Fans pick 100 books like The Bruising of Qilwa

What I enjoyed most about this book was the story and plot that the author wove together.

This story takes thrilling, unexpected twists that kept me engaged with the characters and the plot. Its intensity is matched by its excellent pacing, delivering surprises at every turn.

Just when I thought I'd figured out where it's headed, it veers in another direction.

I know most people’s favorite Shirley Jackson haunted house book is The Haunting of Hill House, but I find the mystery in this book even more compelling.

Give me two sisters, a family killed by poison under mysterious circumstances, a suitor, an angry mob filled with class envy, and an unreliable narrator, and I will be filled with that peculiar combination of happiness, unease, and dread that all of us haunted house readers desire. I love this novel. 

In January 2023, my partner dropped this book into my hands and said, “I’m pretty sure this book was written exactly for you.” And you know what? They were RIGHT.

This book isn’t just the Baba Yaga retelling of my dreams—it also features one of the most captivating sibling relationships I’ve ever read. Bellatine and Isaac Yaga are beautifully complicated characters, each unable to stop hurting the other as they manage their trauma in very different ways. (Hint: both of them involve very cool magic.)

I spent the book desperately wanting each of them to reach one another, and was gifted with a good, cathartic cry about intergenerational wounds. This story goes places that have challenged and transformed my own writing. Plus, a sentient house with a spicy attitude? Yes. More of that.

This book is a wonder of a collaboration between siblings Sofia Samatar and Del Samatar, and it has haunted me for years.

This collection is a surreal work of autobiography told through Sofia’s short fiction and Del’s illustrations, all featuring different monsters. These monstrous vignettes are interwoven with memories of growing up as multiracial Somali Americans in the 1980s—to me, they highlight the power of speculative fiction at its very best.

This book feels a little bit like reading someone’s journal, and a little bit like when I realize I’m dreaming but can’t wake myself up. The monsters mesmerized and unsettled me; the Graphis gives me shivers and the Collector of Treasures makes me feel ill. It’s a challenging read and one that I will come back to again and again.

The United States was conceived as a place of refuge, and the nation has accommodated many different types of refugees since its founding. Despite these ideological origins, a distinct and permanent track for refugee admissions within the immigration bureaucracy was not institutionalized until the Cold War. 

Bon Tempo examines the reasons why this distinct track emerged during the late 1940s, how the track evolved over the next forty years, and how the track was used to accommodate millions of people fleeing communism during the Cold War. By the end of the Cold War, US refugee policy had become intertwined with Cold War foreign policy, and the term “refugee” had become synonymous with anti-communism.

Stormy Seas is a compelling collection of true stories about the child refugees who had to take to the water throughout history. With a diverse cast and engaging visual design, this book is a great introduction to the topic for middle-grade readers. Even adults might be surprised by some of the stories. 

The story of Najeeba, fleeing from Afghanistan, particularly spoke to me during my research for The Eleventh Trade. Though my main character only speaks briefly of his journey across the Mediterranean, stories like Najeeba’s helped make the dangers of that voyage real for me. A quick but intense read that opens the door to important conversations with children. 

Although this picture book is a bit dark and bleak for very young readers, Stepping Stones is a uniquely beautiful depiction of the refugee’s journey. The illustrations were inspired by the stone artwork of Syrian artist Nizar Ali Badr. Stones, like trees, appear to have an ancient power to tell difficult stories like no other. I love that this book focuses not only on the hardships and horrors, but also on the beauties and rituals of the life and culture left behind. So many children will have known only conflict in their short lives, and it is important that they – and the rest of us, too – learn that there was so much more, before. The story is poetically told in both English and Arabic.

I was in high school when the Viêt Nam War ended. I grew up watching news reports and seeing photographs on the front page of The New York Times. I remember when Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers. I read David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest. I wish there had been books like this one for me to read. I am cheating a tiny bit with this choice as it does not take place during wartime. It is set six years after the Viêt Nam War in Texas, yet is about the ravages of war and how one goes on after unimaginable loss. I love this book because it is exquisitely written. It is equally painful and joyous. And I don’t think you can find a stronger character than Hằng.

My mother read this book to me over the course of several weekday afternoons. I was nine, maybe ten. The book’s protagonist, David, is a boy who escapes from a concentration camp somewhere in Eastern Europe and walks to Denmark in search of his mother. Lying next to my own mother, on her bed, listening to her voice, cocooned by her love, I identified so very powerfully with this unrooted, solitary, questing boy. It stirred me more than anything else I read as a child. There is something in a refugee’s tale that is so primal, so hard to shake off. There but by the grace of God go I, I thought, every time my mother opened the book to read some more.

Billed as YA lit, don’t let that stop you. It is an auto-fictional account of a young boy refugee from Iran who suddenly finds himself in the middle of Oklahoma: malls and milkshakes. I was in fits of laughter throughout because the narrator's voice is so unique and charming, a much more optimistic Holden Caulfield. But the themes can also be hard, and therein lies the magic.

I loved the unique story structure of telling his stories in the format of 1001 Nights. This validated my own choice to structure my book in the format of The Little Match Girl, striking matches in a snowstorm. I loved this book for its swirl of myth, magical realism, and family stories that weave seamlessly through a modern-day exploration of refugee identity and belonging.