Here are 94 books that Emma's Laugh fans have personally recommended if you like
Emma's Laugh.
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I have always believed that everyone has a story to tell. I have connected to people throughout my life because I chose to sit, listen, and share stories. I do this in my own neighborhood and on my travels worldwide. I do it with people I don’t have anything in common with and people I think I might not like. Every time, without exception, I learn something. Often, I am inspired. These experiences have tested and grown my compassion, empathy, kindness, and understanding capacity. I suppose this is why I love reading. It’s like meeting strangers and sharing stories.
The survivalist family drama, paranoia, and isolation seemed an impossible life for Tara Westover to escape. This memoir had a suspense and thriller aspect that I loved. I could not put it down.
Her ability to stand up to her parents and an abusive older brother without means showed true grit. She is an admirable and inspirational human being. I love stories where humans overcome great adversity.
Selected as a book of the year by AMAZON, THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, NEW YORK TIMES, ECONOMIST, NEW STATESMAN, VOGUE, IRISH TIMES, IRISH EXAMINER and RED MAGAZINE
'One of the best books I have ever read . . . unbelievably moving' Elizabeth Day 'An extraordinary story, beautifully told' Louise O'Neill 'A memoir to stand alongside the classics . . . compelling and joyous' Sunday Times
Tara Westover grew up preparing for the end of the world. She was never put in school, never taken to the doctor. She did not even have a birth certificate…
At the age of fifty-three, I was suddenly thrust into the role of primary caregiver for my disabled twin sister who was unable to sit, stand, feed herself, eat solid foods, or communicate. Up to that point, that role had been my mother’s with the help of home-attendants; but my mother was aging and the care provided by the ever-changing attendants was wanting. I was forced to place Judy in a nursing home. The challenge left me overwhelmed with the responsibility of overseeing her care and there were days I wondered if I could go on. With the support of family and friends, I was able to make it through.
Britt-Marie Was Here is a book of fiction. Nonetheless, it speaks to me as an example of persevering to get through life’s challenges.
Backman is a master of character development and I easily connected with the protagonist. I, like Britt Marie, have found myself outside my comfort zone, slowly moving forward to figure out how to navigate my new position in life.
For Britt Marie, it was living on her own in a new place, with new people, after leaving her husband upon whom she depended for everything; for me it was becoming a primary caregiver and decision-maker for my disabled twin sister.
Very different positions and yet sharing the challenge of accepting our new situation in life. I didn’t want the book to end.
The New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, and Anxious People captivates readers with this “warm and satisfying” (People) story “about a woman rediscovering herself after a personal crisis…fans of Backman will find another winner in these pages” (Publishers Weekly).
Britt-Marie can’t stand mess. A disorganized cutlery drawer ranks high on her list of unforgivable sins. She is not one to judge others—no matter how ill-mannered, unkempt, or morally suspect they might be. It’s just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticisms, which is certainly not…
At the age of fifty-three, I was suddenly thrust into the role of primary caregiver for my disabled twin sister who was unable to sit, stand, feed herself, eat solid foods, or communicate. Up to that point, that role had been my mother’s with the help of home-attendants; but my mother was aging and the care provided by the ever-changing attendants was wanting. I was forced to place Judy in a nursing home. The challenge left me overwhelmed with the responsibility of overseeing her care and there were days I wondered if I could go on. With the support of family and friends, I was able to make it through.
In May of 2015, two-year-old Greta Greene was hit in the head by bricks falling from a nearby building while sitting on a bench with her grandmother. She died shortly after.
I remember hearing of it on the news and wondering how the parents and grandmother could survive such a trauma. Jayson Greene’s book tells us how. For me, it was a reminder that, even when the worst happens and we find ourselves in the dark of the tunnel, the light can shine again.
Reading this book I realized that this family made it through the same way I got through my own trauma: one step at a time, one day at a time; sometimes even just one small moment at a time.
'A gripping and beautiful book about the power of love in the face of unimaginable loss' Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild
'Extraordinary . . . both heartbreaking and life-affirming . . . you will find your heart magically expanded' Mail on Sunday
'Unimaginably poetic . . . I learned a lot reading this book and have passed it on to others' Jessie Cave, Red Magazine
'Greene's account of his loss is remarkably uplifting. It's hard-won proof that love can survive our worst fears and our darkest, most desperate emotions' Daily Mail
'This minutely observed memoir will surely be helpful to…
At the age of fifty-three, I was suddenly thrust into the role of primary caregiver for my disabled twin sister who was unable to sit, stand, feed herself, eat solid foods, or communicate. Up to that point, that role had been my mother’s with the help of home-attendants; but my mother was aging and the care provided by the ever-changing attendants was wanting. I was forced to place Judy in a nursing home. The challenge left me overwhelmed with the responsibility of overseeing her care and there were days I wondered if I could go on. With the support of family and friends, I was able to make it through.
I first read this book shortly after it was published in 1981. I was looking for the answer to the question of why bad things happen in this world.
Kushner did not have an answer to that question, but insights into how we might face the challenges that life can present when those “bad things” happen. He, himself, went through a significant trauma: hearing that his young son had a progressive disease that would not allow him to live into adulthood. Yet Kushner found a way to survive and to move forward.
I’ve read this book multiple times. It always reinforces for me the idea that the difficulties we face in life are just part of living and that even though we may suffer through hard times, life is, indeed, worth living. We can and we must go on.
The #1 bestselling inspirational classic from the nationally known spiritual leader; a source of solace and hope for over 4 million readers.
When Harold Kushner’s three-year-old son was diagnosed with a degenerative disease that meant the boy would only live until his early teens, he was faced with one of life’s most difficult questions: Why, God? Years later, Rabbi Kushner wrote this straightforward, elegant contemplation of the doubts and fears that arise when tragedy strikes. In these pages, Kushner shares his wisdom as a rabbi, a parent, a reader, and a human being. Often imitated but never superseded, When Bad…
I have loved story since I was little, and I’ve curated a life where it has always taken center stage in some or another. I was a high school English teacher for ten years, and have been a college professor for eight. But what really inspires me to write the books I do is my PhD in mythological studies. As a mythologist, I’m lucky enough to be able to see why stories resonate with us for so long and use those same themes and metaphors to write my own.
First of all, Heather’s writing is so clear and so emotional, it’s hard not to get sucked into this world immediately. Second, the characters are so well-rounded.
You can feel their ache radiating off the page. The micro poetry Hannah leaves all over the city breaks my heart every time I read them, but what absolutely sends me is how the girls learned to process grief and all the other Big Emotions by making soup. This book easily has crossover appeal for both teens and adults.
Heather Demetrios's Little Universes is a book about the powerful bond between sisters, the kinds of love that never die, and the journey we all must make through the baffling cruelty and unexpected beauty of human life in an incomprehensible universe.
One wave: that’s all it takes for the rest of Mae and Hannah Winters’ lives to change.
When a tsunami strikes the island where their parents are vacationing, it soon becomes clear that their mom and dad are never coming home. Forced to move to Boston from sunny California for the rest of their senior year, each girl struggles…
I am a book publicist of roughly twenty years, a writer, and a reader. My award-winning short story collection, To Lay to Rest Our Ghosts (Fomite Press, 2017), deals with family, reconciliation, loss, and hope. My first novel, Geographies of the Heart (Fomite Press) was released in January 2022. It’s about the importance of forgiveness, the power of legacies, and the fertile but fragile terrain that is family, the first geography to shape our hearts. I am surrounded by books, live and breathe books, work with books. Lucky me!
Spare and poetic, this beautiful debut novel explores teenage pregnancy, adoption, and secrets. Addie Lockwood knows Roland Rhodes during high school. They live in a small Southern town and develop a friendship over an appreciation of blues music. But later, in their thirties, when they reconnect in California, Addie falls in love with Roland. When she later realizes she’s pregnant, she makes a critical and heartbreaking decision: she doesn’t tell Roland about the baby, whom she names Byrd, and she gives the child up for adoption. But Addie never stops thinking about Byrd, wondering, hoping one day he will fly back her way. This novel is gorgeously written and what an ending.
Chautauqua Prize Finalist, 2015 Crook's Corner Book Prize for Best Debut Novel Set in the American South, 2015 Independent Publisher Book Award, Bronze Medal for Literary Fiction, 2015 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize Long List, 2014 SIBA Book Award Long List, 2015 Balcones Fiction Prize Finalist, 2015
Addie Lockwood believes in books. Roland Rhodes believes in blues guitar. Coming of age in the small-town South of the 1970s, they form a friendship as extraordinary as it is unlikely.
They meet again in their disillusioned thirties, this time in California, where Roland's music career has landed him. Venice Beach is exotic, a…
Like most children growing up with fairy tales and Bible instruction, I believed in miracles and magic. But it was the death of my father at age eight, then having his spirit return to my childhood bedroom to comfort and reassure me, that planted in me a core belief in dimensions beyond material reality. Other influences, including living as a neurodiverse woman and raising a neurodiverse son, working as a science journalist, and reading quantum physics, helped me re-embrace the liminal as part of my adult worldview. The most interesting novels to me often carry subtle messages and bring awareness to underrepresented people and issues, and many do this using magic and the fantastic.
This novel’s protagonist, Pepper Rafferty was raised by two Lesbian mothers, who found her as a newborn on the doorstep of their vet practice.
But at 36, Pepper is still trying to find her footing in the world and understand things about herself, like her habit of imagining she’s living in different worlds, based on different choices she might have made. Without being shown exactly why, the reader soon grasps that this has something to do with the fact that her birth mother is Ula Frost - a very famous portrait painter about whom fantastic claims are being made.
These come primarily from the models in her portraits, these are her clients, who say that her painting them brought forth their mirror selves from other universes, often with disastrous consequences. Outrageous as this claim seems, many in the art world believe it, and Ula's paintings sell for millions of dollars.…
Orphan Black meets Fringe in a story that reminds us that living our best life sometimes means embracing the imperfect one we already have.
"Fraught and deeply moving...the work of a genuinely exciting new talent." ―Booker Prize winner, George Saunders.
“Aimee Pokwatka’s Self-Portrait with Nothing is tantalizing and elusive lacework, delicately balanced between the branches of fantasy, mystery and realism like a spider’s web.” ―The New York Times
If a picture paints a thousand worlds . . .
Abandoned as an infant on the local veterinarian’s front porch, Pepper Rafferty was raised by two loving mothers, and now, at thirty-six…
I am an adoptive parent and I often use stories to help my children to understand and process emotive topics. While we were going through the adoption process, I couldn’t find any stories that adequately explained why some children can’t stay with their birth families, so I decided to create my own! I found the waiting during the adoption process quite unbearable and put every spare minute to good use, reading books by adoptees and birth parents, so that I could understand the experiences of the people affected most by adoption. These autobiographies were a tough, emotional read at times, but they all changed me for the better.
It is rare to find the view of a birth father in a story or online, so I was keen to read this to help widen my perspectives. This insightful, reflective autobiography helped me to imagine how my son’s birth father may be affected by the adoption. Andrew shares how the loss of his son to adoption has affected so many of his choices throughout the rest of his life. I read this around the time that I was due to write a contact letter to my son’s birth parents, and I feel that it helped me to write something that I hope his birth parents will find supportive and reassuring, rather than a superficial update to “tick the box.”
In the first-ever British birth-father memoir, Andrew Ward reflects on his own experience of losing a child to adoption to show how a traumatic teenage incident complicated his life. Thirty years after the adoption Ward set out to break down barriers, find his son and seek resolution. In this book he describes his search and, through flashback stories, illustrates how being a birth father has impacted on his relationships with women, career decisions, writing projects and assembly of attitudes. This is a book about secrecy, shame and self-punishment, but it is also a book about wonderful friendships, amazing coincidences and…
I am adopted. For most of my life, I didn’t identify as adopted. I shoved that away because of the shame I felt about being adopted and not truly fitting into my family. But then two things happened: I had my own biological children, the only two people I know to date to whom I am biologically related, and then shortly after my second daughter was born, my older sister, also an adoptee, died of a drug overdose. These sequential births and death put my life on a new trajectory, and I started writing, out of grief, the history of adoption and motherhood in America.
Okay, this is not a memoir, and Glaser doesn’t have a personal connection with adoption. BUT she is a phenomenal writer and excellent reporter, which means she beautifully tells other people’s stories. And she does so here with so much empathy and integrity. This is the story of the forced relinquishment of a baby boy during the Baby Scoop Era and his journey of reconnecting with his birthmother decades later.
It’s an astounding, heart-wrenching story that highlights the incredible tenacity of a young mother and her stunning fight to keep her baby. This story made me cry….a lot.
The shocking truth about postwar adoption in America, told through the bittersweet story of one teenager, the son she was forced to relinquish, and their search to find each other.
During the Baby Boom in 1960s America, women were encouraged to stay home and raise large families, but sex and childbirth were taboo subjects. Premarital sex was common, but birth control was hard to get and abortion was illegal. In 1961, sixteen-year-old Margaret Erle fell in love and became pregnant. Her enraged family sent her to a maternity home, and after she gave birth,…
I don’t just write stories, I study them. I’ve noticed that nearly every major hero/ine’s journey and epic tale has an adoption component. From Bible stories and Greek myths (adoption worked out well for Moses, not so much for Oedipus) to Star Wars through This Is Us, we humans are obsessed with origin stories. And it’s no wonder: “Where do I come from?” and “Where do I belong?” are questions that confound and comfort us from the time we are tiny until we take our final breath. As an adoptive mother and advocate for continuing contact with birth families, I love stories about adoption, because no two are alike. They give us light and insight into how families are created and what it means to be a family—by blood, by love, and sometimes, the combination of the two.
The pioneering godmother of the open-adoption movement in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, Silber did ground-shaking work to bring transparency to the adoption process, which ultimately, is better for the mental health of all parties involved. In Dear Birthmother, a primer of sorts, she helps adoptive parents understand the love, humanity, and loss intrinsic to placing a child for adoption. I love this book because it shines a light on the much-deserved compassion to these women who give up so much in search of a better life for themselves and their children.
This is the third revised edition of the open adoption classic recommended by the Child Welfare League of America. Gently provocative, warm and convincing, this open adoption guide includes actual letters between adoptive parents and birthparents, and between the latter and the children they have