100 books like Rage of Angels

First, I found the writing in this book phenomenal, especially the dialogue. I feel like each bit of dialogue revealed something new about the character or pulled me deeper into the plot. It’s witty and dark. Honest would be a good word to describe it.

The characters felt so human to me–simultaneously loveable and deplorable, true to human nature. But it was the twist midway through the novel that really drew me in—the shift in reality. It changed the book for me, molding it into something unique, something I’d never read before.

It’s a novel I come back to time and time again, especially when I need inspiration.

If anyone’s life seems perfect, you can be sure that it isn’t. Big Little Lies follows a group of school moms, in a nice neighborhood, who bond and support each other while hiding massive secrets.

Liane Moriarty is a master at crafting relatable characters who feel real, like people you know from the school gates, only more glamorous. The idyllic suburban setting is equally vivid, while the twists keep coming. This isn’t a typical whodunnit but an exploration of the truths women hide from themselves and each other.

You’ve probably read it already, but if you haven’t–grab it.

This book is on my list of all-time favorites. I read it more than a decade ago, but I still can’t get the ending out of my head. The book is intriguing and fast-paced, and I found the characters so relatable–normal, middle-class people, much like my own family.

Maybe that is why the ending hit me so hard. I didn’t see it coming, but I should have. Maybe I didn’t want to believe it could happen or even consider the possibility. Who would? What a twist. All the evidence is there. The motive is there. It is the only ending that makes sense. It’s perfect. 

A prolific author, Picoult is particularly good at highlighting contemporary issues which defy easy answers. Nineteen Minutes describes a school shooting in a small New Hampshire town. The teenager who committed the crime began as a young boy who wanted only to fit in. When that proved impossible, he endeavored not to stand out. Finally he could not accept a life where he was not seen. However, no one – not his classmates, his parents, the police, or the members of the legal system – has a pure motive in the actions which follow.  

Mackenzie Corbett is an ambitious second-year corporate associate at a Manhattan law firm; but when she finds herself being thrown under the bus in an investigation that could ruin her career, she has to ask herself if life in Biglaw is worth it? This book is part exposé, part life-affirming self-discovery. Cameron made me laugh out loud at the absurdity of associate life (it’s totally crazy and yet so real) and at her depictions of the various intense personalities at the fictional firm. This book is a funny, fast-paced rollercoaster ride that ultimately asks, What does success mean? I highly recommend this book if you’re looking for an entertaining read with a smart, witty heroine (or someone questioning their career choice). 

Shakespeare wanted to kill all the lawyers, and this book will give you a reason to. On second thought, be glad that these two roguish lawyers, William Howe and Abe Hummel, lived to fill this book with colorful stories of the criminal underworld in late nineteenth-century New York and how the crooks got away with it. Howe, a flamboyant, heavily bejeweled (and heavy) trial lawyer, could reduce juries to tears, while his gnomish partner, Abe Hummel, counted P. T. Barnum, Buffalo Bill Cody, and other celebrity hucksters among his clients. Between them, Howe and Hummel were in on almost every major criminal trial of their era, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, but always leaving behind a trail of crookedness that would make even the shadiest of today’s lawyers blush.

I loved that, in addition to telling stories of her clients, Goldberg (an attorney) writes about how she herself became the victim of cyber abuse by a former boyfriend. I think hearing this from a smart, successful woman can help other victims overcome the tendency to blame themselves.

The stories Goldberg tells in her book make clear how life-destroying it is when nude images of a woman are posted online, whether because of so-called “revenge porn” or sextortion. I think this is only going to become a bigger problem because now, thanks to AI, it’s so easy to create nude deepfakes.

Accounts like Goldberg’s can help galvanize the laws we need to criminalize the sharing of nude images without consent.

Constance Baker Motley’s role within the Civil Rights Movement had not received the recognition it deserved until Tomiko Brown-Nagin’s Civil Rights Queen. Brown-Nagin reconstructs Motley’s life and pushes readers to consider the activist and legal career of the first Black woman appointed as a federal judge. As a writer who is especially interested in studying Black working-class women, I appreciate the author’s close attention to how Motley’s life from a working-class background to her position as a judge of the Southern District of New York.

I am a huge fan of urban fantasy, and have written several myself, including my newest project.

Of all the UFs I have read, C.E. Murphy’s Negotiator series is my favorite. Heart of Stone, the first book in the sequence, introduces us to a magically reimagined New York City that is populated by dragons, vampires, and gargoyles that come to life at night and slumber in their stone form by day.

It also introduces us to Magrit Knight, a smart, powerful, fearless hero who will capture your heart and have you cheering (when you’re not breathlessly rushing to see what happens to her next)!

A social satire that perfectly captured the greed and arrogance of the 1980s. Sherman Helmsly is a master of the universe, a rich bond trader with a penthouse in New York, and a randy mistress—until he accidentally runs over a black boy in the Bronx. The result is a political scandal that reaches from the mayor’s office to the tabloids, with many memorable characters and acute parodies of the era. Those who lived in or followed the scandals of the city at the time—from Tawana Brawley to Ivan Boesky—will recognize several real people and stories in this fiction.