Books like It's Not Like I Knew Her — picked by fans

An expansive, moving and captivating graphic memoir from the author of Fun Home.

Alison Bechdel's Fun Home was a literary phenomenon. While Fun Home explored Bechdel's relationship with her father, a closeted homosexual, this memoir is about her mother - a voracious reader, a music lover, a passionate amateur actor. Also a woman, unhappily married to a gay man, whose artistic aspirations simmered under the surface of Bechdel's childhood... and who stopped touching or kissing her daughter goodnight, for ever, when she was seven.

Poignantly, hilariously, Bechdel embarks on a quest for answers concerning the mother-daughter gulf.

'As absorbing as… show more.

“Oliver Twist with a twist…Waters spins an absorbing tale that withholds as much as it discloses. A pulsating story.”—The New York Times Book Review

Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a "baby farmer," who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby’s household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves—fingersmiths—for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home.

One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man,… show more.

For readers of The Paris Wife and The Swans of Fifth Avenue comes a “sensuous, captivating account of a forbidden affair between two women” (People)—Eleanor Roosevelt and “first friend” Lorena Hickok.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Financial Times • San Francisco Chronicle • New York Public Library • Refinery29 • Real Simple

Lorena Hickok meets Eleanor Roosevelt in 1932 while reporting on Franklin Roosevelt’s first presidential campaign. Having grown up worse than poor in South Dakota and reinvented herself as the most prominent woman reporter in America, “Hick,” as she’s known to her friends and… show more.

When a girl with a troubled history of finding dead bodies investigates the murder of her ex, she uncovers a plot to put herself---and everyone she loves---on the list of who's next.

Flora Calhoun has a reputation for sticking her nose where it doesn't belong. After stumbling upon a classmate's body years ago, the trauma of that discovery and the police's failure to find the killer has haunted her ever since. One night, she gets a midnight text from Ava McQueen, the beautiful girl who had ignited Flora's heart last summer, then never spoke to her again.

Just in time… show more.

Welcome to the National Recovery Bureau, where your assets are as sacred as God’s holy word.

Vera “Nick” Nicholson is an overtaxed and underpaid attorney wasting away on the bottom rung of the gilded ladder at Turner, Witherspoon, Anders, and Tyler in Winston-Salem, NC. When a high-priced luxury car belonging to one of the firm’s top clients goes missing, Nick gets saddled with the unenviable job of recovering the vehicle―and its mysterious contents―without involving the cops. Enter Fast Eddie and his quirky band of misfits at The National Recovery Bureau, a repo agency located in a sleepy town called K-Vegas.

… show more.

From the New York Times bestselling author of My Dearest Darkest comes another incredible sapphic horror. When four best friends with a hunger for human flesh attend a music festival in the desert they discover a murderous plot to expose and vilify the girls and everyone like them. This summer is going to get gory.

Five years ago, the melting of arctic permafrost released a pathogen of unknown origin into the atmosphere, causing a small percentage of people to undergo a transformation that became known as the Hollowing. Those impacted slowly became intolerant to normal food and were only able… show more.

'As a man loved a woman, that was how I loved...It was good, good, good...'

Stephen is an ideal child of aristocratic parents - a fencer, a horse rider and a keen scholar. Stephen grows to be a war hero, a bestselling writer and a loyal, protective lover. But Stephen is a woman, and her lovers are women. As her ambitions drive her, and society confines her, Stephen is forced into desperate actions. The Well of Loneliness was banned for obscenity when published in 1928. It became an international bestseller, and for decades was the single most famous lesbian… show more.

What if the greatest role of your life is playing your true self?

Ida Burton used to be Hollywood’s sweetheart until the best roles started drying up in her forties.

When Ida lands one of the leads in a big-budget lesbian rom-com, it's not only a chance at reviving her dwindling career. Maybe this movie can be an opportunity to finally burst out of the closet she's forced herself into.

Faye Fleming has been at the top of her acting game and collecting awards for the past few years. When she's cast in a huge blockbuster opposite the legendary Ida… show more.

Some believe that special someone is out there just waiting to be found. Jorie Andolini is one of those people and has spent a lot of time envisioning that moment. She bumps into a woman at a grocery store, the woman drops a can of peas, Jorie picks it up, their eyes meet, and two souls connect. But it’s actually a wasted trip to New York, a snowstorm, and a canceled flight home that puts her in the path of Lena Vaughn.

Lena has found fault in every man she’s ever dated. Her dream of finding a husband is dwindling… show more.

On Thanksgiving Day, LAPD homicide detective Kate Delafield and her partner, Ed Taylor, are called to an apartment building on the edge of Beverly Hills to investigate a premeditated and pitiless murder.

No one appears particularly grieved by the shocking end to old-time Hollywood director Owen Sinclair. Surely not three other tenants of the Beverly Malibu, who worked in the motion picture industry during the blacklist years and loathed Sinclair for having been a "friendly witness" before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Nor is Sinclair's latest ex-wife grieved or even his children. Nor film actress and former paramour Maxine Marlowe.… show more.