Love Swimming in a Sea of Stars? Readers share 87 books like Swimming in a Sea of Stars...

This book shows that depression is real. We need to pay attention to others and let them know they are not alone. I think this message is so important. It cannot be overstated. I loved the way the two girls in this book helped each other through Emily Dickinson.

Though some readers thought it was a little two coincidental that both girls have the same English class, have the same initials, and both like Emily Dickinson, I didn’t find that a problem. I also thought it hooked readers to know that one of the girls is considering suicide, but we don’t know which one.

I think people understand and sympathize with physical illness, but mental struggles are often unseen and misunderstood. I hope that readers think more about those who are different and try to reach out more.

I think this quote by Theodore Fitch, one of the main characters explains the agony well. “I was sick, but not in an easily explains flu kind of way. It’s my experience that people are a lot more sympathetic if they can see you hurting, and for the millionth time in my life I wish for measles or smallpox or some other recognizable disease just to make it simple for me and also for them. Anything would be better than the truth: I shut down again. I went blank.”

This book is a heavy read but a vital one. After the main character dies by suicide before the book begins, a fragment of her is left in the world, attempting to piece her shattered memory back together and remember why she left.

A heartbreaking but hope-giving look at the heaviest and most beautiful moments in life, this book ultimately reminds readers that there’s always a reason to hold on.

I was drawn to this book by the title and the super-intriguing cover.

Something about the linen’s organic nature mixed with the haphazard cross-stitching spoke to me.

Warga captures the depths of depression with her writing to the point where I could feel the sadness and internal struggle of Aysel, the book’s sixteen-year-old main character.

How vividly wonderful is this line: … feels like my skin is too thin, like everyone can see right inside me, can see my empty and dark insides.

The concept of Aysel creating a suicide pact with Roman really hit home. I’ve experienced multiple deaths by suicide, including two school friends who went through with their pact.

This story helped shed light on what clinical depression looks like from the inside, which can be vastly different and seemingly in conflict with the seemingly “I’m okay” exterior.

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. 

Brit Bennett writes with a steady hand as she immerses us into the minds and lives of three people. Nadia and Aubrey are haunted to womanhood by maternal abandonment. They are friends as well as rivals for the affection of the same man. Luke would have made a mother out of Nadia had they chosen to parent, and he eventually makes a wife and mother of Aubrey. His mother is the first lady of the church that plays a prominent role in their lives. The mothers in Bennett's exceptional novel are hurt and betrayed by callous men and by each other. I rooted for each of them to persevere, but like many of my favorite novels, this is not a happily ever after for everyone type of story.

The story of Clay Jensen is both beautiful and repelling in that it forced me to consider the unseen impact my insecurities and actions may have had on others when I was a teen. I couldn’t imagine being a shy, bright, and likable California high school student unexpectedly thrust into the center of a girl’s suicide by being named one of the contributors to her death. But that’s the point. Neither can Clay. 

In his case, the only way to discover why he was included is to listen to a set of thirteen tapes made by the victim. These tapes take him on a journey of personal growth and transformation despite his only having the loosest of connections to her. In doing so, he takes us right along with him, considering how our briefest interactions could have profoundly impacted someone else.

I think that every teen in school today has experienced a lockdown, hopefully just as a drill, but as school shootings continue, it’s a worry for every day of school. That’s why I think teens are so horrified as Emily Bean, the main character, sees her boyfriend bring a gun to school and kill himself.

I believe that reading about the depths of Emily’s agony reveals how devasting suicide can be for those who have had to live through its aftermath. In my author visits, I have met a number of those left behind by suicide, and I think it’s so important that this book ends with some hope for them. 

I loved the message of this book of self-love and finding your own way to shine. Elise says, “I was born to be unpopular. There was no other way it could have gone.” I think that unfortunately, a lot of teens feel this way, but that doesn’t mean that life is over.

It doesn’t mean that high school will last forever, although it may feel that way at times. I think depressed teens who read this may not totally identify with Elise’s way of finding her own better life, but they will be left with the idea that there is hope. 

Another great handling of mental health, femininity, and adolescence is Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future by A.S. King. Her mother’s suicide has left the protagonist with some pretty big questions about her own nature and destiny. And when she gets the unprompted, magical power of seeing visions of both infinite past and future, things only get more complicated. Despite the ambitious bite of dark weight, the novel’s voice remains witty, casual, and auspicious. It’s a glimpse into the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship, especially when it's cut dismally short.