Books that made me obsess over things

I’m a really obsessive passionate person. One of the things I’ve always been passionate about is, obviously, reading. But sometimes reading can make me obsess over other things in life. These are some books where I inadvertently learned about something and then just never stopped thinking about it.

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The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch

This book is great, btw. It’s well written and interesting and funny. But I learned about synesthesia. And I’m o b s e s s e d with synesthesia. Basically, synesthesia is a confusion of senses. So colours have scent, or numbers have sounds, or words have colours. This book is focused on synesthesia, and it’s so interesting. The character with synesthesia sees colours for every sound. He then judges people based off the colour of their voice. So untrustworthy people and mechanical voices have steely grey voices. The main character has a mint-chocolate-chip voice. It’s so cool!

I myself have very, very (very) minor synesthesia in that certain numbers have colours (3 is lime green, 6 is grass green, and 7 is sky blue). But it’s nowhere near as intense as actual synesthesia. I truly believe that this book is one of the reasons I pursued psychology, mainly so I could continue to learn about synesthesia. I just think it’s the most interesting thing ever!!!! and I have this book to thank for that.

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CHERUB: Divine Madness by Robert Muchamore

The CHERUB series is a series about kids who are spies, which was literally my dream when I was 10-13 (and still is tbh) so I was instantly hooked on these books. But Divine Madness deals with religious cults, and my obsession with religious cults has not stopped. They’re just so interesting??? Like why do people join them? Why do people whole-heartedly believe in the things they do? Idk but I love learning about them. This book was the first one to introduce me in an accessible way to cults, and I’ve been learning about them ever since.

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Hazed (Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers #14) by Franklin W. Dixon

This book is (obviously) about hazing at a private school. It was the first time I’d read about hazing, the first time I’d ever actually heard about it. The book is short but intense and I remember devouring it. I’ve been interested in hazing ever since, again mainly because of the psychology behind it. Why do we feel like people need to earn their way into our groups? Why do we go to such great lengths? IDK but I want to learn more!

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So those are the books that gave me real-life passions. Are there any similar books for you?

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