I write, coach, and lead at the intersection of identity, healing, and leadership, especially for women navigating cultural complexity. As a South Asian woman raised in the U.S., I spent years unpacking inherited narratives about devotion, obedience, and silence. This list reflects books that helped me reclaim power, soften shame, and lead from a place of alignment rather than survival. Each title here offered me tools, language, or perspective that shaped not just how I show up in the world, but how I guide others to do the same.
I saw myself in this book in ways I didn’t expect.
Stephanie Foo’s story of complex trauma, the gaslighting she endured, and her drive to overachieve just to feel worthy hit close to home. Like her, I turned to spiritual practices seeking peace, and like her, I often felt alone in that process.
This book reminded me that my thoughts and feelings are not only valid, but worthy of compassion. The therapy sessions toward the end were especially powerful. I felt like her therapist was speaking directly to me, and something in me softened.
If you're breaking intergenerational patterns, this book offers deep healing, insight, and a sense of being profoundly understood.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life
“Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, NPR, Mashable, She Reads, Publishers Weekly
By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and…
I was stunned by the similarities between the men in Gupta’s life and my own. This book laid bare the violence of the model minority myth and how it erases pain, demands silence, and turns belonging into a performance.
I saw so much of myself in her unraveling of that narrative. They Called Us Exceptional reminded me that telling the truth about our families isn't betrayal, it’s a form of generational care. Prachi writes with a kind of fierce compassion that made me feel seen, especially in the messiness.
If you've ever felt the pressure to be exceptional at the expense of being whole, this book is a balm, a reckoning, and a quiet act of rebellion.
“In this vulnerable and courageous memoir, Prachi Gupta takes the myth of the exceptional Indian American family to task. . . . [Her] resilience and her hope to be fully seen are an inspiration in both personal and political terms.”—The Washington Post
“I read it in one sitting. Wow. It aims right at the tender spot where racism, sexism, and family dynamics collide, and somehow manages to be both searingly honest and deeply compassionate.”—Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere
A SHE READS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE…
The Not Quite Enlightened Sleuth
by
Verlin Darrow,
A Buddhist nun returns to her hometown and solves multiple murders while enduring her dysfunctional family.
Ivy Lutz leaves her life as a Buddhist nun in Sri Lanka and returns home to northern California when her elderly mother suffers a stroke. Her sheltered life is blasted apart by a series…
Growing up, I absorbed mythology that glorified sacrifice and obedience in women. They were stories that shaped how I understood devotion, duty, and my own worth. This retelling gave Sita a voice that was both fierce and tender, and it helped me see that I can reimagine the stories I was raised on in a way that affirms my truth.
This book softened the part of me that had grown resistant to my culture after feeling betrayed by it. It reminded me that agency and reverence can coexist, and that rewriting inherited stories is a sacred act.
'One of the most strikingly lyrical voices writing about the lives of Indian women' -- Amitav Ghosh
'Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni turns the Ramayana around by telling it in the voice of Sita ... this inversion is a gift - it presents us a with a way to know an already well-known story better and to love an already beloved story more'
-- Arshia Sattar
'This inspired evocation of the goddess Sita is an epic song of strength and solidarity told with joy and intensity. It brings to life the personalities and predicaments of the Ramayana' -- Namita Gokhale
If you’ve ever questioned how well you really know your mother, or yourself, this book will move you.
As I read What We Carry, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own maternal relationships. The story unravels the assumptions Maya makes about her mother, only to discover a deeper, more complicated truth. It made me wonder what my own mother has carried in silence, and what I want my children to know about me. Maya’s ability to stay with her mother through illness, despite their tensions, felt like an invitation.
I didn’t walk away with all the answers, but I did find more peace in my own mother-daughter relationship, and recognize how in raising my daughter, I’m also learning to reparent myself.
“A gorgeous memoir about mothers, daughters, and the tenacity of the love that grows between what is said and what is left unspoken.”—Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk
If our family stories shape us, what happens when we learn those stories were never true? Who do we become when we shed our illusions about the past?
Maya Shanbhag Lang grew up idolizing her brilliant mother, an accomplished physician who immigrated to the United States from India and completed her residency all while raising her children and keeping a traditional Indian home. Maya’s mother had always been a source of support—until…
Tina Edwards loved her childhood and creating fairy houses, a passion shared with her father, a world-renowned architect. But at nine years old, she found him dead at his desk and is haunted by this memory. Tina's mother abruptly moved away, leaving Tina with feelings of abandonment and suspicion.
This book reminded me that while immigrant stories can carry deep grief and pressure, they’re also held together by quiet acts of care that are sometimes hard to see, but no less real.
I loved how the author claimed her identity as American while still drawing comfort from Indian culture. Her deep love for her father and the painful clarity he eventually gains about who holds power in their family felt especially healing.
This book helped me see how much shared experience exists in immigrant households, and how love and harm often sit side by side. It also affirmed that even in the messiness of it all, healing is still possible.
Here We Are is a heart-wrenching memoir about an immigrant family's American Dream, the justice system that took it away, and the daughter who fought to get it back, from NPR correspondent Aarti Namdev Shahani.
The Shahanis came to Queens―from India, by way of Casablanca―in the 1980s. They were undocumented for a few unsteady years and then, with the arrival of their green cards, they thought they'd made it. This is the story of how they did, and didn't; the unforeseen obstacles that propelled them into years of disillusionment and heartbreak; and the strength of a family determined to stay…
Unearthed is a searing memoir about reclaiming one’s voice after spiritual and sexual abuse, and the deeper unraveling of identity, culture, and power that came next. Raised as a devoted Indian daughter, Chanchal Garg was taught never to question authority. A reckoning while teaching a yoga class, as she was pregnant with her daughter, awakened a truth she could no longer ignore. What followed was a journey of losing her faith, community, and certainty, and slowly rebuilding on her own terms.
This memoir is for anyone who has ever felt silenced or quietly absorbed harmful narratives from family, culture, faith, or community. Unearthed invites readers to question what they’ve inherited, and lead from the quiet knowing that has always lived within them.
