75 books like Night Wherever We Go

Having read this book when I was 22, it helped shape my fear of the danger of complacent societies. Simply but powerfully written, its first-person narrative creates a sense of claustrophobia, a glimpse into the isolating and dehumanizing life of a handmaid. 

Through Offred, the traumas she experiences, and the people she interacts with the whole world of Gilead springs to scary life. While reading the book, it struck me that nothing was totally made up. Every incident in the book was derived from history. These things had already happened, and they could happen again. It showed me that victory is not always heroic and impressive. Sometimes, victory can be just surviving oppression.

I’ll read anything with motherhood as an overarching theme.

Set in a near-future America, this novel explores the lives of women dealing with the consequences of legislation restricting reproductive rights. Multiple narrative threads and alternating perspectives offer a complex and interconnected look at the lives of its characters.

Valentine handles some very heavy topics beautifully.

Many of the characters are connected by only one thread: they are women trying to survive in West Texas in the early 1970s. It centers around a brutal incident and the quest to find justice for a Mexican teenage girl who was violently assaulted.

Throughout the story we get such an intimate look at these women’s lives. I felt like I knew them. I felt like I was sitting right next to them in their kitchen or on their front porch.

These women were all hardened by the trials life had thrown at them, and were battling the urge to protect themselves with the urge to protect one another. I loved this book because it was just so honest. 

I love this book because it has everything, believable, engaging characters, a riveting plot, a vivid setting, and a cause. Larger-than-life Margery O’Hare and lady-like Alice are unlikely friends, but friends they become in this great story.

When I first saw photos of those "librarians on horseback," the wonderful women who responded to Eleanor Roosevelt’s call to take books to the rural poor of Kentucky in the depressed 1930s, I longed to know more. Jojo Moyes gives us lots more. There’s an array of well-drawn characters, but it’s Margery and Alice who drive the story forward, defying the odds to achieve their aims and find men who love and appreciate them.

Yes, it’s a love story, too, and a whodunnit? Perfect!

Book of the Little Axe follows one woman at two ends of her life, spanning from the late 1700s to the early 1800s.

One thread follows who she will become—“Ma,” wife to an Apsáalooke man and mother to three children—and the woman she was before, “Rosa,” a daughter and sister in Trinidad. A third thread follows a man named Creadon’s diary.

This book explores so many important and complex topics like what it means to be family, what it means to belong, and what it means to accept yourself. I loved how deep Francis-Sharma dives into the feelings of shame and pride and fear that the characters feel.

I felt those same things and it made me physically ache for them.

Amy Tan is a master at telling stories that explore the complex dynamics of family relationships.

I’ve read a lot of her books, but The Hundred Secret Senses is my favorite because I adore Kwan, the main character’s half-sister from China. Kwan has a special secret that she can see and speak to ghosts, but Olivia always dismisses her as a little crazy and only pretends to believe her stories.

I love this book because it made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions and because it was so relatable.

We all have family members that we both love and can’t stand at the same time. This book goes back and forth between the 1990s and the 1800s.

If you love books about sisters, you need to read this one!

I read this novel when I was hungry for books with strong female characters.

The main character, the unnamed midwife, didn’t disappoint. Her journey emphasizes the importance of choice and agency when it comes to reproductive decisions. She works to empower women to make choices about their own bodies and reproductive futures, even in a world where such choices are limited.

Because of its timelessness, The Scarlet Letter will remain one of my favorite novels. When She Woke is a modern retelling, set in a future where criminals have their skin genetically altered to reflect the nature of their crimes.

The story focuses on the journey of a woman who is "chromed" red for having an abortion and the lessons on love and autonomy that follow.

The great landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted was a journalist before he found his true calling - he designed New York’s Central Park, Roland Park in Baltimore, and many other green spaces across the U.S. Olmsted toured East Texas in the early 1850s as a correspondent for the New York Daily Times. An ardent abolitionist, he reported on the cruelty of slavery, which he found permeated the society. The white slaveholders lived in almost constant dread of their insurrection and escape, which were constant. Occasionally, the slaves themselves had dogs who would engage the hounds used by slave owners and overseers to track and capture the runaways. Olmsted used the nom de plume Yoeman and he compiled his reports and journals into a trilogy that looks at the institution of slavery in its last decade.  His companion for much of his journey was a bull terrier named Judy, a… show more.

Forget the Alamo is a take-off on the popular saying at the time in Texas, “Remember the Alamo,” which was a battle cry. I love this book because of the logic the authors use and the tremendous hard-core research of letters and documents, to show why one of America’s legendary tales was a lot more myth. The true story of “why” more than the actual outcome continues to be battled today. John Wayne’s version, which many of us grew up with, was so far from the truth, it boggles the mind. The documentation in this book and the logic behind the letters that were written reveal the sad truth of what happened and more importantly what led up to the tragic end for so many brave souls.