Here are 100 books that Golden Child fans have personally recommended if you like
Golden Child.
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One of the things I love most about fiction is the way it allows you to “be” different people—to experience, think, feel, and behave from inside a particular temperament, worldview, or experience. My very favorite is adding the complexity of multiple perspectives to that magic trick so that you get to live inside two or more people who may be at complete odds with each other. Reading good fiction is an exercise in empathy, and reading good fiction from multiple viewpoints is empathy supercharged. I’ve loved that immersion since I was a little kid who believed there was nothing better than a novel.
This novel is an immersive read with heaps of empathy for all its characters but especially for the two sisters whose perspectives are at the center of the story: the twin who disappears to live a secret life, passing as white, and the twin left behind.
We don’t get the perspective of Stella, the vanished twin, until 14 years after her disappearance, 150 pages into the book. By then, I was fully absorbed in the grief and unanswered questions of the people she’d abandoned, eager to finally know where she’d been all this time and to understand her complex motivations and the emotional and mental toll of relinquishing—and hiding—her racial identity, her community, her sister, and her past. I picked this book up and didn’t put it down until it was done.
THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP BESTSELLER #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE
'An utterly mesmerising novel..I absolutely loved this book' Bernardine Evaristo, winner of the Booker Prize 2019
'Epic' Kiley Reid, O, The Oprah Magazine
'Favourite book [of the] year' Issa Rae
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years…
I’m an award-winning author whose books are all set on my beautiful island of Barbados. Reading and writing have always been a part of my life and I’m obsessed with books that explore other cultures and lifestyles. There’s nothing more intoxicating than reading about new foods and new environments all interconnected by our shared humanity. They could be fantasy books with great world-building or literary fiction that explore a tiny Asian city I never heard about. All of these incredible books have influenced my writing and expanded my knowledge of the world around me.
This book was mandatory reading for most of us going to the Caribbean in secondary school.
For that reason, it may elicit a groan from those who have less than pleasant memories of school-enforced reading. But for me, it really was the first time I remember reading a book set in my home country of Barbados.
It’s a heart-warming coming-of-age story that takes you back and makes you wish for the good old days.
Nearly forty years after its initial publication, George Lamming's In the Castle of My Skin is considered a classic narrative of the Black colonial experience. This poetic autobiographical novel juxtaposes the undeveloped, unencumbered life of a small Caribbean island with the materialism and anxiety of the twentieth century.
Written when Lamming was twenty-three and residing in England, In the Castle of My Skin poignantly chronicles the author's life from his ninth to his nineteenth year. Through the eyes of a young boy the experiences of colonial education, class tensions, and natural disaster are interpreted and reinterpreted, mediated through the presence…
I’m an award-winning author whose books are all set on my beautiful island of Barbados. Reading and writing have always been a part of my life and I’m obsessed with books that explore other cultures and lifestyles. There’s nothing more intoxicating than reading about new foods and new environments all interconnected by our shared humanity. They could be fantasy books with great world-building or literary fiction that explore a tiny Asian city I never heard about. All of these incredible books have influenced my writing and expanded my knowledge of the world around me.
This story is a remarkable tale of family, love, loss, and belonging. And it’s also based on a true story!
The book was so rich and well done. The author does a remarkable job of taking the reader to 1940s to 1960s Trinidad.
Marcia Garcia works as a seamstress while raising two small boys as she attracts the interest of a dashing policeman. Marrying him complicates her life and eventually starts to unravel the family secret that she has been safeguarding for years.
The New York Times Sunday Book Review Shortlist Black Caucus of the American Library Association 2015 Honor Book in Fiction Booklist Starred Review O, The Oprah Magazine "10 Titles to Pick Up Now"
A glorious and moving multigenerational, multicultural saga that sweeps from the 1940s through the 1960s in Trinidad and the United States. 'Til the Well Runs Dry opens in a seaside village in the north of Trinidad, where young Marcia Garcia, a gifted and smart-mouthed sixteen-year-old seamstress, lives alone, raising two small boys and guarding a family secret. When she meets Farouk Karam,…
Secrets, misunderstandings, and a plethora of family conflicts abound in this historical novel set along the Brazos River in antebellum Washington County, East Texas.
It is a compelling story of two neighboring plantation families and a few of the enslaved people who serve them. These two plantations are a microcosm…
I’m an award-winning author whose books are all set on my beautiful island of Barbados. Reading and writing have always been a part of my life and I’m obsessed with books that explore other cultures and lifestyles. There’s nothing more intoxicating than reading about new foods and new environments all interconnected by our shared humanity. They could be fantasy books with great world-building or literary fiction that explore a tiny Asian city I never heard about. All of these incredible books have influenced my writing and expanded my knowledge of the world around me.
This book touched me. I remember reading it late one night and being instantly transported to a culture that sounded like the one I’ve known all my life.
This is a beautifully wrought children’s book set on the island of Jamaica that explores a child’s search for some semblance of the truth. Along the way, readers will love ‘seeing’ her play games, interact with a hilariously miserable old neighbour and take in the Jamaican culture with wonderment.
Nothing much happens in Sycamore, the small village where Clara lives - at least, that's how it looks. She loves eating ripe mangoes fallen from trees, running outside in the rainy season and escaping to her secret hideout with her best friend Gaynah. There's only one problem - she can't remember anything that happened last summer.
When a quirky girl called Rudy arrives from England, everything starts to change. Gaynah stops acting like a best friend, while Rudy and Clara roam across the island and uncover an old family secret. As the summer reaches its peak and the island storms…
I'm passionate about ghost stories, classic gothic literature, and horror comics, and I have always felt that October is too short to contain the atmospheric chills and versatility of horror stories. I am also passionate about graphic novels and have worked as a professional illustrator, comic artist, and colorist for 7 years. I love the camp, the fun, and the macabre invoked by Summerween. Now that I have written and published my own cozy, spooky graphic novel, which made both the American Book Association's Indies Introduce List for Summer 2024 and People Magazine's Summerween 2024 Book List, I want to shine the spotlight on other comics with the feeling of October.
This book surprised me a lot. I was expecting a gory, grimdark, good-for-her revenge story—and it is that—but this book is also darkly funny! It gives What We Do in the Shadows vibes, but with demons.
The comic follows a duo of hapless twin siblings who are way over their heads, coming to terms with their demonic heritage, coping with emotionally unavailable parents, and running the family restaurant. I feel it perfectly balances dark comedy and gripping horror in its themes. (CW: gore)
The Night Eaters: She Eats the Nights is the first volume in a graphic novel horror trilogy from author Marjorie Liu and illustrator Sana Takeda—the creative team behind the New York Times bestselling series Monstress.
NAMED A BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST NAMED A BOOK WE LOVED BY NPR
Chinese American twins Milly and Billy are having a tough time. On top of the multiple failures in their personal and professional lives, they’re struggling to keep their restaurant afloat. Luckily their parents, Ipo and Keon, are in town for their annual visit. Having immigrated from…
I was a late reader. I was, in fact, forcefully against reading. You’d have had to drag me by my ear to get me anywhere near a book. I was dyslexic, suffered with Irlen syndrome, and detested the embarrassing fact that I found reading too difficult. I thought my mother had invented some kind of cruel torture when she insisted I read to her every day. It never worked. And then… it did. I read my first book at the age of 12, and it was written in the form of letters. It was Animorphs Book 1 by KA Applegate, and the rest, as they say, is history.
This book sucker-punched me. Trigger warning for child abuse, gaslighting, alcoholism, drug abuse, EDs, Incest, and self-harm. Told entirely in verse, this novel follows the lives of identical twins, Kaeleigh and Raeanne, the seemingly perfect all-American girls. But each sister is hiding a dark secret. Raeanne uses drugs, alcohol, and sex to replace the love her father lavishes on her sister. Neither sister is holding onto their dark secrets very well, and pretty soon one will have to save the other. But who will step up? This novel was my first experience reading a novel in verse, and I still marvel at the technical skill it must have taken and the bruise my heart sustained in the process.
Kaeleigh and Raeanne are identical down to the dimple. As daughters of a district-court judge father and a politician mother, they are an all-American family -- on the surface. Behind the facade each sister has her own dark secret, and that's where their differences begin.
For Kaeleigh, she's the misplaced focus of Daddy's love, intended for a mother whose presence on the campaign trail means absence at home. All that Raeanne sees is Daddy playing a game of favorites -- and she is losing. If she has to lose,…
Emmitt’s plans collapse when his wife, Mirai, suddenly backs out of purchasing their dream home. Disappointed, he’s surprised to discover her subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo.
In his search for a meaningful life in Japan, and after quitting his job, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law…
I love the way verse novels eliminate unnecessary background and scene-setting. They cut straight to the heart of conflict and emotions. We instantly feel what the characters feel. The lyrical flow of words, figurative language, and freedom to arrange the poems in different ways on the pages taps into a different creativity for an author. Each poem stands alone, telling its own story. While writing Wishes, Dares, and How to Stand Up to a Bully, eleven-year-old Jack insisted I tell the story his way. Raw, unflinching, unfiltered. I am in love with this form and plan to write more novels in this format. The book is a 2021 NCTE notable verse novel.
Closer to Nowhereexplores family dynamics and ‘tween feelings in an honest and realistic way. Two cousins – as opposite as left and right – seem to constantly be at odds. When they take time to actually communicate with each other, they realize they have more in common than they thought. Told in alternating POVs, the reader shares Cal and Hannah’s struggles as they tell them. Told with honesty and compassion.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Ellen Hopkins's poignant middle grade novel in verse about coming to terms with indelible truths of family and belonging--now in paperback!
For the most part, Hannah's life is just how she wants it. She has two supportive parents, she's popular at school, and she's been killing it at gymnastics. But when her cousin Cal moves in with her family, everything changes. Cal tells half-truths and tall tales, pranks Hannah constantly, and seems to be the reason her parents are fighting more and more. Nothing is how it used to be. She knows that Cal…
When my father died in 1998, bladder cancer, I was 41 years old and privileged to be his primary caregiver for five weeks. My first major loss and it was as though a mack truck had been driven through my chest. Ten years later, my mother died, after nine years of dementia, which is like losing someone twice. That was a more ravaging grief. Twelve years later, my nephew died, a month away from his 36th birthday. And in 2022, one close friend of mine took his own life and another died of cancer at age 57. Grief is the subject I gravitate toward in the books I read and the essays I write.
It is fair to say that this is my favorite memoir I’ve ever read. I’m shocked it didn’t make bestseller lists when it came out. Finneran is a poet, who through the language, attention to detail, and strategic pacing of key scenes, makes readers see and feel what she wants us to see and feel. This book offered me, as a teacher of college writing, numerous perfect examples of how scenes can be developed to drop readers into a moment, to transport them. Finneran focuses the memoir on how her brother’s suicide affected her whole, big, Catholic family. The Tender Land, a Family Love Story is a portrait of a family who has lost something huge. Devastating content aside, this is a memoir that you will delight in, sentence by sentence, for its language. Highly recommend this remarkable book.
An extraordinary memoir of a family haunted by tragedy: “I’ve read very few contemporary novels that can rival Finneran’s nonfiction.” —Jonathan Franzen
A superb portrait of family life, this “absorbing and thoughtful” memoir is a love story unlike any other (Library Journal). The Finnerans—Irish Catholic parents with five children in St. Louis—are a seemingly unexceptional family whose lives are upended by a catastrophic event: the suicide of the author’s fifteen-year-old younger brother after being publicly humiliated in junior high school.
A gentle, handsome boy, Sean Finneran was a straight-A student and gifted athlete, especially treasured by every member of his…
Growing up in a Spanish-speaking household, there was a saying: “Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres.” That is, the company you keep says a lot about you. The sense of belonging that comes from being a part of a group is something we have chased since we were kids. I remember the close-knit friends’ group I joined in the eighth grade, and the core four of us are still best friends to this day (just about 25 years later!). I’m fascinated by what those strong bonds can make you do–including leading you to bend or break your moral compass.
Everyone needs a little camp in their lives. This book is about the “OG” group of friends who get entangled in a hush-hush death and are hunted and haunted (literally!) by the secret. It even inspired an equally campy and fun-filled movie starring young Hollywood stars from the ’90s!
We literary types often forget that books are meant to entertain. I love being transported to an absurd world with high drama, rollercoaster twists and turns, and a central mystery so far out there that you’ll roll your eyes, laugh, and keep turning those pages with abandon.
It was only an accident but it would change their lives forever.
Last summer, four terrified friends made a desperate pact to conceal a shocking secret. But now, someone has learned the truth, and the horror is starting again. There is an unknown avenger out there who is stalking them in a deadly game. Will he stop at terror--or is he out for revenge?
This summer, four friends are going to learn that some secrets just won't stay buried.
Ava Winston likes her life of routine in Lexington, Kentucky. Then a tornado blows it away. Ava is safe in the basement, but when she emerges, only one corner of her home stands. Rather than crumbling under the loss, she feels a load lifted. Maybe something beyond the familiar is…
As a Gen X kid growing up in a very conservative place, I struggled with gender, not feeling like the girl I was supposed to be. I knew I wasn’t a boy, and that just led to uncertainty and perpetual emotional discomfort. When I first heard about the concept of nonbinary gender a few years ago, my mind was blown. I knew if I were young, I would have immediately come out as nonbinary. But as an older person, it felt weird and pointless. Writing and reading books about people struggling with gender gave me the courage to finally be true to myself, and acknowledge that I am agender.
It’s always great to get a reminder to be true to yourself when you don’t fit in easily.
This dystopian YA novel has good worldbuilding and a rich lexicon of new words that gives it that idiosyncratic futuristic feeling. The protagonist is a barely fifteen-year-old girl “bender”—someone who doesn’t feel comfortable in their assigned gender and doesn’t hide that. She has been sent to a camp that will determine her future, making sure she doesn’t end up in the “Blight”, a huge concentration camp for society’s undesirables.
But for a good outcome, she must conform, and her fellow campers and new experiences make that confusing and difficult. The ending is fairly open, but she has clearly learned to be true to herself and reject arbitrarily assigned labels.
In a futuristic society run by an all-powerful Gov, a bender teen on the cusp of adulthood has choices to make that will change her life—and maybe the world.
Fifteen-year-old bender Kivali has had a rough time in a gender-rigid culture. Abandoned as a baby and raised by Sheila, an ardent nonconformist, Kivali has always been surrounded by uncertainty. Where did she come from? Is it true what Sheila says, that she was deposited on Earth by the mysterious saurians? What are you? people ask, and Kivali isn’t sure. Boy/girl? Human/lizard? Both/neither? Now she’s in CropCamp, with all of its…
