100 Books Like Invisible Boy

I’d be remiss if I shared books from Canada with you and didn’t point you towards some of the amazing writing coming out of Saskatoon, Treaty 6 Territory, and the Homeland of the Métis. Lisa-Bird Wilson's newest book is a beautiful novel about an Indigenous woman’s search for identity after her adoption. Living in Saskatchewan as Canada wrestles with truth and reconciliation, books like Probably Ruby give me a path to understanding and learning. The voice of this novel is searing and gorgeous, filled with heart and light, and I believe anyone who reads it will feel changed by the experience.

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. 

Because of my own work as an adoption writer and advocate for open adoption records, I knew each of these writers from webinars, podcasts, conferences, and social media. Combining their varied backgrounds and experiences–Sara is an adoptee, Kelsey is a birth parent, and Lori is an adoptive parent–was thrilling to read.

I devoured each of the thoughtful interviews and the candid responses the authors compiled and presented. Like these authors, I believe that by working together with truth and transparency, it is possible to move adoption forward toward a healing place.

First off, Ito is just a masterful storyteller. If she had to write about restocking shelves at a grocery store, Ito would make it riveting and hilarious. So, just reading her writing is a highly engaging joy. Second, this story is epic. This is Ito’s story of finding her birth mother and the challenges, joys, and heartbreak of that reunion as she herself became a mother.

What I love most about Ito’s story is that she effortlessly threads the needle of being real and raw yet funny and relatable at the same time. Whether you are a mom, dad, childless, adopted, or not, you will enjoy this journey.

When reading, I often mark passages and sentences I find especially evocative, powerful, insightful, or well-written. This novel is riddled with such marks. Freud does an exceptional job of creating a strong sense of time and place with elegant descriptions.

She explores the bonds between mothers and daughters, formed and broken, through three generations of women who all have a penchant for loving deeply flawed men. It’s a largely melancholy story and it stirred in me a wide range of painful emotions—heartache, disappointment, anger, frustration. Yet, the story contains moments of true beauty, as well, and ultimately concludes with a sense of brightness and redemption. 

This is a peculiar and marvelous book about birth families, adopted families, and “found” families, and how each of these can be equally screwed up.

Starting in Ireland in the 1940s, the story is peppered with sharp, clever dialog and vivid, fully-human characters. I love how the narrator struggles with his own heart for decades, unable to decide what he wants, who he loves, what’s right, what’s wrong, etc.—in other words, all the stuff I haven’t figured out yet myself. 

Coincidence also plays a huge role in this book, basically making an ass of everyone, which I find oddly comforting since it reminds me that part of being human is having very little control over my own life. Painfully funny and brilliant from cover to cover. 

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.

The bloodthirsty roses, Isra the blind beauty, and Gem the intriguing beast. It was an intriguing combo that first made me pick up this book and start the beginning of this adventure. That isn't to say that this book is all sweetness, there are most definitely moments that had me seething with anger. The way the 'perfect' Smooth Skins treated the flawed one of their own kind, and the Monstrous struggling to survive outside the dome. But by far my most favorite part was how Gem and Isla bonded over gardening together. Yes, it was originally a lie so that Gem could gather information to help his own people, but it turned into some of the most character-building scenes that tied the whole story together in a rose-shaped bow.

Hata, a Korean, adopted by a Japanese couple, serves the Japanese Army as a medic in World War II. His job is to care for enslaved Koreans who serve as “comfort women” to Japanese soldiers. His experiences are the material of nightmares. Years later he leads a deceptively quiet life in a small town in New Jersey with his Korean adoptive daughter. It is deceptively quiet because his unresolved war experiences, presented in flashbacks, haunt him. I admired the abrupt manner in which Chang-Rae Lee interrupted Hata’s uneventful life with horrific memories.

The author’s method felt like the triggering of those who have suffered trauma and continue to relive events as PTSD. This approach of interweaving past with present inspired my depiction of a young German woman living a quiet life on a primitive Icelandic farm, milking the cows and raking the hay, while being repeatedly interrupted by memories of… show more.

I used to work as an oncology RN so I generally avoid cancer stories, but this author is a friend so I gave the book a chance, and wow am I glad I did. This story manages to capture the crushing reality of cancer for both the patient and the people who love her, but it’s also funny and mysterious and romantic, with plenty of meaningful things to say about grief. It takes insight and compassion to balance all those elements without ever being disrespectful to or flippant about terminal illness. I powered through this gorgeous book (the cover is even more incredible in person!) in one sitting and finished the story feeling hopeful and inspired.