Here are 100 books that A Living Remedy fans have personally recommended if you like
A Living Remedy.
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I’ve heard many stories from friends who, as adults, discovered that the person they always believed to be their mother or father was not, and saw what it did to their sense of self. I became fascinated by the how and why a family would perpetuate such a lie, and it made me wonder about the difference between a secret and a lie, and if there is one. This set me off writing novels about family secrets, and reading many more. I enjoy exploring what such devastating news does to a person, and to the entire family, once the secret is discovered.
I was drawn into this story from its first brilliant line.
Before this book was released, I read an ARC of the novel as a member of the Group Reads committee that curates a list of novels perfect for book clubs. Immediately, I felt this would be a bestseller and am so glad I was right.
The multilayered characters are so well drawn, and the propulsive mystery is deftly laid out, making it a page turner. This is a novel I kept reading late into the night.
The acclaimed debut novel by the author of Little Fires Everywhere and Our Missing Hearts
"A taut tale of ever deepening and quickening suspense." -O, the Oprah Magazine
"Explosive . . . Both a propulsive mystery and a profound examination of a mixed-race family." -Entertainment Weekly
"Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet." So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia's body…
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
While writing this book, a study on a professionally competent woman who is taken out by grief when her partner dies due to an act of violence, my grandfather passed away and my theoretical study of grief quickly became a real one. Working through Stella’s grief helped me work through my own and allowing her to heal and fall in love aided in my healing immensely. Grief is brutal and feels endless, but coming out of the other side of it with the support of the people around me changed me for the better.
Besides well written non-fiction and sapphic romance, my favorite type of book is always going to be middle grade fiction.
In AfterMath, 12-year-old Lucy is struggling with the death of her younger brother from heart failure. When she changes school, she comes into the aftermath of a school shooting where her classmates struggle with grief of a different kind. Chock full of character development and with a solid plot, this takes a gentle look at grief, trauma, gun violence, terminal illness, and the real-life things that we have to face, no matter our age.
I love a story where children are resilient, though I wish they didn’t have to be so resilient all the time.
"This book is a gift to the culture." ―Amy Schumer, writer, actor, and activist
After her brother's death from a congenital heart defect, twelve-year-old Lucy is not prepared to be the new kid at school―especially in a grade full of survivors of a shooting that happened four years ago. Without the shared past that both unites and divides her classmates, Lucy feels isolated and unable to share her family's own loss, which is profoundly different from the trauma of her peers.
Lucy clings to her love of math, which provides the absolute answers she craves. But through budding friendships and…
C.S. Lewis famously said, “No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally—and often far more—worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.” I love this sentiment, and it has had a profound influence on my writing.
Yes, I write books for children, and I hope they’ll love them, but I think adults should enjoy them, too. Some of the best books in the world are children’s books, and there’s no age limit for reading them. In fact, I believe the world would be a better place if more adults read children’s books regularly. Here are five of my favorites.
Sharon Creech is one of my all-time favorite writers. She crafts emotionally rich stories with a strong voice, unique characters, and plenty of humor.
Walk Two Moons is my favorite of hers. I love how Sal tells her story through someone else’s story. It’s like a 2-for-1 deal! My heart broke at times, yet nothing felt too maudlin or didactic. (I can’t stand emotional or moral overkill.)
The grandparents are my favorite characters and bring comedic relief to a weighty emotional journey.
Don't judge a man until you've walked two moons in his moccasins.
What is the meaning of this strange message left on the doorstep? Only Sal knows, and on a roadtrip with her grandparents she tells the bizarre tale of Phoebe Winterbottom, Phoebe's disappearing mother and the lunatic. But who can help Sal make sense of the mystery that surrounds her own story . . . and her own missing mother?
Jake Sledge, a rugged ex-cop turned private eye, teams up with his colossal partner Bobo to navigate the gritty streets of River City.
A murdered lawyer drags them into a web of political intrigue, neo-Nazi thugs, and bloody showdowns. With sharp wit and hard-hitting action, Jake tackles scumbags the only…
As a Korean transracial adoptee, it seems like I’ve always been thinking about family, or even if I didn’t want to, other people’s intrusive questions about my family makeup forced me to. More than solely thinking about my own family–whether my Korean biological family or my white adoptive family–it led me to be curious about the broader systems, policies, and practices behind something that seems so personal and private. It’s no surprise that I formalized my inquiry into the social world by becoming a sociologist and professor. As a sociologist, my primary research interests are race, identity, and belonging, and yes, Korean transnational transracial adoption is part of that focus.
I love exploring the idea of how life might be completely different if… if I had made different choices, if my parents had made different choices, if something seemingly inconsequential had or hadn’t happened.
Shannon’s book took me on a fantastical journey into her own imaginings of the alternate lives she could have had as an adoptee, and by extension, it made me think about the possibilities for my own life differently. As adoptees, sometimes we don’t allow ourselves the luxury of even imagining these possibilities; Shannon’s book offered a safe space to do just that.
Dream Country author Shannon Gibney returns with The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be, a book woven from her true story of growing up as a mixed-Black transracial adoptee and fictional story of Erin Powers, the name Shannon was given at birth, a child raised by a white, closeted lesbian.
At its core, the novel is a tale of two girls on two different timelines occasionally bridged by a mysterious portal and their shared search for a complete picture of their origins. Gibney surrounds that story with reproductions of her own adoption documents, letters, family photographs, interviews, medical…
In 2019 I spent several days on a ladder witnessing children who were locked in a detention center in Homestead, and in early 2020, I traveled to the Brownsville/Matamoros border, where the stories people told me broke my heart. Often, it was not threats to their own lives but to their children’s lives that triggered their decision to flee. I wrote Immigrants and an accompanying book of poetry (Here in Sanctuary–Whirling) not to make political points, but to tell some of these stories and highlight the gaps between our human propensity toward kindness and the way we fall into the trap of “othering” those who are not exactly like us.
This was one of the most sensitive portrayals of the effects of deportation on families that I’ve ever read.
I resonated even more strongly because it was set in New York City (my hometown), and the descriptions of different neighborhoods really came to life. I also appreciated the dual point of view narration (the story is told from both the mother and son’s perspective), and I could relate to both characters, even when they made difficult choices that ended up being hurtful.
One morning, Deming Guo's mother, an undocumented Chinese immigrant named Polly, goes to her job at the nail salon and never comes home. No one can find any trace of her. With his mother gone, eleven-year-old Deming is left with no one to care for him. He is eventually adopted by two white college professors who move him from the Bronx to a small town upstate. They rename him Daniel Wilkinson in their efforts to make him over into their version of an "all-American boy." But far away from all he's ever known, Daniel struggles to reconcile his new life…
After my dad died, I didn’t know where to turn. People felt uncomfortable talking to a seventeen-year-old girl about her dead dad. They felt even more uncomfortable talking to me about it one, two, ten years later. Still, I couldn’t, can’t, stop thinking about it. I turned, then, to books. These books made and make me feel seen. They aren’t about “moving on” or “letting go” but the ways in which leaning into grief’s deep well connects us to love’s true depths. These books are honest and pure, and if you don’t know what to say to a friend who’s mourning, let these authors speak for you.
Joy might not be the first thing you think of when
considering grief, but then maybe you haven’t read Ross Gay.
Gay understands
that joy exists because of grief, not as a counterbalance, but in a deeply
reciprocal relationship. As his father is dying, he presses their faces
together, and in his father’s freckles, he sees seeds, a garden. It is just one
instance in this book where Gay recognizes that what grows from loss is love.
His book clarifies what I know to be true: that when we fall into the hole of
loss, we find ourselves in a deep well of love.
A collection of gorgeously written and timely pieces in which prize-winning poet and author Ross Gay considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life's inevitable hardships.
In "We Kin" he thinks about the garden (especially around August, when the zucchini and tomatoes come on) as a laboratory of mutual aid; in "Share Your Bucket" he explores skate-boarding's reclamation of public space; he considers the costs of masculinity in "Grief Suite"; and in "Through My Tears I Saw," he recognizes what was healed in caring for his father as he was dying.
Caroline Herschel has always lived in the shadows. Beholden to her wildly popular older brother, William, who rescued her from servitude, she's worked hard to build a life for herself – one where she can go unnoticed and repay the debt she believes she owes him. But when her brother…
I have always been fascinated by psychology and the science behind why people are the way they are. This is probably why as a journalist, I’ve always been drawn to writing personal profiles of fascinating people, digging deeper into how they overcame various obstacles and setbacks. I have read so many leadership books that focus on success, but really found a gap when it came to those in-depth stories, which is why I wrote The Setback Cycle, a career advice book that focuses specifically on that messy middle part of leadership. My goal was to share the stories of people who overcame setbacks while offering an actionable framework that guides us through our own.
I loved this book so much, not only because Susan Cain is such a beautiful writer but also because it explained why we love sad music and why listening to it can be so transformative. I truly appreciate books that teach me something new about why humans are the way they are and those that offer a new perspective on my life experiences, which this book certainly did.
THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER -- FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER QUIET: THE POWER OF INTROVERTS IN A WORLD THAT CAN'T STOP TALKING
In her inspiring new masterpiece, the author of the bestselling phenomenon Quiet describes her powerful quest to understand how love, loss and sorrow make us whole - revealing the power of a bittersweet outlook on life.
Bittersweetness is a tendency towards states of longing, poignancy and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. It recognizes that light and…
As a Korean transracial adoptee, it seems like I’ve always been thinking about family, or even if I didn’t want to, other people’s intrusive questions about my family makeup forced me to. More than solely thinking about my own family–whether my Korean biological family or my white adoptive family–it led me to be curious about the broader systems, policies, and practices behind something that seems so personal and private. It’s no surprise that I formalized my inquiry into the social world by becoming a sociologist and professor. As a sociologist, my primary research interests are race, identity, and belonging, and yes, Korean transnational transracial adoption is part of that focus.
I vaguely remember hearing about the tragedy of the Hart children–six Black and mixed-race children who were adopted out of foster care and killed by their two white adoptive mothers. I wasn’t aware of all of the intricate details of their case or the foster care system that allowed this to happen.
I am in awe of Roxanna’s investigative journalism and the nuance and empathy in which she tells this story. While it is the Hart story that’s at the center of this book, I learned so much more about the child welfare system overall and how it’s set up to promote child separation. Heartbreaking.
“A riveting indictment of the child welfare system . . . [A] bracing gut punch of a book.” ―Robert Kolker, The Washington Post
“[A] moving and superbly reported book.” ―Jessica Winter, The New Yorker
“A harrowing account . . . [and] a powerful critique of [the] foster care system . . . We Were Once a Family is a wrenching book.” ―Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
The shocking, deeply reported story of a murder-suicide that claimed the lives of six children―and a searing indictment of the American foster care system.
In second grade my teacher told me I should be a writer—I haven’t wavered in my path since. I was a voracious reader as a child and regularly snatched books off my mom’s night table. My love for flawed characters grew with each book I devoured. I felt a connection with these characters, which fueled my dream to become a writer. When I was twenty-one years old and studying writing, I wrote in my journal, “I want to write books that make people cry.” I love to explore the gray areas in life, and I’m honored that readers have told me my books do make them cry (and laugh).
I love this book because, beyond the fabulous, richly layered story, it takes what should be unlikeable characters and makes you root for them. April Epner is flawed—brittle, sarcastic and closed off at times—but I love her.
As a reader, I can understand why she is the way she is, and that’s the key to making her sympathetic and likable. The payoff is so satisfying when April makes a deep emotional connection and opens up. Bernice Graverman, April’s newfound biological mom, is tacky, loud and over the top, and yet, I was rooting for her. She has a tough shell, but there’s a touching hidden vulnerability.
One more thing I loved about this book…I lived in Quincy, MA (outside of Boston), where this story is set, for five years—it perfectly captures what life was like there in the nineties.
April Epner teaches high school Latin, wears flannel jumpers, and is used to having her evenings free. Bernice Graverman brandishes designer labels, favors toad-sized earrings, and hosts her own tacky TV talk show: Bernice G!
But behind the glitz and glam, Bernice has followed the life of the daughter she gave up for adoption thirty-six years ago. Now that she's got her act together, she's aiming to be a mom like she always knew she could. And she's hurtling straight for April's quiet little life....
Rodney Bradford comes into Lindsay's restaurant, offers to buy her small house for double its value, eats her brownies, and drops dead on the sidewalk in front. Next, her almost-ex-husband offers to sign the divorce papers, but only if she'll give him her small,…
I am an adoptive mom twice, both in open arrangements where we maintain lifelong contact with our children’s birth moms and birth dads. My husband and I had little guidance to navigate the complexity of raising adopted children. I do not want others to be ill-prepared, as fortunately for the children, most adoptions today are open. We followed our instincts and looking back, we got a lot right, but we sure could have used some help with the tougher challenges. I am beyond grateful for my journey and I write to give back by sharing our story to help others who come after me.
I love this classic book because it provides practical advice to adoptive parents without guilting them. So much of what is written today in the adoption space can make an adoptive mom feel bad about or question themselves.
Eldridge, an adoptee, explains what an adopted child might be feeling but starts by supporting the adoptive parents, too. For example: “I suffered a profound loss before I was adopted, and you are not responsible.” I found that to be refreshing and encouraging. I really like how Eldrige describes how an adoptee might be feeling and then follows it up with both the psychological explanation and advice on how to react to your child’s feelings. I found it to be well-researched, professional, and positive.
"I want you to take the initiative in opening conversations about my birth family."
"When I act out my fears in obnoxious ways, please hang in there with me."
"I am afraid you will abandon me."
The voices of adopted children are poignant, questioning. And they tell a familiar story of loss, fear, and hope. This extraordinary book, written by a woman who was adopted herself, gives voice to children's unspoken concerns, and shows adoptive parents how to free their kids from feelings of fear, abandonment, and shame.
