Here are 100 books that In Her Shoes fans have personally recommended if you like
In Her Shoes.
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I started reading thrillers when I was twelve—Grisham, Patterson, anything I could get my hands on. I learned quickly that in those stories, men were the ones doing the saving. They had the adventures; women were either the obstacle or the one being rescued. That’s why I love where the genre is now. I get to read stories where women take control—sometimes saving the day, sometimes going further than they probably should. It’s changed how I read, and honestly, it’s shaped how I think about storytelling. These are the kinds of books that made me want more—and made me want to be part of that shift.
I have a sister—a twin, actually—and I would do anything for her.
But if she murdered someone… would I cover it up? I couldn’t stop asking myself that while reading this, even as I found myself laughing at how effortlessly funny it is. Ayoola’s total indifference is what hooked me—she doesn’t question herself, doesn’t spiral, she just acts, and there’s something unsettlingly magnetic about that.
And Korede, fully aware and still complicit, pushed me to think about how far love can stretch before it turns into something else entirely. It’s bright, biting, and way more layered than it first appears, and I couldn’t get enough of that tension between devotion and control.
Sunday Times bestseller and The Times #1 bestseller
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2019 Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019 Winner of the 2019 LA Times Award for Best Crime Thriller Capital Crime Debut Author of the Year 2019 __________
'A literary sensation' Guardian
'A bombshell of a book... Sharp, explosive, hilarious' New York Times
'Glittering and funny... A stiletto slipped between the ribs and through the left ventricle of the heart' Financial Times __________
When Korede's dinner is interrupted one night by a distress call from her sister, Ayoola, she knows what's expected of her: bleach, rubber…
Two years ago, devastated by the sudden death of his older brother, Hank Atwater went on a drinking rampage that ended in his being arrested. Since then, he has been working to rebuild his reputation in his hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, with little luck. But everything changes after a…
I’ve had a passion for poetry since my early childhood, when I fondly remember listening to my elders recite—specifically, my teachers reading rhymes by Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss. As I grew into my adolescence and adulthood, my interest in literature only amplified with my introduction to works by Maya Angelou, R.H. Sin, and Rupi Kaur. Now, as a self-published poet and self-proclaimed enthusiast of the genre, I continue to spend my time browsing shelves, attending readings, and supporting writers/artists debuting work into the world. I hope you enjoy the books on my list.
I love this book for many reasons, but to start, I love that the title is a poetic metaphor, I love that the story is almost a hundred years old but still speaks to the rebellious spirit alive within young readers, and I love that the book is loosely based on Zora’s real life and the real place of Eatonville, Florida.
I love that readers get to experience the past and can envision their own future while reading this book. I laughed, cried, and found pieces of myself within the quotes snitched to this story.
Cover design by Harlem renaissance artist Lois Mailou Jones
When Janie, at sixteen, is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two stifling marriages before meeting the man of her dreams, who offers not diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds ...
'For me, THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD is one of the very greatest American novels of the 20th century. It is so lyrical it should be sentimental; it is so passionate it should be overwrought, but it is instead a rigorous, convincing and dazzling piece…
I’ve been an avid reader since I was a child, and my favorite protagonists are readers and writers. The Kansas tallgrass prairie horizons where I grew up fueled my imagination, and I wanted to write like the girls in my novels. I discovered Anne of Green Gables as a teen, and since then, I’ve researched, published, and presented on the book as a quixotic novel. As a creative writer, my own characters are often readers, writers, librarians, book club members, and anyone who loves a good tale. I hope you enjoy the books on my list as much as I do each time I return to them.
I love this book because it has so many layers that appeal to me: a historical period, the challenges of growing up, and a young woman who dreams of being a writer.
As an author, Jo March’s writing aspirations spoke to me, although I think I saw a bit of me in each of the four March sisters. That breadth is what welcomes me as a reader each time I return to the novel. And—no spoilers—I still sometimes scratch my head over the twist in the romance plot that didn’t go as I anticipated when I first read the book!
Louisa May Alcott shares the innocence of girlhood in this classic coming of age story about four sisters-Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy.
In picturesque nineteenth-century New England, tomboyish Jo, beautiful Meg, fragile Beth, and romantic Amy are responsible for keeping a home while their father is off to war. At the same time, they must come to terms with their individual personalities-and make the transition from girlhood to womanhood. It can all be quite a challenge. But the March sisters, however different, are nurtured by their wise and beloved Marmee, bound by their love for each other and the feminine…
Trapped in her enormous, devout Catholic family in 1963, Annie creates a hilarious campaign of lies when the pope dies and their family friend, Cardinal Stefanucci, is unexpectedly on the shortlist to be elected the first American pope.
Driven to elevate her family to the holiest of holy rollers in…
I love stories so much I majored in English at UVa. Though I showed up in New York with only reading and waitressing skills, I’ve somehow enjoyed the privilege of working in the arts at some of the greatest institutions (Paul Taylor, Cooper Union, ABT). I respond to art, people and especially art-people. Encountering their deep love (and glorious dysfunction) in books enables me to extend the special communion that grows around audiences and artists. This is central to me. It reminds me that beauty is important. It helps me hold on.
This is such an insightful glimpse into what happens when an artist—in this case, an architect—stops creating, that’s both hilarious and heartbreaking.
Describing the price of privilege, but without preciousness, Maria Semple illustrates the decline of a mother and professional, doing what seem like the right things while producing disastrous results that really ring true.
Fatigued by the priorities of high-tech Seattle, Bernadette loses her confidence and misplaces her trust. Then it’s her daughter who has to pull her back from the brink. Their love withstands the tests of culture, community, and commodity, reminding us of the remarkable symbiosis between mothers and daughters while showcasing Semple’s irrepressible, satiric wit.
A misanthropic matriarch leaves her eccentric family in crisis when she mysteriously disappears in this "whip-smart and divinely funny" novel that inspired the movie starring Cate Blanchett (New York Times).
Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect; and to 15-year-old Bee, she is her best friend and, simply, Mom.
Then Bernadette vanishes. It all began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle --…
Why do we pretend like we “come of age” in our teens or twenties? Our frontal lobes haven’t even fully developed yet! I had been so afraid of getting older, but since turning 30, and each year that passes, I find that I fall deeper in love with my life and my friends, even though I still don’t have it all figured out. I love that the heroines of each of these books allow themselves to abandon society’s expectations of them to find their own sense of peace, no matter how messy the process is. I also love that Charli XCX’s album, Brat, is a perfect soundtrack to any of these books.
When I first read Bridget Jones’s Diary at 13, I was completely captivated by Bridget’s absurdity and freedom.
At the time, I was sure that by the time I was her age, I would already be married with at least two children and a much more “together” life. Still, I found Bridget and her chaotic world endlessly charming.
Fast forward to 37: recently married, no children (and no plans for them), and life looking very different from the neat timeline I once imagined.
Throughout the years, Bridget has been a character I return to again and again while figuring out what adulthood actually looks like. Helen Fielding created a character who captures the messy, funny reality of trying to figure life out in real time.
A dazzlingly urban satire on modern relationships? An ironic, tragic insight into the demise of the nuclear family? Or the confused ramblings of a pissed thirty-something?
As Bridget documents her struggles through the social minefield of her thirties and tries to weigh up the eternal question (Daniel Cleaver or Mark Darcy?), she turns for support to four indispensable friends: Shazzer, Jude, Tom and a bottle of chardonnay.
Welcome to Bridget's first diary: mercilessly funny, endlessly touching and utterly addictive.
Helen Fielding's first Bridget Jones novel, Bridget Jones's Diary, sparked a phenomenon that has seen…
I'm a publishing executive turned self-help expert who frequents national morning shows to talk about clutter. Full disclosure, I'm a recovering shopaholic with an obsessive need to tidy up people’s homes and offices. My philosophy is simple, I bring order to everything I do, because life shouldn’t be a mess. I've written non-fiction books based on my organizing expertise that has been featured on Oprah, The Today Show, and NPR. I learned that it's never really about the stuff but the journey of self-discovery, a journey that is made easier with a best friend at your side. This journey of the flawed and strong heroine in my latest book, a novel called Best Friend for Hire.
I would argue that this novel set up the formula for fresh funny self-deprecating women characters that become heroines of their own stories. Later made into a movie with Ashley Judd and titled Someone Like You, the heroine compares modern-day dating to the rituals of mating in the animal kingdom to hilarious results.
Ray makes the move. Jane feels the rush. Ray says the L-word. Jane breaks her lease. Then suddenly, inexplicably, he dumps her. Just. Like. That.
...old cow.
Now black is the only color in Jane's closet and Kleenex is clinging to her nose. Why did it happen? How could it have happened?
Moo.
Jane is going to get an answer. Not from Ray. Not from her best friends, David and Joan. But from an astounding new discovery of her own: The Old-Cow-New-Cow theory.
Forced to move into the apartment of a womanizing alpha male named Eddie, Jane is…
Winner of the 2025 PenCraft Seasonal Book Award Spring Competition - Women's Fiction
Kelly needs a break, even if it’s only for the weekend. But visiting her aunt in Sun City turns into an unexpected care-giving situation, prompting her to face avoided decisions.
I’ve spent my life in music and the creative industries, having worked in major record companies in London (among other places), and have loved every minute of it. Over the past 20 years, I've also studied it academically and run courses on entertainment management in colleges and Universities. It is rewarding to work with people who want to make a career in the creative industries. A colleague once said to me, “If you can give me a graduate who can have a conversation with a Chief Financial Officer and not freak them out, and then have a conversation with an artist and not freak them out, then you will be doing the world a great favor, because this is comparatively rare.”
I loved this fictitious expose of the New York fashion industry because it asks what we would sacrifice for ‘a job a million girls/boys would die for?’ Sometimes, in the creative industries, power can be concentrated in the hands of people for whom ‘the meaning of their life’ is about a creative project being successful.
This can lead them to make the lives of people around them miserable. How much abuse, poor pay, lack of credit, ‘self-exploitation’, being absent for loved ones, how much of this would you tolerate? What if you had to sell your soul to fulfill your dream? This might seem academic, but for many in the creative industries, it has been painfully real.
High fashion, low cunning - and the boss from hell
When Andrea first sets foot in the plush Manhattan offices of Runway she knows nothing. She's never heard of the world's most fashionable magazine, or its feared and fawned-over editor, Miranda Priestly - her new boss.
A year later, she knows altogether too much:
That it's a sacking offence to wear anything lower than a three-inch heel to work.
That you can charge cars, manicures, anything at all to the Runway account, but you must never, ever, leave your desk, or let Miranda's coffee get cold.
I am a romantic; I live to love. My books Eve’s Blessing and Subjectified both help women build great sex and love lives. As a therapist and sex educator, I help people connect with their partners and build the relationships of their dreams. I am currently working on a romance novel with spiritual and psychedelic themes. I love books that introduce us to new worlds as we explore the inner world of each character.
This sweet, sexy love story and the two sequels in the series are a win for neurodiverse representation.
Follow the adventures of an autistic woman who struggles with self-confidence until she hires an escort to help her learn the ins and outs of dating and sex—then unexpectedly falls in love with him.
If you thought neurodiversity and sexiness existed in opposition, think again.
A Washington Post Book of the Year, 2018 An AmazonBook of the Year, 2018 Cosmopolitan's 33 Books to Get Excited About in 2018 Elle Best Summer Reads 2018
__________
A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there's not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick.
It's high time for Stella Lane to settle down and find a husband - or so her mother tells her. This is no easy task for a wealthy, successful woman like Stella, who also happens to have Asperger's. Analyzing…
I’ve been fascinated by sisters, siblings, and my place in the family since I was old enough to realize I had an older sister and a younger brother. I asked my parents a lot of questions. Why am I blonde? Why is my sister taller? Lots of questions my parents didn’t have answers for. At school in biology, we studied genes, familial traits, and nature versus nurture. I was fascinated, and still am today. Why does my sister behave the way she does? Why do I? Is it because of our upbringing, or was she just born with an aversion to cheese? I wanted to know the answers. I’m still searching.
This gripping and heartbreaking YA novel about Lily and her older, bipolar sister, Alice, has stayed with me. I found the plot and characters so realistic and absorbing that I forgot I was reading fiction.
This book is an intense read, but set in a world I became thoroughly immersed in. I connected with Lily’s compulsion to be the perfect daughter and straight-A student. I cried for her having to swallow her emotions and words, while internally struggling with her own demons.
It’s a must-read for anyone who has survived their teenage years. It’s considered, wholehearted, and delivers a convincing portrayal of sisterly bonds, mental health issues, and the people who are courageous enough to confront them. I’m teary now just thinking about it.
A beautifully realistic, relatable story about mental health—anxiety, perfectionism, depression—and the healing powers of art--perfect for fans of Girl in Pieces and How it Feels to Float. Whatever you struggle with, you are not alone and you are already enough—just the way you are.
It's been three months since The Night on the Bathroom Floor--when Lily found her older sister Alice hurting herself. Ever since then, Lily has been desperately trying to keep things together, for herself and for her family. But now Alice is coming home from her treatment program and it is becoming harder for Lily to ignore…
Farrah Wethers struggles with her new midlife career as a massage therapist. Her wealthy client is murdered on her table making her suspect number one. Can Farrah and her best friend, June Cho, sort through the suspects to find the real killer?
I’ve spent over three decades as a therapist and professor, with ethics at the heart of everything I do. Many clients come to therapy feeling at odds with their moral compass, and I’m passionate about helping them navigate those gray areas with compassion and clarity. As a professor, I live what I teach—engaging in real-world ethical decision-making, mentoring new professionals, and writing books that bring complex concepts to life. I love books that challenge us to think deeply, sit with ambiguity, and reconnect with our moral center. This list reflects that journey—these are the books that stay with you long after the last page.
I’ll admit it—Jodi Picoult gets me in the feels every single time. But this was the one that hooked me. I thought I knew what I’d do if faced with the choice to conceive a child to save another. Simple, right? You save your kid.
But this story unraveled all my assumptions. It made me pause and really consider the perspective of the child conceived for a purpose. Then it threw the whole family into court—and suddenly, I was questioning everything again. I found myself discovering new values I didn’t even know I held.
Sara and Brian Fitzgerald's life with their young son and their two-year-old daughter, Kate, is forever altered when they learn that Kate has leukemia. The parents' only hope is to conceive another child, specifically intended to save Kate's life. For some, such genetic engineering would raise both moral and ethical questions; for the Fitzgeralds, Sara in particular, there is no choice but to do whatever it takes to keep Kate alive. And what it takes is Anna. Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) and Anna (Abigail Breslin) share a bond closer than most sisters: though Kate is older, she relies on her little…
