100 books like First Lie Wins

Have you ever been a teacher? If you have, you will roll on the floor with laughter reading this book.

The author, Julie Schumacher, has absolutely nailed what faculty life on campus, with all its stupidity, pettiness, and rivalries, is like. After I read it, all I wanted to do was get other people to read it. Amazingly, so many already had!

Finding other fans of the novel was a way to sort of relive the experience of reading it, with a lot of “How about the part where...” There is a wonderful curmudgeon in the book, my favorite sort of person.

The liked the main character, the frumpy, lazy, poor decisions she made that kept her right were she was. I enjoyed the friendship of two young women in college who reconnect to solve a peculiar family issue of children who combust in flames when they become agitated.

I laughed several times out loud. A fun story and great twist. 

After some challenges with reading the dialect, I became so intrigued by this heart-wrenching story of two teenage girls, one Trinidadian and one African-American, who come together unexpectedly in cold Minneapolis. I loved learning about their cultures, and I loved how they grew close despite their differences and supported each other through the crises of lost family and childhood cancer.

The language and pace beguiled me as a reader. The girls' viewpoints of their past and present worlds were engaging. I felt the heroism in each of them, one facing death, one trying to reunite with her family.

Olive is not a likable character, yet so many readers related to her in the first book, as I did. Strout took a completely different approach in this sequel, which appealed to me even more. We see the larger community in Olive’s life, looking at her through her interactions with friends, neighbors, and a lover who becomes her second husband.

Strout weaves present and past using these different perspectives, showing the rare kindnesses that Olive allows herself. By the end, she was a hero to me because of her changes as a person—the increased compassion tempered her frankness.  A brilliant and realistic exploration of aging, illness, and death.  

Curtis Sittenfeld has been a go-to author for me since I read and loved her debut, Prep, in 2005.

Her latest, Romantic Comedy, centers on Sally, a comedy writer at The Night Owls (a stand-in for Saturday Night Live) who finds herself the subject of affection of a very famous singer, Noah. I am a longtime fan of SNL, and I loved the inside look at sketch development and the hierarchy and competition among the writers and actors.

I alternated between relating to Sally and wanting to throttle her for not recognizing her own worth, but in a deeply invested in the story kind of way! And if you need one more reason to give this book a try, it was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick.

What makes a woman a hero? Irish writer John Boyne’s narrator was a last choice for me—the daughter of a top-ranking Nazi war criminal who carries the burden of her past at 90. But I came to love the voice of this narrator, her brutal honesty with herself and her circumstances, and her growing awareness of her culpability, even as a child, for what happened.

Boyne elegantly explores the question of whether terrible acts by fathers make their children responsible or if children are inherently innocent. The story’s ending was a complete surprise, bringing this character to hero status in my eyes, as she chooses honor above safety. 

This is nonfiction, a memoir by the truth-telling aide who cast her Trump-appointed lawyer aside and found one who would support her account of January 6 and all that came before and after.

What hooked me was Hutchinson's honesty. She’s in her early 20s and on a first-name basis with all the movers and shakers. She knows the former President well enough for him to suggest blonde highlights for her dark hair.

If you are at all like me, you just can't help liking her more as she fends off Matt Gaetz’s advances and rolls her eyes at interactions with Mike Lindell, the pillow guy. The book is determined and real, as is Cassidy Hutchinson herself.

In this story, we’re in Georgia, deep in its geology, which for me wouldn’t be a draw for a novel, but Eager presents this landscape through the unforgettable character of Doreen, who struggles with poverty, her role as a woman in Southern culture, her inadequacies as a parent yet emerges as a real hero in her own life and others. 

What I took away was a new view on female pride, a woman’s honor, and what limits an aware person puts on her self-sacrifice. The characters are not all that likable, with the exception of Doreen, yet I was completely engaged in the story. The way the author weaves in the geology, what remains in the earth’s memory, and what remains in human memory was brilliant.  

The vivid, lush descriptions in this book bring the titular hacienda to roaring life.

Although initially I was drawn in by the comparisons with Rebecca, this novel is its own thing. It brings in folk beliefs as well as thoughts on colonialism, all within the hacienda’s oppressive yet intoxicating atmosphere. It’s what you look for in a Gothic horror novel. 

This book was Beautiful Gowns but make it horror—and I loved every second of it. While more of a thriller than horror, the kills in this one stick with me like its comparative film, Ready or Not did.

Our main character is the resident bad girl of her private school, and once she's lost everything she worked for, she's not afraid to be the villain for the bag. I love reading about ambitious girls who leave scratch marks behind them, and Adina practically plows through the book, telling everyone, "This is not America's Next Top Best Friend." Not afraid to lie, cheat, or steal your man, I’m still glad she got everything she wanted - especially because she took it for herself.