Here are 81 books that Olga Dies Dreaming fans have personally recommended if you like
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Becoming a mother rocked my world in countless ways, drawing me to books that explore the raw, unfiltered truth about how challenging motherhood can be. The complexities—the love, guilt, and frustration—resonate deeply with me. Motherhood is also why I started writing; initially, I wanted to process the overwhelming emotions I was feeling. When I began sharing my writing with friends, their “Yeah, me too's” made me realize I wasn’t alone. I have deep respect for authors who can capture the messiness of motherhood so honestly, and I’m inspired by their ability to put into words what so many of us experience.
This is one of the most hilarious, bizarre, and relatable books about motherhood I've ever read. On the surface, it’s the story of an artist turned stay-at-home mom who believes she’s turning into a dog. But at its core, it's a brilliantly original exploration of art, power, and the identity crisis that often accompanies motherhood.
I loved how it tackled the all-consuming nature of motherhood. It doesn’t shy away from the tough topics and is also laugh-out-loud funny at times. It left me both entertained and deeply reflective.
In this blazingly smart and voracious debut novel, an artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced she's turning into a dog. • "A must-read for anyone who can’t get enough of the ever-blurring line between the psychological and supernatural that Yellowjackets exemplifies." —Vulture
One day, the mother was a mother, but then one night, she was quite suddenly something else...
An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay at home with her newborn son, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only…
I'm passionate about stories that portray women as full human beings managing their passions, challenges, and obligations with grit because I grew up surrounded by a phalanx of them. Those who add “wife” and “mother” to their plate fascinate me all the more, especially as I grow older and better understand the pressures heaped on women. I saw my mother, sister, grandmothers, and aunties in all their complexities, building themselves up as they built families and businesses, starting over when they had to, overcoming the seemingly insurmountable, challenging the status quo, and never giving up. I gravitate toward female characters who share that spirit or grapple with how to get it.
White Oleander, the 2002 film, was one of the most shocking and nuanced depictions of motherhood I had ever seen onscreen—I had to read the book. What most transfixed me about the story is, on the surface, Astrid’s mother and foster mothers had everything society tells you should make life a cakewalk: beauty, ingenuity, and, in one case, wealth.
But the truth is, they are all battling a host of demons, ultimately blessing and cursing Astrid with their flawed, life-worn wisdom. Even still, I love that author Janet Fitch never sacrifices the women to easy “bad mother” stereotypes. It’s clear each mother is mostly doing the best she knows how to outsmart a world riddled with traps.
White Oleander is a painfully beautiful first novel about a young girl growing up the hard way. It is a powerful story of mothers and daughters, their ambiguous alliances, their selfish love and cruel behaviour, and the search for love and identity.Astrid has been raised by her mother, a beautiful, headstrong poet. Astrid forgives her everything as her world revolves around this beautiful creature until Ingrid murders a former lover and is imprisoned for life. Astrid's fierce determination to survive and be loved makes her an unforgettable figure. 'Liquid poetry' - Oprah Winfrey 'Tangled, complex and extraordinarily moving' - Observer
I grew up thinking I liked reading about NYC more than I’d like living there. It was too hectic and loud for a bookworm like me, I thought, too dirty and dangerous. Then my husband was accepted to Cornell’s MD/PhD program, and we moved to Manhattan. Immediately, I found that while the city is as dirty as I’d feared (and it smells), its advantages far outweigh the rest. I can’t get enough of the parks, museums, food, diversity, or the history, much of which drives The Light of Luna Park. So, without further ado, here are my five favorite books that take place in New York from the 1800s to today.
I can’t resist a good dual timeline, and A Fall of Marigoldsdelivers. The primary timeline centers on an Ellis Island nurse who’s adopted the hospital as her refuge after escaping the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist Fire; the secondary, a woman who loses her husband on 9/11. There are thematic parallels—loss, grief, healing, love—as well as striking similarities between the two events, but it is a scarf that ties the two characters directly together.
I was only three years old on 9/11, so I don’t have my own memories of it. Even to me, Meissner conveys the tragedy so intimately that I think I came away with a better understanding of its horrors. But don’t be scared away: This book is about new beginnings more than it is about destruction.
A beautiful scarf connects two women touched by tragedy in this compelling, emotional novel from the author of As Bright as Heaven and The Last Year of the War.
September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries...and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions…
My book is fantastical historical fiction about two characters who're wrestling with the monstrosity of their grief.
It takes you into London high society, where Ambrose tries to forget about how much he misses Bennett and how much he dreads becoming as cold as their Grandfather. It takes you to…
I grew up thinking I liked reading about NYC more than I’d like living there. It was too hectic and loud for a bookworm like me, I thought, too dirty and dangerous. Then my husband was accepted to Cornell’s MD/PhD program, and we moved to Manhattan. Immediately, I found that while the city is as dirty as I’d feared (and it smells), its advantages far outweigh the rest. I can’t get enough of the parks, museums, food, diversity, or the history, much of which drives The Light of Luna Park. So, without further ado, here are my five favorite books that take place in New York from the 1800s to today.
The best characters are the ones with scandalous pasts, and Una Kelly certainly fits into that category. Though she applies to the Bellevue Training School for Nurses in the 1880s to avoid being implicated in a theft, she ends up uncovering far worse crimes happening under the doctors’ noses. Skenandore has done her research here, and you’ll be transported into the Bellevue Hospital of the 1880s with an almost alarming sense of reality. Despite richly detailed descriptions of grimy tenement living, the gore of 19th-century medicine, and all the seedy aspects of New York’s past, The Nurse’s Secret leaves the reader with hope rather than despair.
The unflinching, spellbinding new book from the acclaimed author of The Second Life of Mirielle West. Based on the little-known story of America’s first nursing school, a young female grifter in 1880s New York evades the police by conning her way into Bellevue Hospital’s training school for nurses, while a spate of murders continues to follow her as she tries to leave the gritty streets of the city behind…
“A spellbinding story, a vividly drawn setting, and characters that leap off the pages. This is historical fiction at its finest!” —Sara Ackerman, USA Today bestselling author of The Codebreaker’s Secret…
I grew up thinking I liked reading about NYC more than I’d like living there. It was too hectic and loud for a bookworm like me, I thought, too dirty and dangerous. Then my husband was accepted to Cornell’s MD/PhD program, and we moved to Manhattan. Immediately, I found that while the city is as dirty as I’d feared (and it smells), its advantages far outweigh the rest. I can’t get enough of the parks, museums, food, diversity, or the history, much of which drives The Light of Luna Park. So, without further ado, here are my five favorite books that take place in New York from the 1800s to today.
Bluebird by Sharon Cameron took my breath away. It’s a thriller, a mystery, a romance, and the best type of historical fiction all rolled up together, and though it’s officially young adult, it’s too good for adults to pass up. The novel follows a German girl named Eva who flees Germany for New York City in 1946 seeking justice as much as safety. The daughter of a Nazi mastermind, Eva is hunting down her father for reasons both personal and political, and her journey is filled with both physical and psychological danger. Bluebird is fast-paced and fascinating, as well as thought-provoking and full of well-researched history on everything from Nazi propaganda to Quaker humanitarian relief in New York City.
Author of Reese's Book Club YA Pick The Light in Hidden Places, Sharon Cameron, delivers an emotionally gripping and utterly immersive thriller, perfect for fans of Ruta Sepetys's Salt to the Sea.
In 1946, Eva leaves behind the rubble of Berlin for the streets of New York City, stepping from the fiery aftermath of one war into another, far colder one, where power is more important than principles, and lies are more plentiful than the truth. Eva holds the key to a deadly secret: Project Bluebird -- a horrific experiment of the concentration camps, capable of tipping the balance of…
I grew up thinking I liked reading about NYC more than I’d like living there. It was too hectic and loud for a bookworm like me, I thought, too dirty and dangerous. Then my husband was accepted to Cornell’s MD/PhD program, and we moved to Manhattan. Immediately, I found that while the city is as dirty as I’d feared (and it smells), its advantages far outweigh the rest. I can’t get enough of the parks, museums, food, diversity, or the history, much of which drives The Light of Luna Park. So, without further ado, here are my five favorite books that take place in New York from the 1800s to today.
Behold the Dreamers follows Cameroonian immigrants Jende and Neni Jonga as they build their lives in New York City. We see the many cities within the city through Jende and Neni's home in Harlem, their work for a family in the Upper East Side and the Hamptons, their friends in the Bronx, and Jende's boss' career on Wall Street. Mbue explores home, belonging, family, and identity as it warps or stays the same across racial, national, and economic divides. This human book is joyful and depressing and universal and intimate and personal and political.
A compulsively readable debut novel about marriage, immigration, class, race, and the trapdoors in the American Dream—the unforgettable story of a young Cameroonian couple making a new life in New York just as the Great Recession upends the economy
New York Times Bestseller • Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award • Longlisted for the PEN/Open Book Award • An ALA Notable Book
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • The New York Times Book Review • San Francisco Chronicle • The Guardian • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • Chicago Public Library • BookPage • Refinery29 • Kirkus…
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…
The first time I learned that I was raised by a “bad” mother was when I was in the first grade. The teachers complained that my mother hadn’t shown up for parent-teacher conferences and never could get me to school on time. But I knew what they did not, that my mother worked a lot and was raising kids all her own and yet still had time to take us to the library to read books that were well beyond the ones at school. Because of my highly iterant life raised by a bookish and neglectful mother, I have always been interested in the relationship between children and their less-than-perfect mothers.
The Son of Good Fortune (Excel) has an outrageous single mother who defies societal expectations. Maxima, a former B-movie action star in the Philippines, runs an online scam siphoning money from men.
She dominates the book with her humor and zest for life, even as she is forced to live in the margins as an undocumented immigrant, raising a child all on her own.
This is a funny and smart and poignant book. I loved the mother in this book and felt for her son, Excel, deeply.
A Recommended Book From: USA Today * The Chicago Tribune * Book Riot * Refinery 29 * InStyle * The Minneapolis Star-Tribune * Publishers Weekly * Baltimore Outloud * Omnivoracious * Lambda Literary * Goodreads * Lit Hub * The Millions
FINALIST FOR THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE WINNER OF THE NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARD
From award-winning author Lysley Tenorio, comes a big hearted debut novel following an undocumented Filipino son as he navigates his relationship with his mother, an uncertain future, and the place he calls home
Excel spends his days trying to seem like an unremarkable American teenager.…
The first time I learned that I was raised by a “bad” mother was when I was in the first grade. The teachers complained that my mother hadn’t shown up for parent-teacher conferences and never could get me to school on time. But I knew what they did not, that my mother worked a lot and was raising kids all her own and yet still had time to take us to the library to read books that were well beyond the ones at school. Because of my highly iterant life raised by a bookish and neglectful mother, I have always been interested in the relationship between children and their less-than-perfect mothers.
This book takes the idea of “badass” to another level of meaning and measure.
Here, Hattie is a mother of twelve children of various stories and in some ways, a stand-in for all mothers who made the migration north from the deep south of the United States. She’s tough but loving and endures the kind of struggles that would knock many people down.
'I can't remember when I read anything that moved me quite this way, besides the work of Toni Morrison.' Oprah Winfrey
'Mathis traces the fates of Hattie's 12 children and grandchildren over the course of the 20th century . . . [it] is remarkable.' Sunday Times
'Ms. Mathis has a gift for imbuing her characters' stories with an epic dimension that recalls Toni Morrison's writing.' New York Times
Fifteen years old and blazing with the hope of a better life, Hattie Shepherd fled the horror of the American South on a dawn train bound for Philadelphia.…
As a past award-winning weekly newspaper columnist turned business owner, I eventually embraced the love of writing following an auto accident that necessitated more than eight years of rehabilitative therapy. Scripting my first novel proved more of a therapeutic undertaking and it was released in 2020 to moderate success. That experience then compelled me to learn more about the craft of being a novelist. Two years later, the original work was modified and Revised Edition Family Ties: Thicker Than Blood was launched in June of 2022.
This novel is an invigorating thrill ride along the streets of “Old Brooklyn” in a modern-day setting. As a former New Yorker who once listed Brooklyn as a hangout, it is rather easy to empathize with Sydney Green while she witnesses her cherished neighborhood being overtaken by invader investors perusing the streets in the guise of tourists. Something strikes her as peculiar when For Sale signs continue popping up at the existing homes with long-time neighbors suspiciously relocating to the suburbs.
Ironically, Sydney encounters an unlikely helpmate in the form of someone whom she considers one of the intruders; Theo, a new neighbor. There’s a mutual distrust between them but it is not enough to override their suspicions about the things that are taking place. Is it overly accentuated paranoia or a genuine fear that compels the unlikely pair of sleuths to discover what is actually happening? Will their homes…
An instant NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY BESTSELLER!
"I was knocked over by the momentum of an intense psychological thriller that doesn't let go until the final page. This is a terrific read." - Alafair Burke, New York Times bestselling author
*Marie Claire's September Book Club Pick*
Rear Window meets Get Out in this gripping thriller from a critically acclaimed and New York Times Notable author, in which the gentrification of a Brooklyn neighborhood takes on a sinister new meaning...
Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos…
Return to Hope Creek is a second-chance rural romance set in Australia.
Stella Simpson's career and engagement are over. She returns to the rural community of Hope Creek to heal, unaware her high school and college sweetheart, Mitchell Scott, has also moved back to town to do some healing of…
My wife and I were at a red sauce joint in the West Village of Manhattan drinking a bit of wine when we posed the question: who invented all this? We knew Italian American food didn’t look all that much like the food we ate in Italy. Later, at home, I started Googling for answers. None were satisfactory. I read a few books before finding myself at the New York Public library sleuthing through JSTOR. After examining my notes, I said to myself, “oh, I guess I’m writing a book.”
Corner grocery stores are everywhere in New York City, but most of the time we never really think very hard about them. Ben Ryder Howe on the other hand, drew on his own experience running the family bodega. The store he ran was on the border between a rapidly gentrifying section of Brooklyn and a neighborhood with public housing. The changing customer base meant his store shelves began to gentrify like the neighborhood around him, but as he soon learned, too many changes too quickly are bad for business. Part memoir, part researched journalism, Ryder Howe provides a fascinating look into a New York City staple.
It starts with a gift, when Ben Ryder Howe's wife, the daughter of Korean immigrants, decides to repay her parents' self-sacrifice by buying them a store. Howe, an editor at the rarefied Paris Review, agrees to go along. Things soon become a lot more complicated. After the business struggles, Howe finds himself living in the basement of his in-laws' Staten Island home, commuting to the Paris Review offices in George Plimpton's Upper East Side townhouse by day, and heading to Brooklyn at night to slice cold cuts and peddle lottery tickets. "My Korean Deli" follows the store's tumultuous life span,…
