As a daughter of a single-parent father, and a mom who had multiple sclerosis, I often tried to determine my future based on the past. Coming-of-age stories are essentially one’s desire to discover who they are and who they grow up to be. A story about how their past dictates and shapes their future based on those experiences, or lack thereof. Also, coming-of-age stories are often the results of hardships turned into opportunities otherwise missed if they had the so-called perfect upbringing.
The rawness of the story, mixed with hope and drive, makes for a heartbreaking and heartwarming tale. I’ve never been more invested in characters and cared about how their upbringing, or lack of it, affected their beliefs and life than until I read this novel. The story has forever stayed with me and was one of the first adult novels I ever remember reading. I’d never experienced a small town or such a community in my real life but was able to in this story.
A 17-year-old pregnant girl heading for Califonia with her boyfriend finds herself stranded at a Wal-Mart in Oklahoma, with just $7.77 in change. But she's about to be helped by a group of down-to-earth, deeply caring people, including a bible-thumping nun and an eccentric librarian.
Dolores is unlike any other character I’ve read before. Her humorously unapologetic nature is refreshing. I loved how true she was, yet also how she really didn’t have a strong sense of self. Dolores’s desire and need to be equal as well as have someone she can finally trust in her life is something we can all relate to. This story is honest and gripping and represents the importance of embracing life even if it doesn’t go according to plan.
Dolores Price is the wry and overweight, sensitive and pained, cynical heroine of this novel. The story follows her from four to 40, from her shattered family life through the hellish circles of sexual and food abuse to her gradual recovery and her fight to love again.
Trapped in her enormous, devout Catholic family in 1963, Annie creates a hilarious campaign of lies when the pope dies and their family friend, Cardinal Stefanucci, is unexpectedly on the shortlist to be elected the first American pope.
Driven to elevate her family to the holiest of holy rollers in…
There are so many layers to this story that it’s almost a challenge to describe why it’s a brilliant book. Lily has a deep-seated desire to find out the truth, which is such a universal theme. But it’s not simply about truth; it’s about the relationship between a mother and daughter that is formed before birth and remains, in most cases, no matter what the outcome. What does this have to do with bees? A lot, because of the mirroring between the storyline and the bees proves a powerful message.
The multi-million bestselling novel about a young girl's journey towards healing and the transforming power of love, from the award-winning author of The Invention of Wings and The Book of Longings
Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted Black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina-a town that holds the secret to her mother's…
This was the first book I recall reading where it had past and present chapters, and something I didn’t know I needed in my life until I read the novel. I don’t feel that story would’ve been as powerful told any other way. The characters are as rich as the town and I felt an equal connection to the landscape as I did Idgie and Evelyn. Most importantly, the story sheds a multitude of light on the process of a woman aging which is both beautiful and sobering.
Folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is a now-classic novel about two women: Evelyn, who’s in the sad slump of middle age, and gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode, who’s telling her life story. Her tale includes two more women—the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth—who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, offering good coffee, southern barbecue, and all kinds of love and laughter—even an occasional murder. And as the past unfolds, the present will never be quite the same again.
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, this brilliant 17th century nun flew through Mexico City on the breeze of poetry and philosophy. She met with princes of the Church, and with the royalty of Spain and Mexico. Then she met a stunning, powerful woman with lavender eyes, la Vicereine Maria…
The main character, Ellen, represents the candor behind how often children were passed around when there was no family to care for them, even if not in the foster system in the 1970s. I loved the emotions brought on by this story between Daddy and daughter, Ellen, even though readers might understand how she can have any type of sadness over his death. This novel’s theme is a humble reminder that our life’s story is often not the worst sad story out there and to have empathy for others.
"Filled with lively humor, compassion, and intimacy." —Alice Hoffman, The New York Times Book Review
"When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy." With that opening sentence we enter the childhood world of one of the most appealing young heroines in contemporary fiction. Her courage, her humor, and her wisdom are unforgettable as she tells her own story with stunning honesty and insight. An Oprah Book Club selection, this powerful novel has become an American classic.
Winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and the Ernest Hemingway…
Sandy is running away from her past, hoping to find answers for her future. But the truth is not what she expected, and Sandy ultimately discovers what she lost. A journey rich in history between 1993 and 2009, the truth, and determining forgiveness with a touch of humor, is the portrait of life.
In this deeply researched novel of America's most celebrated outlaw, Mark Warren sheds light on the human side of Billy the Kid and reveals the intimate stories of the lesser-known players in his legendary life of crime. Warren's fictional composer and Santa Fe journalist, John Blessing, is assigned to report…
