100 books like Get in Trouble

By Kelly Link,

Here are 100 books that Get in Trouble fans have personally recommended if you like Get in Trouble. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of A House Is a Body: Stories

Charlie Jane Anders Author Of Even Greater Mistakes

From my list on short stories that could change your life.

Why am I passionate about this?

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of All the Birds in the Sky, which Time Magazine listed as one of the hundred best fantasy novels of all time. Her other books include The City in the Middle of the Night, Victories Greater than Death, and Never Say You Can't Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times By Making Up Stories. She organizes the long-running spoken word series Writers With Drinks, helps to organize tours of local bookstores, and also co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. Her short fiction has appeared in Tin House, Conjunctions, Wired Magazine, Slate, and the Boston Review.

Charlie's book list on short stories that could change your life

Charlie Jane Anders Why did Charlie love this book?

A really great short story collection can sweep you off your feet and take you to a lot of different places, in a way that novels can't quite manage. And Swamy's debut collection is haunting in the best possible way. These dreamlike stories feature characters who are lost and dislocated, carried along by other people's desires, and the best of them have something to say about art as well as relationships. In one story, an artist who is descending into alcoholism gets into a relationship with the god Krishna, and in another, a "laughter artist" has perfected her laughter to the point where all laughter seems artificial. Swamy conveys the feeling of being lost but seen, in a really beautiful, arresting way.

By Shruti Swamy,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A House Is a Body as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In "A Simple Composition," a husband's professional crisis leads to his wife's discovery of a dark, ecstatic joy. And in the title story, an exhausted mother watches, hypnotised by fear, as a California wildfire approaches her home. Immersive and assured, provocative and probing, these are stories written with the edge and precision of a knife blade. Set in the United States and India, they reveal small but intense moments of beauty, pain, and power that contain the world.


Book cover of Useful Phrases for Immigrants: Stories

Charlie Jane Anders Author Of Even Greater Mistakes

From my list on short stories that could change your life.

Why am I passionate about this?

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of All the Birds in the Sky, which Time Magazine listed as one of the hundred best fantasy novels of all time. Her other books include The City in the Middle of the Night, Victories Greater than Death, and Never Say You Can't Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times By Making Up Stories. She organizes the long-running spoken word series Writers With Drinks, helps to organize tours of local bookstores, and also co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. Her short fiction has appeared in Tin House, Conjunctions, Wired Magazine, Slate, and the Boston Review.

Charlie's book list on short stories that could change your life

Charlie Jane Anders Why did Charlie love this book?

This story collection is mind-blowing in the best way. As its name suggests, a lot of the stories in this book deal with immigrants, including Chinese people who've immigrated to the United States, but also rural people who've migrated to cities. Chai's characters are struggling to balance traditional Confucian values with postmodern urban existence, and a lot of these stories feature tensions between different generations in a single-family. The best story is probably the award-winning "Fish Boy," in which a boy moves from the Chinese countryside to the big city and ends up working at a seafood restaurant whose offerings sound pretty unappetizing. Chai is brilliant at picking up on the subtle nuances of damaged families, and every one of these stories hits home.

By May-Lee Chai,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Useful Phrases for Immigrants as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the title story of this timely and innovative collection, a young woman wearing a Prada coat attempts to redeem a coupon for plastic storage bins while her in-laws are at home watching the Chinese news and taking her private phone calls. It is the lively and wise juxtaposition of cultures, generations, and emotions that characterize May-lee Chai's amazing stories. Within them, readers will find a complex blend of cultures spanning China, the Chinese diaspora in America, and finally, the world at large.

With luminous prose and sharp-eyed observations, Chai reveals her characters' hopes and fears, and our own: a…


Book cover of Homesick: Stories

Charlie Jane Anders Author Of Even Greater Mistakes

From my list on short stories that could change your life.

Why am I passionate about this?

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of All the Birds in the Sky, which Time Magazine listed as one of the hundred best fantasy novels of all time. Her other books include The City in the Middle of the Night, Victories Greater than Death, and Never Say You Can't Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times By Making Up Stories. She organizes the long-running spoken word series Writers With Drinks, helps to organize tours of local bookstores, and also co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. Her short fiction has appeared in Tin House, Conjunctions, Wired Magazine, Slate, and the Boston Review.

Charlie's book list on short stories that could change your life

Charlie Jane Anders Why did Charlie love this book?

This book of speculative short fiction includes some of the best queer representation I've seen in ages. "A Silly Love Story" includes a gender-fluid character named Merion, and "Before We Disperse Like Star Stuff" includes a trans grad student named Min. Cipri manages to combine the surreal and illogical with a pervasive sense of warmth and humanity, which is a nearly impossible feat, and they make it look easy. Each story will leave you wondering what happens next, but the characters will also live on in your imagination long after you've turned the page.

By Nino Cipri,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Homesick as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Shirley Jackson Award finalist

World Fantasy Award finalist

Dark, irreverent, and truly innovative, the speculative stories in Homesick meditate on the theme of home and our estrangement from it, and what happens when the familiar suddenly shifts into the uncanny. In stories that foreground queer relationships and transgender or nonbinary characters, Cipri delivers the origin story for a superhero team comprised of murdered girls; a housecleaner discovering an impossible ocean in her least-favorite clients' house; a man haunted by keys that appear suddenly in his throat; and a team of scientists and activists discovering the remains of a long-extinct species…


Book cover of Never Have I Ever: Stories

Charlie Jane Anders Author Of Even Greater Mistakes

From my list on short stories that could change your life.

Why am I passionate about this?

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of All the Birds in the Sky, which Time Magazine listed as one of the hundred best fantasy novels of all time. Her other books include The City in the Middle of the Night, Victories Greater than Death, and Never Say You Can't Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times By Making Up Stories. She organizes the long-running spoken word series Writers With Drinks, helps to organize tours of local bookstores, and also co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. Her short fiction has appeared in Tin House, Conjunctions, Wired Magazine, Slate, and the Boston Review.

Charlie's book list on short stories that could change your life

Charlie Jane Anders Why did Charlie love this book?

Yap's debut collection is full of brilliant moments and haunting images. She wraps together Filipino folklore with characters who are endlessly rich and fascinating, and the result is sometimes terrifying, sometimes weird and unsettling, and always gorgeous. This book will leave you feeling as if uncanny worlds are waiting for you to discover them, just out of view. Many of these stories go to dark places, but then you stumble on a sweet tale like "A Spell For Foolish Hearts," involving a gay magician, a love potion, and a complicated relationship. You'll wish you could read this book for the first time more than once.

By Isabel Yap,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Never Have I Ever as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Am I dead?" Mebuyen sighs.
She was hoping the girl would not ask.

Spells and stories, urban legends and immigrant tales: the magic in Isabel Yap's debut collection jumps right off the page, from the joy in her new novella, "A Spell for Foolish Hearts" to the terrifying tension of the urban legend "Have You Heard the One About Anamaria Marquez."


Book cover of St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

Kevin J. Fellows Author Of At the End of the World

From my list on fabulist fiction books where the real and unreal collide, leaving us questioning both.

Why am I passionate about this?

After reading The Enormous Egg as a child, I’ve been devoted to stories where the strange, the uncanny, and the magical are all elements of the worlds characters must negotiate. I’m most drawn to fiction containing seemingly unreal elements because, in my experience, that is reality. Those moments when the past suddenly feels present, or when you glimpse something at the edge of your vision that feels significant, but you can’t quite catch it. Moments when anything is possible. No surprise that I write fiction that explores those moments of uncertainty and leaves the reader unmoored, thinking about the people and their experiences long after they’ve left the book.

Kevin's book list on fabulist fiction books where the real and unreal collide, leaving us questioning both

Kevin J. Fellows Why did Kevin love this book?

I’m always impressed by how Karen Russell pulls the reader into her stories with no warning about what we’re getting into. No easing into strange situations. She places her characters in what we publicly claim can’t be real but privately know to be true.

To make a fabulist story work, images must cling to the reader’s mind like golden treacle. Each one either grounding us in the familiar or firmly establishing the unfamiliar as quotidian. Russel is a master at this. Her stories flow so easily, and her characters’ unforgettable voices hit the reader in the first paragraph.

By Karen Russell,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Charting loss, love, and the difficult art of growing up, these stories unfurl with wicked humour and insight. Two young boys make midnight trips to a boat graveyard in search of their dead sister, who set sail in the exoskeleton of a giant crab; a boy whose dreams foretell implacable tragedies is sent to 'Sleepaway Camp for Disordered Dreamers' (Cabin 1, Narcoleptics; Cabin 2, Insomniacs; Cabin 3, Somnambulists. . . ); a Minotaur leads his family on the trail out West, and finally, in the collection's poignant and hilarious title story, fifteen girls raised by wolves are painstakingly re-civilised by…


Book cover of Upright Beasts

S.G. Browne Author Of Lost Creatures: Stories

From my list on genre-bending literary short story collections.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always enjoyed short story collections. Starting with Ray Bradbury and Stephen King, I became a fan of the short form. And as a burgeoning writer, writing short stories was the best way for me to learn the craft of storytelling. While I started out writing supernatural horror, I gradually found myself combining horror, fantasy, and science fiction with dark comedy and social satire, creating a blend of genres. Several of the short story collections I recommend here were instrumental in my evolution as a short story writer and inspired a number of the stories in my latest collection, Lost Creatures.

S.G.'s book list on genre-bending literary short story collections

S.G. Browne Why did S.G. love this book?

When it comes to short story collections I definitely have a type, as Upright Beasts is a blend of fantasy, horror, dark humor, and the surreal. And if we’re talking about genre-bending, no one does it quite like Lincoln Michel. His stories are strange and familiar, funny and sad, whimsical and disturbing, twisted and delightful. Sometimes all at the same time. Much like the other authors and collections I’ve listed here, these stories inspired my own writing and made me want to be a better writer. That’s what I want in the fiction I read: to not only be entertained but challenged.

By Lincoln Michel,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Upright Beasts as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Praise for Lincoln Michel: "Lincoln Michel is one of contemporary literary culture's greatest natural resources."-Justin Taylor, Vice Time passes unexpectedly or, perhaps, inexactly at the school. It's hard to remember what semester we are supposed to be in. Several of the clocks still operate, but they don't show the same time. The red bells, affixed in every room, erupt several times each day, yet the intervals between the disruptions wax and wane with an unknown algorithm. The windows are obscured by construction paper murals. Consequently, the sun rises and falls in complete ignorance of those of us attending the school.…


Book cover of Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory: Stories

Kay Acker Author Of Leaving's Not the Only Way to Go

From my list on sapphic about finding happiness in hard times.

Why am I passionate about this?

I believe deeply that, as messy and painful as life is, there is always joy, and usually humor, to be found. The book I wrote, Leaving’s Not the Only Way to Go, pulls from some of the painful experiences I’ve had, and I often find myself following my description of the book, about two women who meet in a grief group, with “but it’s not a downer!” It’s true, because Leaving is also inspired by all the joy and connections I’ve made for myself, even in the midst of loss. I learned how to balance the two sides of life through books like the ones on this list. 

Kay's book list on sapphic about finding happiness in hard times

Kay Acker Why did Kay love this book?

I’ve singled out the story “Up and Comers,” the tale of an indie band whose members have superpowers (but only when they’re drunk) because of its bisexual narrator, but every story in this collection has similar merits: a delightfully odd premise, a grim honesty about how bad life can get, and an unrelenting humor about how ridiculous life always is in spite of the grimness.

Maybe everything is meaningless and absurd, but I’m still here, and so are you, so let’s have a good laugh at ourselves while we can!

By Raphael Bob-Waksberg,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Written with all the scathing dark humor that is a hallmark of BoJack Horseman, Raphael Bob-Waksberg delivers a fabulously off-beat collection of short stories about love—the best and worst thing in the universe.

Featuring:
 
• A young engaged couple forced to deal with interfering relatives dictating the appropriate number of ritual goat sacrifices for their wedding.
 
• A pair of lonely commuters who ride the subway in silence, forever, eternally failing to make that longed-for contact.
 
• A struggling employee at a theme park of U.S. presidents who discovers that love can’t be genetically modified.
 
And fifteen more tales of…


Book cover of Vampires in the Lemon Grove: And Other Stories

S.G. Browne Author Of Lost Creatures: Stories

From my list on genre-bending literary short story collections.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always enjoyed short story collections. Starting with Ray Bradbury and Stephen King, I became a fan of the short form. And as a burgeoning writer, writing short stories was the best way for me to learn the craft of storytelling. While I started out writing supernatural horror, I gradually found myself combining horror, fantasy, and science fiction with dark comedy and social satire, creating a blend of genres. Several of the short story collections I recommend here were instrumental in my evolution as a short story writer and inspired a number of the stories in my latest collection, Lost Creatures.

S.G.'s book list on genre-bending literary short story collections

S.G. Browne Why did S.G. love this book?

I couldn’t leave out this second collection of stories from Karen Russell. Similar to her debut collection but wholly unique, Vampires in the Lemon Grove is the darker, haunted sibling of St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. Even though many of the stories lean more toward horror than fantasy, there remains a sense of wonder, magic, and humor throughout. The story about the rules of Antarctic tailgating for the Food Chain Games pitting Team Whale against Team Krill is one of my favorites.

By Karen Russell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Vampires in the Lemon Grove as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the author of the novel Swamplandia!—a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize—comes a magical and uniquely daring collection of stories that showcases the author’s gifts at their inimitable best.

Within these pages, a community of girls held captive in a Japanese silk factory slowly transmute into human silkworms and plot revolution; a group of boys stumble upon a mutilated scarecrow that bears an uncanny resemblance to a missing classmate that they used to torment; a family’s disastrous quest for land in the American West has grave consequences; and in the marvelous title story, two vampires in a sun-drenched lemon grove…


Book cover of Divine

B.L. Twitchell Author Of The Green

From my list on sci-fi/fantasy driven by romance.

Why am I passionate about this?

I didn’t want to write about this world when I could submerse myself in a magical one! I’ve always had a passion for Sci-fi and Fantasy books and movies. With these genres, you can push your mind to limits that can’t be explored in the normal world. You can investigate imaginary places and fall in love with someone who can throw fire from their hands or teleport to another time. You can slay monsters and swim with merfolk; you can marry an alien and join your two kingdoms. You can even perform science experiments on someone and turn them into a hulk-like creature who runs around town naked! How fun! 

B.L.'s book list on sci-fi/fantasy driven by romance

B.L. Twitchell Why did B.L. love this book?

A coming-of-age fantasy romance with magical realism. The world is made up of two types of people: Typics and Divines. Typics are “typical” people, whereas Divines were born with powerful abilities.

Summer is a Divine who is supposed to teleport, but can’t. Starting over in a new place, she finds a new job, new boss, new friends, and most importantly, the romantic interest, Jonah, a muscly mechanic with a few secrets of his own.

Summer’s boss, a Divine, grows jealous as Summer and Jonah’s relationship blossoms, and they find themselves escaping his rage.

The wit and affection Jonah and Summer share are intoxicating. They are a young couple but are mature for their age and things don’t progress until she turns eighteen. Urban fantasy at its finest!

By B.L. Teschner,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Divine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

** This is a new cover edition. There have been previous cover editions of this book that may show up different on other websites such as Goodreads **

There are two kinds of people in the world: Typics and Divines. Typics are known to society as the normal people on the earth, or, the “typical” human beings. And Divines? Well, they are the people who were born with unique super-human abilities, those of which they choose to either expose or conceal while living among the world of Typics. Divines can be powerful.

Summer Peregrine is a Divine who has the…


Book cover of Nightfall in the Garden of Deep Time

E M Graham Author Of An Ignorant Witch

From my list on fantasy with flawed main characters.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a multi-genre writer, a passionate reader, and, like all of us, a flawed human being. The stories that truly speak to me are the ones with a main character who is imperfect. I may not like the protagonist at first, but as the author develops the story and the hero’s challenges, the character grows, we see inside them and learn to love them, as they also learn to love and accept themselves, flaws and all. They use this growth to make a better world. And that’s what fiction is all about. Of course, it helps if they’re funny too. I love humor.

E M's book list on fantasy with flawed main characters

E M Graham Why did E M love this book?

Kelsey stifles her creative side, for she’s struggling to pay the bills and has to be practical. But in the hidden garden next door, she finds the answers to who she really is, and learns to embrace her creative side and value her gifts. I want to give a copy of this book to every creative person I know, to everyone who has been touched by the imposter syndrome (it’s a real thing with all artistic endeavors!) In this exquisite book, Higley shored up my inspiration as she gently shows us that all of our gifts are welcome.

By Tracy Higley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Nightfall in the Garden of Deep Time as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Kelsey dreams of a life filled with creativity.
She's about to stumble into far more than she imagined...

Kelsey Willoughby doesn’t have time to pursue her dream of writing a novel. Imagination doesn’t pay the bills, and she’s busy saving her beautiful bookshop from online competition, hotel developers, and the sneaking suspicion that nobody reads anymore.

Not to mention all those voices telling her she doesn’t have talent.

But then the vacant lot of weeds next door starts to shimmer.

When Kelsey stumbles into a luminous nighttime garden party, larger than the vacant lot that holds it and filled with…


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