Here are 92 books that Broken People fans have personally recommended if you like
Broken People.
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I’ve always been fascinated by people’s motives whether that be in real life or written on the page. That’s what drew me to write in the thriller genre to begin with because at the core, it's about finding out why people do things. But sometimes this genre portrays female characters as either innocent damsels or evil femme fatales, neither of which captures that women are a mix of good and bad like all other people. That’s why I try to write my female protagonists in my novels, short stories, and fictional podcasts, in a way that makes them conflicted humans and causes them to experience both downfalls and triumphs.
While The Swallows deals with an unsettling subject matter, Lutz tells the story with a light-hearted voice and bits of humor which made reading this book an enjoyable experience for me.
The novel follows the teachers and students at an elite boarding school where a secret club of male students subject the girls to an upsetting sexual contest.
Previous attempts to disband or expose this club in the school’s past have been unsuccessful which makes our two main characters, rebellious student, Gemma and creative writing teacher, Alex even more determined to stop the sexual harassment and coercion of female students.
Both Gemma and Alex make some mistakes and morally questionable choices in their pursuit of the truth but they show relentless grit and determination in the name of justice.
A blistering, timely tale of revenge from the bestselling author of The Passenger
GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS
What do you love? What do you hate? What do you want?
It starts with this simple writing prompt from Alex Witt to her students at Stonebridge Academy. When their answers raise disturbing questions of their own, Ms. Witt knows there's more going on at the school than anyone will admit. She finds the few girls who've started to question the school's `boys will be boys' attitude and incites a resistance that quickly becomes a movement. As the school's secrets begin to trickle…
After completing a psychology degree, I became an interventions facilitator in a prison and worked with offenders who'd committed serious violent crimes. It was while I was in this role that my fascination for criminal psychology grew. Once I left the profession, I put my experiences to good use in fiction, going on to write The Serial Killer series of three psychological thrillers. With the most recent, The Serial Killer’s Sister, I incorporated my love of puzzles and games into a twisted story of a serial killer who uses a childhood game known to his sister as ‘The Hunt’ to track her down and torment her.
Who doesn’t enjoy an escape room experience? I’m a sucker for games where you have to solve clues under pressure – but only a time pressure – not the life-or-death kind!
This story delves into the dark and twisted world of corporate greed and through a supposed team-building escape room challenge we are taken on a suspenseful journey with the trapped investment bankers as they realise it’s not your standard game. The stakes are high, and the tension is almost unbearable!
This novel features some truly unlikeable characters, but as they are forced to confront their own secrets and inner demons, I was completely entertained and enthralled by them.
Welcome to the escape room. Your goal is simple. Get out alive.
In the lucrative world of Wall Street finance, Vincent, Jules, Sylvie and Sam are the ultimate high-flyers. Ruthlessly ambitious, they make billion-dollar deals and live lives of outrageous luxury. Getting rich is all that matters, and they'll do anything to get ahead.
When the four of them become trapped in an elevator escape room, things start to go horribly wrong. They have to put aside their fierce office rivalries and work together to solve the clues that will release them. But in the confines of the elevator the…
I spent nearly two decades as a highly successful corporate attorney. Or, perhaps I should say, a successful attorney with a crude mouth and a love for all things spandex. And my unabashed personality was a differentiator in my career—it allowed me to cut through the corporate nonsense and personally connect with my opposition. But my career imploded when I became the subject of overt sexual harassment in my workplace and my employer worked harder at a coverup than resolution. Rather than sell back my story through litigation, I decided to write openly about sexual empowerment in the face of systemic slut-shaming.
I really have no idea how Corporate Crush ever ended up in my hands.
The set up was all wrong for me—the boss and admin trope (power disparity concerns), the female villain defined only by her money-grubbing ways (eyeroll), the romantic relationship controlled by a formal contract (both ew and legally unenforceable). But I quickly discovered that I, as the judgmental reader, was the only one-dimensional villain in this story.
After I put down my ego, I discovered a hilarious book about strong, smart, potty-mouthed women fighting for power in an ever-antiquated corporate America. It promotes body positivity, shifts traditional sexual power dynamics, and is sexy as hell both inside and outside the bedroom.
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…
I’m a journalist whose work is often heard on NPR's national news magazines, and read in publications such as The New York Times, New York Magazine’s Vulture, BBC Culture, Wired, and Bandcamp. I'm most interested in stories about people, communities, and scenes that have been overlooked, forgotten, seen through a distorted lens, or perhaps never seen at all. I’m on a mission to get to a deeper understanding of what’s at stake in the way we see music and art- and the way we see ourselves.
Nashville-based singer-songwriter Margo Price is the real deal.
Her beginnings were humble, and her struggles have been many. Her memoir takes you on the road with her through bad low-paying, low-attended early gigs, drinking, and drugs. Price's marriage/creative partnership is tender and beautiful, yet becomes fragile as it shoulders the unbearable loss of a newborn son.
Through it all, you can feel Price’s grit and determination to survive with her soul intact, making it in an industry that pressures artists to conform to its priorities and sets them up to fail when they resist- or simply try to be themselves.
Price’s music is the soundtrack to her courageous story in progress. In the best possible way, this book reads like the liner notes: honest, heartfelt, and profound.
"[An] engaging and beautifully narrated quest for personal fulfillment and musical recognition...This is a fast-paced tale in which music and love always take center stage...A truly gifted musician, Price writes about her journey with refreshing candor."-Kirkus, starred review
"Brutally honest...a vivid and poignant memoir."-The Guardian
Country music star Margo Price shares the story of her struggle to make it in an industry that preys on its ingenues while trying to move on from devastating personal tragedies.
When Margo Price was nineteen years old, she dropped out of college and moved to Nashville to become a…
Due to the inopportune circumstances of my birth (i.e., not being born into generational wealth), I have sadly been forced to join the working world instead of being allowed to live full-time in my imagination. Happily, the situation has allowed me to collect a treasure trove of workplace gossip. Described by my coworkers as “a great listener,” “overly curious,” and “most likely to start a cult,” the things I have heard and seen in a STEM-related office would truly leave an HR rep gagged. However, I have chosen to channel my penchant for mischief and genetic predisposition for drama into writing office romance novels instead of destroying careers.
I’m not in HR, but if I were, and if I worked in HR at Charmed Elite, the matchmaking firm featured in this book by Kyra Parsi, I’d have some serious concerns with a young matchmaker spending 30 days and nights with her outrageously rich, hot, and single client. “Think of propriety!” I’d yell, clutching my pearls. “You’re crossing professional boundaries! Remember your HIPAA guidelines or wait, that’s not right… I mean sexual harassment training!” (Even in my imagination, I do not know HR terms).
Due to the juicy plot and the fiery dynamic between Jamie and Jackson, this book was an addictive read, and I found myself sneaking pages on my commute, between meetings, or whenever my boss was talking. It was probably too spicy to be reading in public, but luckily, my HR rep never read over my shoulder in the office.
He’s the arrogant, grumpy billionaire bane of my existence... and now I’m his full-time, live-in dating coach.
I’ve never failed to match a client—until him.
Jackson Sinclair has dragged me through eight months of matchmaking hell, and I have the carnage of broken hearts to prove it. But I refuse to get fired from my dream job because of some infuriatingly gorgeous billionaire and his absurd criteria for a wife.
The plan is simple. All I have to do is infiltrate his penthouse, pretend to be his blind date, and figure out what the actual f*ck his actual f*cking problem…
In That’s What Friends Do, the #MeToo experience that Sammie’s mom shares with Sammie is my story. I was thirteen. I never told anyone. Even as I started writing my novel, it didn’t occur to me to share with my husband, or my teenage children, my experience. But one evening, as the #MeToo movement was exploding in the media, I was sitting around a dinner table with several other couples. All of the women had had a #MeToo experience. Most of us were young teens when it happened. Shame and guilt had kept us silent for far too long. My novel – and the others on my list – are working to break through that silence.
This heartbreaking and powerful novel tells the story of fifth-grader Rowan, who isn’t a girl even though everyone thinks he is, but also isn’t the “right kind” of boy. At night, his dad comes into his room and does things Rowan can’t talk about with anyone. Silenced or ignored by everyone around him, Rowan writes letters expressing his thoughts, feelings, and dreams; he attaches them to balloons and sends them out into the universe. When he befriends a classmate who is as much of an outsider as he is, Rowan slowly begins to open his heart, and to speak up. I loved this novel both because of Rowan’s determination to be who he knows he is and because of the unexpected support he finds on his journey.
Tender and wise, The Ship We Built is about the bravery it takes to stand up for yourself-even to those you love-and the power of finding someone who treasures you for everything you are.
Sometimes I have trouble filling out tests when the name part feels like a test too. . . . When I write letters, I love that you have to read all of my thoughts and stories before I say any name at all. You have to make it to the very end to know.
Rowan has too many secrets to write down in the pages of…
As a parent, I’ve been struck by the fierce sense of justice my children have, from the unfairness of one getting more screen time to bigger injustices, like bullying or discrimination. Kids have an innate sense of what’s right, of what’s fair, but they can also lack a sense of nuance and have rather Byzantine notions of what justice requires. I wrote Wayward Creatures to explore a different way of thinking about justice and accountability. Restorative justice practices seek to bring the offending party together with the people hurt by their actions to acknowledge the harm caused and find a solution together. These five books explore other aspects of what it means to seek justice.
As the title suggests, this book asks readers to think about how to tell when action is required to bring justice to a situation. Mila finds herself on the receiving end of unwanted attention from boys in her class, but her friends tell her she’s overreacting. What’s a hug or a touch from a boy? It’s all just playful flirting, right? But it doesn’t feel playful or fun to Mila. In the end, Mila sets the record straight and makes her feelings heard. The ending features a restorative circle, which is an in-school version of the restorative justice process Gabe goes through in my own book.
2019 The Washington Post Best Children’s Book of the Year (Erin Entrada Kelly Pick) A 2020 ALA Notable Children’s Book
“The novel’s all-too-familiar scenario offers a springboard for discussion among middle schoolers…Easily grasped scenarios and short chapters help make this timely #MeToo story accessible to a wide audience.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Realistic and heartbreaking.” —BCCB
Barbara Dee explores the subject of #MeToo for the middle grade audience in this heart-wrenching—and ultimately uplifting—novel about experiencing harassment and unwanted attention from classmates.
For seventh-grader Mila, it starts with some boys giving her an unwanted hug on the school blacktop. A few…
I moved to New York when I was 15 and fell in love with the city. I was starting high school then, and arriving in Manhattan felt like the world opened up to me. Suddenly, I could ride the subway anywhere I wanted, see the best theater in the world, and feel as if anything was possible. The female journey has also been a topic I have long been fascinated by, and when I began my journalism career and became a wife and mother, the need to explore those dynamics grew ever more pressing. I recommend these books because they combine my two favorite topics—New York and women’s history.
I can’t get enough of this novel about a group of young women making their way into the world of publishing in New York City. A window into what it was like to find a career, fall in love, and negotiate life as a single woman in the big city in the 1950s, Rona Jaffe’s book was a watershed when it was published in 1958. I think it should be required reading for all women, regardless of whether they work in publishing, or have ever lived in New York.
Who are you, and why do you have expertise or a passion for the topic/theme/mood of the book list you created?
Rona Jaffe's beloved novel about 1950s NYC women in the workplace that paved the way for the #MeToo movement and iconic cultural touchstones like Sex and the City and Mad Men, now for the first time in Penguin Classics, in a 65th anniversary edition with an introduction by New Yorker staff writer Rachel Syme
A Penguin Classic
When Rona Jaffe’s superb page-turner was first published in 1958, it changed contemporary fiction forever. Some readers were shocked, but millions more were electrified when they saw themselves reflected in its story of five young employees of a New York publishing company. Sixty-five…
I started keeping a journal when I was fifteen. Ten years later, I had the raw material for Fugue, a portrait of the artist as a young woman (I had read Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) that ends in celebration, rather than suicide (I had also recently read Plath's The Belljar). It did not get published. Thirty years later, I had so little, far too little, to celebrate. The portrait had become one of relentless frustration and persistent failure, despite my continued effort ... so much effort ... And so I wrote This is what happens, dedicating it to all the passionate, hard-working, competent women — it's not you.
Although this novel focuses on the world of investment banking, I list it here because it shows the difference between being a female working in finance and being a male working in finance; like This is what happens, it shows the impact of sexism on one woman's professional life, her dream, her ambition, her failure to achieve the former despite the latter.
I read it quite a while ago but was reminded of it while reading recently about the recent Martin/Nicole thing (wherein they switched email addresses, so Martin experienced what it was like to be Nicole for a couple of weeks) ("Folks, it sucked" was his summary).
"A job at Cray McKinley is whatever you make of it. For the real high flyers, there's no limit to what you can achieve."
Abby is a high flyer. But she's not your average banker. Driven by something other than money and status, she has her own reasons for climbing the ladder.
And so does Mike. An ambitious young graduate with an equally impressive CV, Mike is in it for the six-figure salaries and fast cars. He's got the skills, the grades and the swagger to make it all the way to the top.
