Behind every cloud, a silver lining, right? You have to take the good days with the bad. But those clichés miss that life is funny, sad, hilarious, mournful, at the same time. We understand that the happiest of days have a tinge of sadness about them. Conversely, real sadness or missing someone possesses a strange beauty. But sometimes we forget that when it comes to our books. We want our novels to be “a comedy,” or “a romance,” a “laugh riot,” or “tear-jerker,” even though Life doesn’t put itself into those separate boxes. Funny, sad, romantic–all have informed my own writing, and all are present in this list of books as well.
Mickelson’s Ghosts was the final book of famous novelist and equally famous writing teacher John Gardner, published a few months before his death in a motorcycle accident at the too-young age of 49. It tells the story of Peter Mickelson, a once-famous philosopher nearing the end of his career, and finding himself buying a run-down house he can't afford with his ex-wife and the I.R.S. breathing down his neck. Soon the rationalist philosopher finds himself living in a world of bad decisions, sex, hauntings and ghosts, and religious cults—a world where rationalism can’t save him from his own creeping madness and mortality.
Hoping to pull his life back together, a distraught philosophy professor rents an old Pennsylvania farm house and is haunted by ghosts reiterating an old murder
My name is K. E. Garland, and I am a recovering female sex addict. I didn’t know it until I was 42. In 2014, I had a rock-bottom moment that forced me to confront my compulsions. I self-therapized through writing. As a blogger, I described ways I’d buried interrelated traumas. During the nine years it took for me to research and write my memoir, there were few books about female sex addiction. Now, there are several! The books I’ve recommended not only provide a well-rounded understanding of a little-known phenomenon, but they also help to demarginalize stories of how women live with behavioral addictions. I hope you’ll find them useful.
I really enjoyed this book because it was the first narrative I read about a woman who was only a sex addict. Sex addiction is primarily viewed as something men (and out-of-control celebrities) deal with. I thought I was alone as a female sex addict until I read about Cohen’s life.
Her book helped me feel less alone, and it showed me that I shouldn’t be ashamed to tell my story. I saw myself in each of her experiences, especially when she described being a sex-craved teenager.
Loose Girl is Kerry Cohen's captivating memoir about her descent into promiscuity and how she gradually found her way toward real intimacy. The story of addiction-not just to sex, but to male attention-Loose Girl is also the story of a young woman who came to believe that boys and men could give her life meaning.
For everyone who knew that girl.
In rich and immediate detail, Loose Girl re-creates what it feels like to be in that desperate moment, when a you try to control someone by handing over your body, when the touch…
I teach writing and children's literature at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, and for many years worked as a librarian. (Once a librarian, always a librarian!) First and foremost, I'm a reader. The real world can be an unpleasant and depressing place, so I regularly escape inside books. Although serious books are great, it's also nice to escape to a world where you can laugh and not worry about anything too bad happening.
I may be cheating here. Rapunzel is an old-time fairy tale, and Cress is a science fiction re-writing of that story, so I'm going to count it in this list as "historical." This is the third book in Meyers' Lunar Chronicles and it is my favorite of the bunch. Cress (Rapunzel) is incredibly smart and completely naive to the world. Her romantic interest is a completely dopey bad guy, who you shouldn't waste your time disliking. The odd situations they get themselves into mirror, to an extent, the famous fairy tale. Lots of fun.
Cress is the third book in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles series, following Cinder and Scarlet.
Incarcerated in a satellite, an expert hacker and out to save the world - Cress isn't your usual damsel in distress.
CRESS grew-up as a prisoner. With only netscreens for company she's forced to do the bidding of the evil Queen Levana. Now that means tracking down Cinder and her handsome accomplice Emperor Kai. But little does Levana know that those she seeks, and the man she loves, are plotting her downfall . . .
As paths cross and the price of freedom rises, happily…
I’ve always been drawn to stories where characters discover the magic within and channel it to confront overwhelming odds. Dystopian fantasies meld the intricate worldbuilding of an oppressive world with a character’s unique abilities to fight back. When I was a young adult, these types of books made the most challenging moments in life manageable, not only for the escapism but for their message of hope. They reminded me I wasn’t alone and that my voice mattered. At their core, they’re made for the dreamer in all of us. They inspired me to become an author and write about the transformative power of self-discovery.
The descriptions blew me away; it was like I was really in Orléans, eating buckets of rainbow macaroons. Dhonielle Clayton’s prose envelopes your senses in this glittering world and works as a plot device to make the characters’ dark acts even more jarring.
Camellia is a Belle with the coveted power to manipulate skin and bone to transform others. Her greatest ambition is to be chosen to serve the Queen and her court, but Camellia learns the court’s splendor masks a rotten core. We follow her journey to save her fellow Belles and the kingdom.
The narrative explores the dark underbelly of a society obsessed with external beauty and the wicked lengths characters will go to possess it. In true dystopian form, this book prompted me to think deeply.
I am a former international banker and now a prize-winning author. My books take place in the financial world. However, my writing principle is that behind every crime is a family. In my thrillers, the crime amplifies the family dysfunction. My characters can only survive by growing and coming together. If you like character development, as well as the twists and turns of a good plot, you will like the novels that I recommend.
This is one of the few thrillers that brought tears to my eyes.
Ree, a teenage girl, must save her family by negotiating with the violent inhabitants of the Ozarks. Ree’s father has disappeared from his trial and, if she doesn’t find him, the family will lose everything they own because he pledged it as collateral for his bail bond.
I love how Woodrell portrayed her loyalty and fierceness, as well as how he wrote the deeply flawed characters who love her. His descriptions and metaphorical uses of winter and the landscape are breathtaking.
The book is literary but also has great narrative propulsion.
This is a fiercely original tale of love, heartbreak and resilience in the lonely wastes of the American Midwest. The last time Ree saw her father, he didn't bring food or money but promised he'd be back soon with a paper sack of cash and a truckload of delights. Since he left, she's had to look after her mother - sedated and losing her looks - and her two younger brothers. Ree hopes the boys won't turn out like the others in the Ozark mountains - hard and mean before they've learnt to shave. One cold winter's day, Ree discovers…
Right after college, I lived abroad in Asia, in the small, landlocked country of Laos. A key theme of the book is the role of the U.S. in the world. During the Vietnam War, Laos was subject to a massive bombing campaign by the U.S., and decades later, the country was still coping with the effects. As unexploded bombs continued to kill people every year, how would my colleagues and neighbors react to an American living among them? The book is mainly about the joys of navigating another culture, and while Laos is unique, I’ve read a lot of books about living abroad in Asia, and common themes certainly emerge.
I guess that this book doesn’t really count, as Duras was born and grew up in Vietnam; a Frenchwoman in Indochina, she wasn’t living abroad.
Her portrayal of her own coming of age and sexual awakening (still rather controversial to many) illuminates not only the way colonial society was structured but also larger themes of love and loss.
It was one of the first things I read before moving to Laos, and her voice, singular and astonishing, has never left me.
A sensational international bestseller, and winner of Frances' coveted Prix Goncourt, 'The Lover' is an unforgettable portrayal of the incandescent relationship between two lovers, and of the hate that slowly tears the girl's family apart.
Saigon, 1930s: a poor young French girl meets the elegant son of a wealthy Chinese family. Soon they are lovers, locked into a private world of passion and intensity that defies all the conventions of their society.
A sensational international bestseller, 'The Lover' is disturbing, erotic, masterly and simply unforgettable.
Men have always been attracted to young women, who possess a glow that their mothers have possibly lost. Girls are more vulnerable and impressionable and are more likely to believe what they are told. Their passionate desire to be loved, combined with their conviction that no one understands them, makes them uniquely vulnerable to predators. But there is another side to the story. Girls do not passively wait to be seduced or exploited. They thrill in actively testing their own sexual power and often put themselves in physical and emotional danger with no understanding of the long-term consequences of relationships where the power dynamic leaves them exposed to exploitation and abuse.
My Dark Vanessa is a highly compelling, if disturbing read. I loved the
book as I related so closely to the idealistic fifteen-year-old
Vanessa, who is groomed by her English teacher, Jacob Strane, believing
him to be the love of her life.
The book opens to Vanessa at thirty-two,
leading a lonely and unfulfilling life in a dead-end job at the
beginning of the #MeToo era, when other girls come forward to accuse
Strane. She finds herself torn: how can she do anything but defend him?
Otherwise, she would have to admit to herself that their great love has
been a great lie.
An instant New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2021 DYLAN THOMAS AWARD
'A package of dynamite' Stephen King
'Powerful, compulsive, brilliant' Marian Keyes
An era-defining novel about the relationship between a fifteen-year-old girl and her teacher
ALL HE DID WAS FALL IN LOVE WITH ME AND THE WORLD TURNED HIM INTO A MONSTER
Vanessa Wye was fifteen-years-old when she first had sex with her English teacher.
She is now thirty-two and in the storm of allegations against powerful men in 2017, the teacher, Jacob Strane, has just been accused of sexual abuse by another former student.…
Both my books have a survival theme. Whether it’s foraging for mushrooms, wild camping, or trying to survive lockdown, I’ve always been interested in the relationship between endurance and creativity; what happens when humans are pushed to their limits. After teaching English in a secondary school for 25 years, I decided that I wanted to write a book of my own. I hid away in my caravan in West Wales, living off tomato soup and marshmallows, to write The Island. The books on this list represent the full gamut of survival: stripping yourself raw, learning nature’s lore, healing, falling, getting back up again. Ultimately, to read is to escape into story. To read is to survive.
This is the book which most inspired Frances’ voice in The Island. 15-year old Anais is troubled, loving, brilliant, and creative. She is also at a young offenders’ institution named the Panopticon after being found covered in blood at a crime scene. A birthday present from my brother, this book is so powerful, moving, and evocative. It’s written in spiky Midlothian. It’s raw. It’s warm. It’s brutal.
No matter what life throws at her (and there is a lot) Anais finds a way to survive with humour and defiance. I just loved it.
Named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists
Anais Hendricks, fifteen, is in the back of a police car. She is headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders. She can't remember what’s happened, but across town a policewoman lies in a coma and Anais is covered in blood. Raised in foster care from birth and moved through twenty-three placements before she even turned seven, Anais has been let down by just about every adult she has ever met. Now a counterculture outlaw, she knows that she can only rely on herself. And yet despite the parade…
It’s not often that a book frightens me, but Hailey Piper’s novel A Light Most Hateful pushed all my buttons and then some.
In a wild cross between weird/cosmic horror and natural disaster (should we call it Unnatural Disaster?), a freakish lightning storm upends the small town of Chapel Hill, spawning a giant snakelike monster and turning the townspeople into something akin to zombies.
Teenage Olivia is just one of a small group of survivors trying to escape the town but she seems to have a special connection to the unfolding crisis. I was on the edge of my seat from start to finish.
When a summer storm sweeps through a sleepy town unleashing a monstrous and otherworldy power that threatens to break reality, Olivia will stop at nothing to find her best friend and get them to safety.
Mona Award's Bunny meets Stranger Things in this mind-bending and terrifying examination of female friendship and the lengths we'll go to protect the ones we love, from the Bram Stoker award winning author of Queen of Teeth.
Three years after running away from home, Olivia is stuck with a dead-end job in nowhere town Chapel Hill, Pennsylvania. At least she has her best friend, Sunflower.…
I'm a mom of two daughters who is fascinated with reading nonfiction parenting books and listening to parenting-related podcasts. My absolute favorite, though, is when fiction authors take a dense parenting topic and turn it into a relatable and engaging story so that readers can explore the same important issues and challenges in a more enjoyable way.
Somebody’s Daughter is a thought-provoking read for parents on how you might handle an inappropriate video of your child being shared over social media. One of the most intriguing parenting aspects of this book is how the mom and dad dealt with their daughter’s dilemma so differently. Especially since the mom almost viewed the dad’s way of handling it as detrimental. It offered an invaluable gut-check on what I would do if I were put in the same situation.
From USA Today bestselling author Rochelle B. Weinstein comes an emotional novel for mothers, daughters, and anyone who has ever felt imperfect.
Emma and Bobby Ross enjoy a charmed life on the shores of Miami Beach. They are a model family with a successful business, an uncomplicated marriage, and two blessedly typical twin daughters, Zoe and Lily. They are established members of a tight-knit community.
Then, on the night of the girls' fifteenth birthday party, they learn of Zoe's heartbreaking mistake-a private and humiliating indiscretion that goes viral and thrusts her and her family into the center of a shocking…
