39 Books Like Ambition Monster

It’s hard to match Nora Ephron’s wit and wisdom. In this novel, which mirrors events from the novelist and screenwriter’s real life, cookbook writer Rachel Samstat learns that her husband is cheating on her while she’s pregnant. Even as her life is falling apart, Rachel maintains her sense of humor while dropping the “everything is perfect” routine and speaking her mind.

In this tale of love and loss, Ephron serves up hilarious and heartbreaking moments in equal portions alongside mouthwatering recipes.

Reading this book made me blush, gasp and giggle—a lot!

Difficult to describe without spoilers—a literal and metaphorical road trip with surprises at every stop. The moving, shocking and very funny story follows 45-year-old Los Angeles–based multimedia artist, navigating midlife, parenting and a marriage that had lost its narrative under the weight of routine and thwarted expectations. 

We both devoured Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s last book, Fleishman Is in Trouble, and the wonderful TV adaptation of the same name. So, when we saw that she was writing another one, we both not only hit the preorder button but reached out to her publisher to get advanced reader copies. The book doesn’t come out until July 9. Still, we’ve both already read it and can confidently say it’s a delightful summer read about a wealthy Jewish family, the Fletchers, grappling with grief, repressed trauma, and the sudden slipping away of their family fortune.

The book grabs you instantly with a violent kidnapping and then jumps forward and back in time to explore the psyches of each of the Fletcher children as they process what has become of their family in the wake of their grandmother’s death. And wait until you discover what the “Long Island Compromise” is. 

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We have both been huge fans of Adelle Waldman since she came out with her whip-smart romantic satire, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P, around a decade ago. Her follow-up, our last pick, was stunning to us, not only because it's so good but because it's inspiring to see how a writer doesn't have to get cornered in by the "brand" she unwittingly establishes when she publishes her debut.

This book is set a world away from the Brooklyn coffee shops and house parties that the Nathaniel P. literary hipsters frequent; it all takes place in a big box store in upstate New York called Town Square, which may as well be Target. 

It makes you chuckle, think, and feel, largely due to its well-researched content. Waldman immersed herself in the world in which her new book is set, taking a job at Target while she was writing it.… show more.

Whilst this is a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ book that takes you through the experiences of clients in therapy, Charlotte also shares her side of the story as the therapist in question. This bridges both her professional and personal experiences, which completely draws you in.

There are so many thoughtful and interesting quotes throughout this book and I found myself scribbling notes the whole way through reading it. Whilst the book is provocatively titled around the topic of desire, it’s not all sexual or erotic. It connects with something that we all want in some way – freedom, to belong, control, understanding, and love.

It’s a really smart book – not in an intimidating way, but in a ‘I wish I had written that’ kind of way. 

Full disclosure: I work with Luke Burgis at the university. But it was him—and this book—that introduced me to René Girard, and my world has never been the same. It unpacks Girard’s concept of mimetic desire in a way that is both deeply insightful and immediately practical. It explains so much about human behavior—my own included—both inside and outside of business.

What struck me most is the weight of responsibility this places on business leaders. Desire is not neutral; it can be cultivated in ways that either elevate human dignity or exploit it. Burgis makes a compelling case that when leaders engage with the desires of their employees and customers responsibly, the result isn’t just business success—it’s human excellence and lasting happiness.

Beyond the ideas, it is simply a beautifully written book. I’ve had the privilege of seeing Luke’s storytelling ability in the classroom and as a friend, but he… show more.

Holsinger’s debut novel was published in 2019, only a few months after the Operation Varsity Blues college admissions scandal burst into public view, capturing the attention of a horrified nation. While The Gifted School tells the story of four friends in Colorado as their children are applying (and the parents jockeying) for admission to a middle school for gifted and talented students, the parenting mania themes are cut from the same cloth. With humor and wisdom, Holsinger deftly handles the intricacies and dynamics within and across each of the four families. The twists and turns are surprising, the characters extremely well-drawn, and readers are guaranteed to cringe as the parents in the story make one bad decision after another, suffering under—and ultimately succumbing to—the weight of their anxieties. Delicious fun!

I love that this book encourages girls to be ambitious, speak up, and be confident. I think that when girls are shamed into silence, false meekness, or restrained by pointless societal conventions, everyone loses. In this book, Harris’ main character won’t be deterred by damaging words that try to label her “too loud, too assertive, etc.” just because she’s a girl. She is encouraged to tell the world who she is, not the other way around. My choices and my voice are precious to me and I am painfully aware that not all females have these truly precious things.

I read this book years ago in high school, and my eyes were opened. The hero, Julien Sorel, is—like I was when I read the novel—naïve, confused, trusting, inexperienced, and prone to awkwardness and error. In short, I could relate to someone in circumstances (boarding school!) where I desperately needed someone who was highly imperfect with whom I could identify.

It might have been the first time I read an adult book where I felt I might actually meet the main character one day, walking down the street or even in the hallway.

Quite simply this book explains why nearly everything that we have been taught about desire is wrong – which explains why so many of us misunderstand that desire changing doesn’t mean that it’s completely lost.

On page one Dr Gurney addresses the fact that we have unrealistic socially-set standards when it comes to sex, and these result in a huge number of us feeling in some way that we are failing at sex ( and also that we are the only ones because nobody talks about it ).

Loss of desire is one of the most common presentations to psychosexual therapists and so much of it is in the mismatch of what the science tells us, and what society tells us. I honestly feel that if every woman, and couple read this book that they would feel more positive, more empowered, and more able to change their sex lives and… show more.