93 books like Did I Say You Could Go

John Marrs is one of my favorite authors, and this book is what got me hooked on his work. This is not your typical thriller, or your typical plot. So buckle up because you are in for a ride. You think you’ve read about dysfunctional families? Wait until you meet Maggie and Nina. Just your run-of-the-mill mom and daughter, hanging out, eating dinner, until mom gets sent back to the attic where she’s chained and being held captive—um what?! Dark, disturbing, with unreliable narrators, it’s everything I love in a domestic thriller and more. 

Sticking with the ‘could this family be any more toxic’ theme, Daisy Darker is another WTF did I just read thriller. A h/t to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, the setting sets the mood right from the start. Nana’s house Seaglass is on an atmospheric island and includes quirky features like eighty clocks on one wall. The family’s bad behavior is called out when Nana reads her will, which is timely since the next morning she’s found dead. Alice Feeney has a brilliant way with words, she says the creepiest things in the most beautiful way.   

I love a good bizarre read, and Palahniuk is the master of the strange. I always feel like I’m recovering from a fever dream after peeling myself from one of his worlds. Told in diary format writing to her husband, Peter (hence the name), Diary centers around Misty, an aspiring artist. Her husband has attempted suicide and is now in a coma, leaving her with a mess. A contractor, Peter had been doing odd things to his customers’ homes. Misty and her daughter are living with her mother-in-law on a strange island with strange people, the book twists and turns until the shocking end.  

Revenge is sweet, or is it? Claire has a bone to pick with Hannah, who she blames for ruining her life. She infiltrates Hannah’s picture-perfect life by posing as a housekeeper. All that glitters isn’t gold, and when Claire moves in with Hannah, her husband, and their newborn, she discovers she’s not the only one with secrets. I can blame a few sleepless nights on this book, as I furiously flipped pages to get to the end.   

Any book set in suburban life with a dark underbelly has me hooked.

I loved the themes of privilege, race, and motherhood within the context of suburban life. I also enjoyed the contrast between such different ways to parent: a wealthy and seemingly perfect family compared to a nomadic and unconventional mother-daughter duo.

I think the story also raised some interesting questions about the intricacies of motherhood and, of course, how we always feel the weight of the choices we make as mothers and the impact of those choices on our lives and the lives of our children. Not to mention, what a great title!

I will admit I came to this book for the author. David Koepp is a renowned screenwriter whose credits include Jurassic Park and Mission: Impossible, among many others. Screenwriters have to work within the confines of a 120-page format, so it’s no wonder that this novel moves at a lightning pace. I love that it features a deadly fungal organism that could end humanity, but the story is really about the three people desperately trying to contain it. 

While not written for Young Adults, one of this book’s main characters is a young teen that I believe many of us can relate to; I know I certainly could, having been a total outsider and outcast when I was in school. Thank God, though, that I had both my parents and they were wonderful, and not ‘loopy’ like Marcus’s mom is made out to be. Still, I think that many of us are either going through similar experiences to what Marcus deals with throughout this story, or we went through them as teens. And I believe that, even though the character of Will starts out to be a somewhat reprehensibly selfish person, he learns, as we all need to, that the world doesn’t revolve around us as individuals. At least not all the time. 

I didn’t know this book was considered “young adult” until my teenage niece pointed out that she’d been assigned the book in school. Yes, protagonist Emoni is a senior in high school, but she’s an old soul. She has to be, given the challenges she faces as a teen mother and a mixed-race woman. Emoni is strong and inspiring and determined, but her greatest gift is cooking. When Emoni makes a meal, her amazingness gets into the food and brings joy to its eaters. I love magical realism and this reminded me of Like Water for Chocolate, another novel in which she who prepares a meal infuses it with emotion. 

Emoni struggles, but she is surrounded by love and she gives it in return to the grandmother who raised her and the daughter she conceived as a high school freshman. Emoni has dreams of cooking school but she’s also… show more.

This is the story of a divorced mom who rents her downstairs apartment to a Catholic monk whose spiritual well has run dry twenty-three years into his vocation, leading him to walk away. I love disgruntled, disillusioned Mike, who can’t help being a stand-up guy, and whose ongoing, sometimes combative correspondence with a former colleague tracks the vagaries of his spiritual life. I love Rebecca and the way she handles insane emotional and practical responsibilities and somehow keeps on going. Most of all, I enjoy the understated, wry way these two fall in love. Farrington’s prose style is beautifully transparent, and he’s intelligent and funny about Christian belief and practice and about romance. There is also a good sequel, The Monk Upstairs.

This is the Mother of all boy mom books. It’s required reading for anyone learning to speak boy. Equal parts despair—Lamott is a single mom who sometimes wants to leave her crying boy outside on the stoop—and equal parts gut punches of hilarious wisdom and ardor about boy life and mom devotion.