Books like A Woman of Substance

Strayed’s personal transformation through nature and challenge is what I loved in this memoir.

Wild starts off in crisis. The gritty detail throughout doesn’t shy away from the depths of human experience like grief, addiction, and loss (of unconditional love). The narrator has an incredible plan to get herself out of the mess of her current life. Could she do it?

I love a story of someone who is lost, in despair, and goes on a mission to change herself through a connection with nature. Wild delivers. Strayed’s writing brilliantly weaves together her journey in nature with her backstory of how she came to crisis.

This memoir made me fall in love with California’s topography all over again.

Nearly every line of this memoir stopped me in my tracks.

I read most of it at a local café, teacup in hand, blinking back tears more times than I care to admit. Gilbert's precision and beauty on the page are simply breathtaking. She doesn't describe the world so much as conjure it, and she pulled me in until her cobbled Roman streets and dusty Indian pathways felt like my own. I tasted that whole pizza with her, felt the sun’s warmth on her shoulders, and ached through each layered heartbreak as though it were mine.

She doesn't merely tell her story. She throws open the door to her innermost self and refuses to let you look away. I wept. I laughed. And when the last page came, I sat quietly for a long moment, reluctant to leave her and her world behind.

I loved this book because it is another time-slip novel, but mostly because of the characters that Gabaldon has created. Claire is a strong woman both in the present time zone–post-war Britain–and the Scottish Highland time zone of the seventeenth century and the uprising. You sense immediately that she is in danger as the story is told from her point of view. 

I loved learning about the lives of the Scottish highlanders, how the story moves from one-time zone to another, and how the characters overlap.

I love the grittiness of this—an account of a walk along the South West Coast path, when terminal illness and poverty haunt the walkers and everything is in a state of flux.

It doesn’t glamorize the walk; it’s often uncomfortable with lots of biting wind and pouring rain. At times, there are even threats from others they come across who are sleeping rough. Overall, it’s a description of nature at its most raw and authentic.

Although we glimpse moments of inspiration and beauty, I like the fact, as well, that it doesn’t have a big, blowsy Hollywood ending—at the close, the future appears uncertain, although there is a definite sense that a new energy has been discovered.

It ends on a simple, perfect moment as the author describes her and her husband as “lightly salted blackberries hanging in the summer sun” and adds significantly that’s “all that is… show more.

I started reading this story and thought at first that it was average. I was going along, wondering what would happen next, and then slam! I had to sit there and say, “What!” Really?” You couldn’t tear me away from it until the final word! It seems that so many authors these days try to replace poignant, dramatic characters and stellar plots with profanity and graphic sex. This writer does the opposite and this book is the absolute best showcase of that type of talent. There was a twist, and then another twist, and then another twist, yet they were all completely believable. That book stayed with me forever and I’ve read it many times since.

I was so tired of books that follow a formula with every author trying to imitate whoever had a bestseller that week when I picked this up. Nothing was what I expected! This was a totally character-driven book and so realistic with regard to how people actually behave and feel instead of contrived dialogue and predictable reactions. I could clearly visualize each and every person in this novel and the character development was superb. On top of that, the plot just didn’t quit! You will never believe the ending. 

This book pulled me in from page one and I could not stop reading. I have rarely found Historical fiction written in a way that makes you feel as if you are truly there. The era did not seem abstract and far away, but instead, I felt like I was in the room with the characters in every single scene. It was vivid, colorful, realistic, entertaining, and I could have never predicted all the things that would happen. Rarely can I find authors who write about Anne of Brittany or that time period, let alone do it well, but this one was a winner! 

This intricately written story sparked my interest from the very first page. Every time the author introduced a clue to the plot, I immediately wanted to know what it meant and what was coming. I was “chomping at the bit” as they say, and there was never one moment where the story lagged. Every single sentence needed to be there and the mystery had layer after layer with no way to ever predict what would happen. This is a historical fiction writer who definitely understands how to weave a top-notch suspenseful tale, and that’s what this is. 

This particular novel by the ‘Queen of Romance Comedy’ was my first introduction to her stories (I couldn’t help myself after finishing it; I had to read her previous books and then wait impatiently for new releases).

The very proper British, Lady Emma Wells-Finch, is determined to lose her good reputation to avoid marrying a blackmailing Duke. She meets the lazy, suspended American golf champ PGA bad boy, Kenny, who must—contrastingly—gain a good reputation, in order to save his career. Their not-so-proper journey through colliding worlds had me occasionally crying but often smiling in between many bouts of hilarious laughter.  

The first book of the captivating, unforgettable Angélique series hooked me from the very beginning.

Coming from poverty in Paris, the beauty traveled the world in dangerous, exciting, and shocking ways, often using her sexuality to help achieve her desires. I started reading this book when I was a young mother living in Trinidad and have read the entire series during the course of my own world travels.

Angélique epitomizes female survival. Like so many of us, she endures incredible challenges and sufferings alongside joys but eventually triumphs.