to me (I got very good at faking my way through essays and assignments and pop quizzes); and partly because, as an independent bookseller, a lot of people will assume you've read every book they find worth reading and will talk to you with that assumption. I do a lot of smiling and nodding and using the few things you remember from reading the jacket copy once.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. As a bookseller, I get to literally force books I love on people, and none comes up as often as Code Name Verity. I have unexpectedly teared up when handselling this book (I think the person bought it out of pity). I was once telling a customer about it and not only did they buy it, but two other people who overheard my pitch also bought it. I named my dog after a character in the book. It was my pick in a summer internship carpool group, and I strategically wore dark glasses and didn't wear makeup the day I knew we would get to that part. I will go to my grave raving about this book. "In lieu of flowers, please read Code Name Verity."
Book you've bought for the cover:
Yolk by Mary H.K. Choi. I have long admired her books from a distance because the covers are so pretty, but I didn't think they'd be quite my "thing." But Yolk turned out to be as beautiful as its cover, so I immediately went out and bought the others, too.
Book you hid from your parents:
The seventh Harry Potter book came out when I was a teenager, and my family agreed we would read it all together. I absolutely refused to wait, so each night, after our family reading of a few chapters, I would switch the dust jacket of Harry Potter 7 with another book and pretend I was taking this other book with me to bed. I finished Harry Potter 7 in three days, pretended to be shocked by every new development in the plot as my family read it aloud, then years later coughed up to the scheme. I was a good kid. My childhood rebellion was boring.
Book that changed your life:
Turtles All the Way Down by John Green and Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella both changed the way I think about my own brain. I shied away from reading books about mental illness for a long time because my understanding of my own mental illness was fragile enough that, if I read a book with a character who shared my diagnosis but didn't manifest symptoms in the same way, I'd often start to doubt myself and the validity of my own thoughts. But both these books were validating and made me feel like I had a better understanding of myself--and that I wasn't alone.
Which authors have you been introduced to this year?
Samantha Irby had been on my TBR forever, but I'm glad I waited to pick up Wow, No Thank You until this year because it came to me right when I needed a lift. And, after years of shelving Homegoing at the bookstore I work in, I read Yaa Gyasi's second book, Transcendent Kingdom, and have not stopped talking about it since.
Last book that made you cry?
I just read Kelly Loy Gilbert's newest book, When We Were Infinite, and remembered how emotional her books are. While that one didn't make me cry, I went back and reread Conviction. It's my third read of that book and I have absolutely bawled every single time.
Favorite line from a book:
"And it was still hot." --Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
When I was working on my MFA, I became obsessed with Maurice Sendak and Where the Wild Things Are. I love how it is both a complex book and story that became a lightning rod at the time of its publication because of the way it didn't shy away from the darkness that is often pervasive in children's lives but had previously been ignored by sunny, overly cheerful children's literature. But it's also barely 300 words of text. As someone who tends to overwrite, the simplicity of Wild Things inspires me. The way the entire story--about anger and forgiveness and the way our emotions, both as children and adults, can sometimes make us do terrible things but the way the people who love us will always welcome us back and forgive us--is encompassed in this one final line still stuns me.
Book you didn't expect to love:
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley because I'm "not a classics person" and War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy because I "don't like long books."