Khristin Wierman's favorite edgy novels that speak difficult truths and still leave you feeling optimistic

This is the first novel I ever loved.

I initially read the story in sixth grade, then again in high school, both as assignments. At the time, I didn’t consider why I loved the book. I only marveled that a novel could be enjoyable. Until then, they’d been homework (emphasis on work) to slog through, mountains to climb to make sure I got an A.

I’ve read Rebecca many times since. What I can see now is that this story speaks painful truths that, as a child, I was living: that poison can lurk behind a beautiful face and within a picture-perfect life. Most importantly, Du Maurier gave me a new idea: that a quiet, honorable, well-meaning person can be the hero of their own story.

A painful truth about the times we live in is that people often throw judgement when they hear about something terrible: Why didn’t they do something? How could they let that happen? My suspicion is that people judge because they cannot fathom—or bear to fathom—that such tragedy occurs. Others of us know it does.

In this story, Kate Elizabeth Russell profoundly illustrates how a perfect storm of people not-doing-their-best can guide an innocent and well-meaning person right into the arms of a monster. And how those events haunt her until she’s able to face the truth of what happened.

Most importantly, we see how that same person, with the help of honorable people, puts one foot in front of the other and walks herself back out to wholeness.

The way Stephen King is able to weave a one-person narrative into an un-put-downable tale is utterly brilliant, but the subject matter of this book is what I find to be the most profound. 

Because King was looking at domestic abuse from the perspective of the abused and pulling in details that were previously left out of those narratives—and he was doing this long before those ideas had entered mainstream discourse.

This story shows how a hard-working woman loses option after option until there is only a single, unthinkable one left. And of the unfairness she faces in the aftermath. Like all the books on this list, the real magic is that the story ends with redemption for the characters we’re rooting for.

Humor wielded with ill intention is a cruel weapon. Yet in thoughtful and caring hands, laughter is such a balm.

This is a hard story, yet I’m not sure I can count how often I laughed out loud while reading—not at someone’s expense but at Gail Honeyman’s ability to adeptly portray so many of the odd moments that come along with being a human on this earth.

Most importantly, this story beautifully illustrates how one person with more emotional baggage than anyone should have to carry is able to walk herself into a peaceful life so different than the one that nearly crippled her. And of the help she gets along the way.

I fell into this story with the first line and barely came up for air until I was done.

I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book filled with so much beautiful and tragic truth, or an ending that filled me with so much optimism. Thousands have written gorgeous reviews about the story, the characters, the writing—so I won’t even attempt that here. 

These lines, from the book, are among the most beautiful and meaningful to me: “If you are surrounded by those who call what you are different instead of beautiful. If your mind or body has cried out for peace and acknowledgement and understanding, just know…You are part of an infinite family. The people who have been through terrible things and survived them. If you are reading these words, you WON today.”