Bored?
Here are some recommendations of things to watch/read if you are bored out of your mind like me :) Mostly focused on teenagers since I happen to be a teenager so I obviously wouldn’t be very good at recommending adult stuff, but yeah...hope this is helpful in some way.
TV Show/Book/Movie Recommendations
Disclaimer: I am extremely bad at describing books, TV shows, and movies, so I encourage you guys to look them up because my descriptions probably won’t do them justice.
TV Shows
1. The Fosters
This is the story of a lesbian couple and their four adopted kids and one biological son, and all of the drama that comes with their chaotic but extremely loving family.
2. Atypical
Sam is a high schooler who has autism and is on the high functioning end of the spectrum. In his senior year he decides that he wants to get a girlfriend. Of course, this prospect is easier said than done for anybody, and Atypical portrays Sam’s unique but still very relatable high school experience as well as the drama and challenges his family faces because of his autism and because of their hectic lives.
3. On My Block
A coming-of-age show about a group of friends, four street-savvy teens living in South Central Los Angeles. The desperation to rescue a friend from a gang while dealing with the violence that comes with it, along with some inevitable romance and elements of mystery make this show fast paced but not worth missing.
4. Riverdale
The story of a small town rocked by the death of a classmate, Jason Blossom, and facing the realization that his death, and the ones to follow, may not have been tragic accidents after all.
5. Gossip Girl
Word spreads fast in the elite community of the upper east side of New York, especially thanks to the ruthless gossip blog devoted to spilling the secrets of the teens, and they soon discover that nobody has put their past, and the secrets lurking there, behind them, because Gossip Girl is determined to level the playing fields and expose everyone for who they actually are, once and for all.
6. The Good Place
A comedic show, definitely less dark than some of the other ones, tracking Eleanor Shellstrop when she arrives in ‘the Good Place’, a highly selective utopia for people after the die, choosing only those that have led a righteous life.
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Movies
1. The Half of It
A shy, introverted, and very intelligent student helps a jock woo a girl that they both secretly have begun to fall for.
2. Queen of Katwe
Living in the slum of Katwe in Kampala, Uganda does not make life easy for ten year old Phiona and her family. But when she meets Robert Katende, a missionary who teaches children chess, Phiona becomes fascinated with the game and under his guidance, one of the top players. Her success with chess opens the door to a bright future and opportunity to escape poverty.
3. Selma
Selma is a historical drama film based on the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965, initated and directed by James Bevel, and led by Martin Luther King Jr., Hosea Williams, and John Lewis.
4. Lifted
Set in Birmingham, Lifted is the story of a boy who enters an American-Idol like singing competition to honor his father, who was deployed again to Afghanistan.
5. The Good Lie
After their village is destroyed in a militia attack, Sudanese orphans Theo, his siblings, and other survivors make the long journey to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Thirteen years later, the group gets the chance to settle in the US and are met in Kansas by Carrie Davis, the woman responsible for finding them jobs. But after she sees how adrift they are in this new setting, she endeavors to help them rebuild their shattered lives.
6. The Help
The film and novel portray the life of Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, an aspiring journalist. The story focuses on her relationship with the two black maids, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson, during the Civil Rights Movement in 1963, Jackson, Mississippi.
7. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
This is the story of Bruno, the son of a Nazi officer, who’s family moves to a house in the countryside near Auschwitz where Bruno befriends a young Jewish boy inside the concentration camp. The book is also definitely worth reading.
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Books
1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
In the ruins of what used to be called North America now lies the nation of Panem, the shining Capitol surrounded by 12 districts. Each year, children aged 12-18 are chosen, two from all of the districts, to compete in the Hunger Games, a televised battle to the death.
2. Divergent by Veronica Roth
In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian world of Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to its particular virtue. When people in the society turn sixteen, they must select a faction to live with for the rest of their life. Beatrice’s choice comes down to staying with her family and being who she is, she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, herself included.
3. Dry by Neal and Jarrod Shusterman
When the droughts in California escalate to catastrophic levels, the government is forced to shut down running water, called the Tap-Out. Alyssa’s quiet neighborhood becomes a warzone, everyone fighting for water and when her parents don’t return home, Alyssa is forced to make terrible choices in order to help her and her brother make it through.
4. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter set in stone upon diagnosis. But when Augustus Waters appears in her life at a cancer support group, suddenly everything changes, and now what she thought was her final chapter is about to be entirely rewritten.
5. A Chance to Live by Pieter Kohnstam
While Anne’s Frank family went into hiding in Amsterdam, the Kohnstams, their neighbors, decided to escape. Helped over and over again by selfless strangers, this is the story about how Pieter Kohnstam and his family managed to make it all the way to Buenos Aires.
6. Heroine by Mindy McGinnis
When a car crash sidelines Micky just before softball season, she has to do what she has to do to save her spot on the team. She’s only every felt comfortable behind the plate, and the painkillers she’s been prescribed can help her get there. But more than that they make her feel good, and with her new group of friends, injured athletes and just people with time to kill, she finds acceptance. As the pressure to be Micky Catalan heightens, her need increases, something that could send her spiraling out of control.
7. Wild Bird by Wendelin Van Draanen
It’s the middle of the night when they come for Wren Clemens, taking her all the way to the desert in the middle of Utah to wilderness therapy camp, a place for teens that have gone so far off the rails their parents don’t know what to do. Wren arrives angry and bitter, but that can’t help her put up a tent or start a fire, so much as she hates to admit it, she needs help, and when she realizes that will be the only time she is able to survive.
8. Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone
Samantha McAllister has purely obsessional OCD, constantly plagued by a never ending stream of dark thoughts. When she meets Caroline, a quirky girl who introduces her to Poet Corner, a group of misfits that get together and write poetry, Sam’s life takes a turn for the better, until she finds a new reason to question her sanity and newfound “normal” altogether.
9. People Like Us by Dana Mele
Kay Donovan may have a few secrets, but now she has completely reinvented herself as the star soccer player who’s gorgeous group of friends run their boarding school with effortless popularity. But when a girl is found dead in the lake, suddenly everything shifts, because she has left Kay a computer coded scavenger hunt implicating suspect after suspect, many of whom turn out to be her friends, until she’s in the crosshairs of a murder investigation. Now she has to fight to be seen as innocent, because at Bates Academy, the truth is something you make, not what actually happened.