92 books like Sympathy

This novel follows Ayoola, a beautiful murderer, and her put-upon sister, Korede, who helps clean up her crime scenes. Korede is loyal to a fault, willing to help cover up her sister’s crimes, but what makes the relationship feel authentic and lived-in is the way petty resentment boils around minor slights and the perpetual issue of the sisters’ disparate beauty. 7

The book is a slender, efficient, and funny look at the psychology of sisterhood that happens to take the form of a thriller.

I recommend this book as often as I can. Edgier and more disturbing than the film adaptation, Heller’s novel offers not one but two women doing terrible things.

Sheba is the art instructor hiding her illicit meetings with a student and running around like a teenager in what must be one of recent literature’s more reprehensible midlife crises. Barbara is the cynical older woman, the veteran teacher with a busy schedule and a barren personal life.

Sheba appeals to Barbara as a friend, to keep her secret. Barbara responds with feigned concern, then with affection, desire, jealousy, and a malicious desire to control Sheba, to jerk her chain and watch her dance. For sheer emotional power dynamics between two women, this book is hard to beat.

Originally published as Under Your Wings in Australia, The Majesties could just easily be titled My Sister, the Mass-Murderer. It has one of my favourite openings of all time: beginning in a hospital, where Chinese-Indonesian fashion designer Gwendolyn lies comatose, the sole survivor of her sister Estella’s mass-poisoning of their 300-strong family dynasty. Though it has been compared to Crazy Rich Asians with its globe-trotting plot (taking place in Jakarta, Paris, and Melbourne, among other settings), The Majesties is a more sombre read, exploring corruption and racial tension in the upper echelons of Indonesian society. 

Almost any of Mary Gaitskill’s books would have suited this theme (and her short story collection Bad Behavior is the obvious choice), but Two Girls, Fat and Thin is a recent discovery and new favourite of mine. Dorothy Never is the titular fat girl, and a former acolyte of an Ayn Rand-like guru, Anna Granite. Thin girl Justine Shade is a journalist who tracks her down while writing a takedown of Granite. From this setup, the novel backtracks to tell the girls’ life stories, in parallel, building up to Justine’s journalistic betrayal of Dorothy, and its surprising aftermath.  

I was dying to read this book because I'd heard it was structured after Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata for violin and piano, and even though it's not a piece I'm intimately familiar with I could almost hear the music as I read. Even though it's billed as a love story, it's not so much a typical romance as it is an ode to following your passions, listening to your heart, and falling in love with New York City...for the first time, or all over again. As a longtime New Yorker I found myself rediscovering the city through Dominique's eyes, and I even learned some cool NYC facts I'd never heard before (not going to spoil anything, but I listen to the subway in a whole new way now)! Highly recommended for anyone who loves music, New York, or lyrical writing about flawed but shimmering characters.

I don’t set much store by orderly chronology, in life or writing—as might be clear from my book, where old memories live vividly alongside the present moment!

More interesting to me is how memory accumulates and morphs over time, and how stories live in our minds. Needless to say I adore Julavits’s non-chronological diary The Folded Clock (and what a title)! In gorgeously detailed individual sections, she immerses us in her life without regard for the precise sequence of events. We’re left with a beautiful jumble, which is surely truer than how life is anyway. 

Humor. Sometimes I need some humor. I read a lot of heavy stories about young adults trudging through an unfair world that beats them down for 300 pages or intricate fantasy worlds with oppressed creatures and evil beings. So reading an uplifting, fun story between more daunting stories can be just what I need.

#famous is a breath of fresh air. And I admit I swooned over the love interest, Kyle. He is just so likeable.

Jon Allen’s coming out and growing up story in his ongoing Ohio Is For Sale series, The Lonesome Era is, so far, his most complex and affecting work, but that’s not saying much for a cartoonist who expands his abilities and repertoire with each new book. The Lonesome Era is a rites-of-passage tale that showcases Allen’s customarily bleak outlook and dry wit, and it is, by turns, hilarious and poignant. I’ve called his work “Kafkaesque situation comedies” in the past, but that description belies the mordant emotional and observational sophistication on show here. He is simply one of the best young visual storytellers around.

This is a heartwarming story about Avery, an anxious 12-year-old prone to panic attacks, with a secret crush on one of the popular girls in her school. In part to impress her, she auditions for the school musical, and to her horror, lands the lead role. She finds solace in a stray cat, Phantom, who hangs around the school theater, and slowly opens up to two new human friendships, including her crush. Avery learns how to become comfortable with asking for and receiving help while dealing with her anxiety, as well as figuring out how to face her stage fright.

The banter in this one is next-level fantastic.

Liz Buxbaum – a fellow rom-com fan – is trying to get the attention of her crush who recently moved back to town. She enlists the help of her annoying neighbor Wes Bennett to get her crush’s attention, but things don’t go according to plan.

Liz and Wes have amazing chemistry. Really enjoyed this one.