Here are 100 books that Say Her Name fans have personally recommended if you like
Say Her Name.
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I’m a mystery/thriller author fascinated by how and why people, especially black women, go missing. I’ve probably watched every episode of Unsolved Mysteries, Dateline, and Forensic Files. For me, the questions are always the same. What led up to their disappearance? And more importantly, who were these women? What’s their backstory? So often, the lives of the missing get lost in the circumstances and details surrounding their disappearances. These five books show how the media ignores missing marginalized women. I hope that these excellent thrillers give readers some much-needed food for thought.
I love this book because nothing is as it seems, especially Autumn, the unreliable narrator, who is searching for her missing twin sister, Summer, who disappeared in a way that defies all reason.
It kept me guessing until the very end. And even though the answer Autumn uncovers about what happened to Summer is completely unexpected, given the circumstances of Autumn’s life experiences, it made perfect sense. I thought about this book for a long time after reading it.
This book expertly navigates the topics of mental health and sexual violence, as well as the plight of missing black women, which largely go unnoticed and underreported by the media.
A “powerful song about what it means to survive as a woman in America” (Jesmyn Ward), this “fiercely astute” novel follows a sister determined to uncover the truth about her twin’s disappearance (Tayari Jones).
On a cold December evening, Autumn Spencer’s twin sister, Summer, walks to the roof of their shared Harlem brownstone and is never seen again. The door to the roof is locked, and the snow holds only one set of footprints. Faced with authorities indifferent to another missing Black woman, Autumn must pursue the search for her sister all on her own.
I’m a mystery/thriller author fascinated by how and why people, especially black women, go missing. I’ve probably watched every episode of Unsolved Mysteries, Dateline, and Forensic Files. For me, the questions are always the same. What led up to their disappearance? And more importantly, who were these women? What’s their backstory? So often, the lives of the missing get lost in the circumstances and details surrounding their disappearances. These five books show how the media ignores missing marginalized women. I hope that these excellent thrillers give readers some much-needed food for thought.
I love thrillers set in foreign locations that give me a glimpse into other cultures, along with a big dose of mystery and intrigue. This book delivers on all fronts.
I could not put this book down. Set in Lagos, Nigeria, I loved the dual points of view of Nicole, the missing British wife of a wealthy Nigerian businessman, and her estranged aunt Claudine, who arrives from London to look for her. The sense of dread, helplessness, and desperation both women experience throughout the book is palpable and devastating, making both characters relatable and well-developed.
This book deftly explores the complications that arise when women, especially black women, go missing in foreign countries.
'I was hooked right through to the shocking end' BERNARDINE EVARISTO
'An excellent read' GUARDIAN
'Beautifully written, immersive, thought-provoking' MARIAN KEYES
'Obsessed' KERRY WASHINGTON
'A shimmering success' DIANA EVANS
THE PERFECT WIFE. THE PERFECT MURDER.
Nicole Oruwari has the perfect life: a handsome husband, a palatial house in the heart of Lagos and a glamorous group of friends. She left London and a troubled family past behind to become part of a community of expat wives.
But when Nicole disappears without a trace after a boat trip, the cracks in her so-called perfect life start to show. As the investigation…
I’m a mystery/thriller author fascinated by how and why people, especially black women, go missing. I’ve probably watched every episode of Unsolved Mysteries, Dateline, and Forensic Files. For me, the questions are always the same. What led up to their disappearance? And more importantly, who were these women? What’s their backstory? So often, the lives of the missing get lost in the circumstances and details surrounding their disappearances. These five books show how the media ignores missing marginalized women. I hope that these excellent thrillers give readers some much-needed food for thought.
I rarely read YA these days. But the description of a teenage girl searching for her best friend who has gone missing instantly grabbed me. And once I started reading, I couldn’t stop. I had to know what happened to Monday.
I honestly don’t know if I could have gone through everything Claudia, the main character, did in her search for Monday, which made her such an appealing and sympathetic character. And I felt her anger, frustration, and confusion when no one seemed to care or even notice that Monday was gone.
This book was an emotional sucker punch that stayed with me long after I was done with it and accurately portrays the reality of how unsafe the world can be for young black girls.
"Jackson's characters and their heart-wrenching story linger long after the final page, urging readers to advocate for those who are disenfranchised and forgotten by society and the system." (Publishers Weekly, "An Anti-Racist Children's and YA Reading List")
From the critically acclaimed author of Allegedly, Tiffany D. Jackson, comes a gripping novel about the mystery of one teenage girl's disappearance and the traumatic effects of the truth.
Monday Charles is missing, and only Claudia seems to notice. Claudia and Monday have always been inseparable-more sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn't turn up for the first day of school, Claudia's worried.…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I love feeling scared in a controlled situation—like on my couch with a soft blanket and a book—so horror thrillers are my jam. I absolutely love it when a female protagonist is so smart and courageous that I genuinely don’t know what I would do differently. This gives me someone to truly root for. Over time, I’ve discovered all the ways scary books help me manage my anxiety. Reading about all my worst fears but knowing I can set the book down if I need to is empowering. (Spoiler alert: I never set the book down.)
When a horror thriller can straddle mystery and true crime and stick the landing like this book does, I’m in.
I was immediately invested in Liz’s journey back to her hometown. I love the reunion trope, but what Liz comes up against is so strange and intriguing that I knew after the opening I wasn’t putting this one down until I devoured this book. Her inner strength and determination to solve the town’s big mystery had me cheering for her every step of the way.
RECOMMENDED BY GILLIAN FLYNN ON THE TODAY SHOW • A young Black girl goes missing in the woods outside her white rust belt town. But she's not the first—and she may not be the last. . . .
“I read this thriller that is Get Out meets The Vanishing Half in one night.”—BuzzFeed
“Extraordinary . . . A terrifying tale of fears and hatreds generated by racism and class inequality.”—Associated Press
EDGAR® AWARD FINALIST • BRAM STOKER® AWARD FINALIST • SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD NOMINEE • PHENOMENAL BOOK CLUB PICK
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Esquire, Vulture, PopSugar,…
After I was sent for a breast biopsy in 2008, my twin sister and I began the very real work of researching our closed adoption. My health, my sister’s, and our collective six children depended upon it. For nearly five decades, I had placed my adoption in an internal lockbox, one I had promised myself I would get to “one day.” At 48, that day had finally come. Concurrent with my search, I absorbed many of the books I mention here. These works became foundational in how I came to view my adoption, and they provided the support I needed during the search and reunion process.
Because of my own work as an adoption writer and advocate for open adoption records, I knew each of these writers from webinars, podcasts, conferences, and social media. Combining their varied backgrounds and experiences–Sara is an adoptee, Kelsey is a birth parent, and Lori is an adoptive parent–was thrilling to read.
I devoured each of the thoughtful interviews and the candid responses the authors compiled and presented. Like these authors, I believe that by working together with truth and transparency, it is possible to move adoption forward toward a healing place.
Reveals the candid thoughts and feelings of those most directly involved in adoptions: the adoptee, the adopters, and the birth parents.
Adoption Unfiltered authors Sara Easterly (adoptee), Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard (birth parent), and Lori Holden (adoptive parent) interview more than 30 adoptees, 20 birth parents, a dozen adoptive parents, and several industry professionals-all sharing candidly about the challenges in adoption. While finding common ground in the sometimes-contentious space of adoption may seem like a lofty goal, it reveals the authors' optimistic aim: working together with truth and transparency to move toward healing.
I have a great interest in personal stories, well written. My memoir, The Full Catastrophe, was published in 2016. I wanted an answer to my own question “How could a well-educated, intelligent woman marry an abusive man?” Writing allowed me to find my answers. From that time on, I have taught people to write their own memoirs, have lectured on memoir, facilitated group discussions on memoir, and written articles on memoir. I am now in the process of writing another memoir.
This recommendation returns to one of my most passionate interests—that of adopted children and the families they are placed in. Beatty is a poet and this is reflected in her memoir—it is not the usual chronological narrative as most memoirs are. She breaks the myth of the “special” or “chosen baby” to tell her truth of the lives of adopted children. Beatty exposes, through vignettes and her poetry, her meetings with her birth mother, her adopted family, her attempts to know who she is and where she came from. She breaks open the belief that you can “create” a perfect family using children from other birth mothers, when all her life, she feels, is a lie and she has no grounding in the world. This memoir is her quest to find out who she is.
American Bastard is a lyrical inquiry into the experience of being a bastard in America. This memoir travels across literal continents-and continents of desire as Beatty finds her birthfather, a Canadian hockey player who's won three Stanley Cups-and her birthmother, a working-class woman from Pittsburgh. This is not the whitewashed story, but the real story, where Beatty writes through complete erasure: loss of name and history, and a culture based on the currency of gratitude as expected payment from the adoptee. American Bastard sandblasts the exaltation of adoption in Western culture and the myth of the "chosen baby." This journey…
Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: “Are his love songs closer to heaven than dying?” Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard it…
I knew when I was in elementary school that I wanted to be a therapist when I grew up, but I took a slight detour after finishing a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology to work as a line cook, retail manager, veterinary assistant, freelance editor, and registered nurse before finding my way back to graduate school. I also released ten young adult novels, many of them populated by characters struggling with mental illness. I understand anxiety, survivor’s guilt, grief, and loss as both a counselor and a human being, and I selected these books because they resonated deeply with me. I hope readers find comfort and connection in their pages.
I used to work as an oncology RN so I generally avoid cancer stories, but this author is a friend so I gave the book a chance, and wow am I glad I did. This story manages to capture the crushing reality of cancer for both the patient and the people who love her, but it’s also funny and mysterious and romantic, with plenty of meaningful things to say about grief. It takes insight and compassion to balance all those elements without ever being disrespectful to or flippant about terminal illness. I powered through this gorgeous book (the cover is even more incredible in person!) in one sitting and finished the story feeling hopeful and inspired.
The day Raquel has been dreading for months has finally arrived. Sasha, her best friend in the whole world, has died of cancer. Overwhelmed and brokenhearted, Raquel can't even imagine life without her. And then a letter from Sasha arrives. Has she somehow found a way to communicate from beyond the grave? In fact, Sasha spent her final weeks planning an elaborate scavenger hunt for the friend she would have to leave behind. When Raquel follows the instructions to return to Sasha's grave, a mysterious stranger with striking eyes is waiting for her. There's a secret attached to this boy…
I moved to Canada because I fell wildly in love eighteen years ago. It wasn’t Canada I loved, but a man, and it’s taken me years to get over my homesickness for the country of my birth. I've found as I’ve grown older that the stories of this place have given me a sense of home and belonging—perhaps that’s why so many of the books I’ve recommended are about identity and what it means to the authors. I’m lucky enough to share my favourite books every month on CTV here in Saskatoon, and I focus almost exclusively on Canadian and local books. I hope you love these books as much as I do!
I’d be remiss if I shared books from Canada with you and didn’t point you towards some of the amazing writing coming out of Saskatoon, Treaty 6 Territory, and the Homeland of the Métis. Lisa-Bird Wilson's newest book is a beautiful novel about an Indigenous woman’s search for identity after her adoption. Living in Saskatchewan as Canada wrestles with truth and reconciliation, books like Probably Ruby give me a path to understanding and learning. The voice of this novel is searing and gorgeous, filled with heart and light, and I believe anyone who reads it will feel changed by the experience.
An Indigenous woman adopted by white parents goes in search of her identity in this unforgettable debut novel about family, race, and history.
Finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award • “Engaging . . . Ruby never disappoints with her big heart and outrageous sense of humor—and her resilient search for her own history.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A passionate exploration of identity and belonging and a celebration of our universal desire to love and be loved.”—Imbolo Mbue, author of Behold the Dreamers
This is the story of a woman in search of herself, in every sense. When we…
As a Korean transracial adoptee, it seems like I’ve always been thinking about family, or even if I didn’t want to, other people’s intrusive questions about my family makeup forced me to. More than solely thinking about my own family–whether my Korean biological family or my white adoptive family–it led me to be curious about the broader systems, policies, and practices behind something that seems so personal and private. It’s no surprise that I formalized my inquiry into the social world by becoming a sociologist and professor. As a sociologist, my primary research interests are race, identity, and belonging, and yes, Korean transnational transracial adoption is part of that focus.
Grief is such a universal experience, yet I don’t think we get enough opportunities to truly grieve.
Nicole’s book provided me with space to grieve alongside her but also to grieve my own losses. I also appreciated how she connected her father’s death to broader systemic failures and how his view of himself shaped the help he was willing to accept or not.
I was especially taken in by how the theme of community shows up throughout the book–how important community is, how we find community, and how we build communities of care.
Named a Best Book of the Year by: Time * Harper’s Bazaar * Esquire * Booklist * USA Today * Elle
From the bestselling author of ALL YOU CAN EVER KNOW comes a searing memoir of family, class and grief—a daughter’s search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she’s lost.
In this country, unless you attain extraordinary wealth, you will likely be unable to help your loved ones in all the ways you’d hoped. You will learn to live with the specific, hollow guilt of those who leave…
Neuroscience PhD student Frankie Conner has finally gotten her life together—she’s determined to discover the cause of her depression and find a cure for herself and everyone like her. But the first day of her program, she meets a group of talking animals who have an urgent message they refuse…
The Complete Book of Aspen is based on my DNA experience. I was crushed after taking a DNA test to learn that the man who raised me was not my biological father. It rocked the foundation my life was built upon. Suddenly I was struggling with my identity, wondering why I am who I am. This led to a deep dive into DNA-related books. I read everything I could, from DNA science to memoirs to novels whose characters were affected by DNA discoveries. I liked seeing how these brave souls handled their heartbreak. Not only is the subject fascinating, but it’s also comforting to know, fictional or not, that we're never alone.
Imagine this. You were adopted as a child. You’re now an adult with a medical condition. So, you take a DNA test to find blood relatives who could shed some light and family history on your disease. But you get the shock of your life when an FBI agent shows up and tells you they received your test results too and you are related to a serial killer! Ivy’s life spins out of control as she travels to meet her relatives and find a killer. Ivy is told that her mother was murdered by The Full Moon Killer and now she is getting too close…could she be the next victim? A chilling novel with lots of twists that left me thinking if I were in Ivy’s shoes, just this once, I’d rather DNA kept secrets.
The search for a serial killer leads a woman into the twisted tangle of her own family tree in a chilling novel by the #1 Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Missing Sister and Lies We Bury.
Adopted when she was only days old, Ivy Hon knows little about her lineage. But when she's stricken with a mystery illness, the results of a genetic test to identify the cause attract the FBI. According to Ivy's DNA, she's related to the Full Moon Killer, who has terrorized the Pacific Northwest for decades. Ivy is the FBI's hope to stop the enigmatic…