Well, I'm sure there are more books that have had significant effects on me, but they're not coming to mind just yet, so here we go!

1.) The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
This book left with me in a funk that I couldn't shake for two weeks. Kingsolver has an incredible way of tormenting the reader and characters with excruciatingly terrible and horrific situations, through both their foreign culture and environment as well as the Price family's inner dynamics.

2.) The Shining by Stephen King
The Shining was my first King book, as well as my first reasonably intense psychological horror book. Not only did this book persuade me that seriously creeping people out is perfectly okay, but it also ignited my love of horror literature.

3.) The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub
The Talisman has a flavor that is in shortage in most King books, but is present in a great deal of Straub's short stories. Whereas The Shining began in me a love of horror, this particular creation is a door into the insane. Black House, the lesser sequel to The Talisman, lacks what makes its successor so great. Not only does The Talisman completely move outside reality and traditional conventions in story-telling, but it also completely destroys any comfort zone that the reader could have possibly established in a previous part of the book.

4.) The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
This book is far different from any other books I've read, save for those by George Orwell. The Handmaid's Tale taught me how to write a character whose mind had been completely immersed into one way of thinking, grown out of one in which the modern reader is more comfortable. Offred is an incredibly disconcerting character in the fact that she experiences an American upbringing familiar to the reader, but still undergoes an intense change in personality and mind by the pressures of the right-wing extremist regime.

5.) The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
Rowling's writing isn't phenomenal, nor is it especially descriptive, but shows an incredible presence of imagination. This series literally introduced thousands (or more) children into an incredible childhood full of magic and general Potterverse creativity.

6.) City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende
Possibly one of my favorite books as a youngling, City of the Beasts is a fun and significant book all around. It ties in darker themes in with the lighter in a mixture subtle enough to not traumatize any reader under the age of 13.

7.) The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer
Despite not being an especially notable book of quality, Eoin Colfer is hilarious to the immature audience in most of his literature. Scifi is another addiction of mine, and this book was just easy enough to grasp for my incapable little mind that I absolutely loved it.

8.) Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
I don't... I really... I really don't even when it comes to this book. ಠ_ಠ