Fans pick 67 books like Everything in Its Path

This book, by Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry (Bluebird, April 22, 2022) is still a number one best-seller on Amazon. People who experience childhood abuse are at higher risk for physical and mental health disorders in adulthood. Dr. Perry shares scientific insights into the patterns of behavior in adulthood that so many struggle to understand.

Dr. Perry and Ms. Winfrey share numerous examples of how the lingering shame from the past keeps them stuck in their lives as adults. The part I loved the most in this book was how Ms. Winfrey offered how shame debilitates us and holds us back from living full lives in adulthood.

Bob Schmidt is a licensed professional counselor in Sandy Hook, Connecticut who has worked diligently to help shooting survivors and their families as well as others in the community with their emotional needs. He is known for utilizing state-of-the-art trauma therapy such as “Tapping,” (Emotional Freedom Technique), which has proven successful in treating PTSD. This book includes a wealth of examples of wellness techniques and trauma-response activities that have proven helpful in relieving high levels of stress and PTSD. These activities make individuals more resilient, so they are better prepared to face life’s challenges and learn to accept the ones they cannot change. Resiliency is one of the keys to happiness, and is increasingly found as a productive way to prepare for any possible disturbing event in the future. 

This comprehensive book provides information on the impact of COVID worldwide as it is currently understood, so future researchers will have a basis for comparison. The book’s authors address factors such as lockdowns, job loss, grief, and uncertainty that have led to depression, distress, anxiety, and PTSD. Also covered is how different world populations as refugees, at-risk populations as the elderly and frail, and roles as parents have been both mentally and physically impacted. This information will help communities develop programs to help relieve mental health concerns and protect people against similar threats in years to come. The book also includes wellness activities like meditation that help reduce the negative effects of COVID on mental health.

We are continually learning how the brain works through the work of neuroscientists. Dr. Sweeton uses her knowledge in the field to give readers a view into our brain and what we know at the present time about its functioning, how it is affected by mental illness, and what changes can occur through brain-based therapy. We have made great strides in helping individuals with such illnesses as schizophrenia and bipolar and learning how disorders such as PTSD occur and impact the brain. The book’s information is reader-friendly. The more we know about this fascinating area of the body, the better treatments that can be developed to help those who suffer from trauma-impacting events become more resilient and whole. 

I can just imagine Chris Fabry saying, “Hey, let’s set a retelling of Les Miserable in West Virginia!” Which is exactly what he does in June Bug, resulting in a story that’s just as wonderful and heart-rending as its inspiration. June Bug is traveling the country with her father in an RV. Then, one day, she sees her own face on a poster for missing children. What if her father isn’t her father? Well worth picking up a copy to find out!

Sarah by Laura Albert aka JT LeRoy captivated my attention right from the start. The story crackles with originality even years after its release. The writing is so vivid that it engulfs the reader in the story. The characters are three dimensional, and the tale being told in the first person and present tense makes you empathize more with the main character. Having gone through a difficult upbringing, the story of Cherry Vanilla and their quest to find love and acceptance spoke to me. This is a title I would highly recommend, not only for the merit of the writing but also because its message continues to resonate to this day. Also check out the audiobook of Sarah, read splendidly by Winsome Brown.

I would read anything written by the talented Cynthia Rylant. Her books for young people introduce moving stories and unforgettable characters.
Missing May is one of those stories featuring young Summer who loses her mom and then is passed around to different aunts and uncles who don’t want to care for her. Finally, elderly Aunt May and Uncle Ob meet her and take her to live with them in West Virginia.

I especially love Rylant’s portrayal of the humble life of May, Ob, and Summer in a rusty old trailer that feels like a palace because it’s so full of love and tenderness. When May dies, Summer’s pain is compounded—and then we meet quirky Cletus who helps Summer and Ob seek relief from their grief.

The basis for the movie October Sky, this isn’t an account of the space program so much as it is a study of the types of people drawn to it, in particular a young man in 1950s West Virginia striving for something more than a life in the coal mines. The culture shock of Sputnik sets him and his friends off into increasingly dangerous—and often hilarious—experiments in amateur rocketry.

Set against an awkward adolescence in a small coal town, it’s a vivid illustration of the obstacles that must be overcome to break free of the cycles life can impose. The screen adaptation takes some liberties, most notably with Hickam’s father. The book portrays him as being cautiously supportive, if understandably skeptical, of his teenage son’s unlikely obsession.

Jaimy Gordon has written a beautiful, unforgettable novel that takes place at a run-down racecourse in West Virginia, where a has-been trainer forms a get-rich-quick plan with used-up racehorses. The story of Lord of Misrule, the legendary stakes winner, brings us into the heart of it, where everybody’s searching for something, everything has a price and what’s truly valuable is right in front of your nose.

Machine Dreams is a wrenching novel that chronicles an American family through decades of reflection and turbulence, culminating in the shattering ramifications of the Vietnam War. For those of us who learned to refract the U.S. through the prism of that savagery, which left millions of Vietnamese dead and vast stretches of their country burned and poisoned, Machine Dreams was a novel that radiated the heartsickness of that era on the home front. American families were, indeed, torn apart by that war, but the weaknesses of those bonds had abiding roots. I was weeping by the time I finished this novel but hasten to add that I have no regrets about the experience, only gratitude.