Books like Made in the U.S.A. — picked by fans

Like with my first recommendation, I feel that this book appeals to a desire for adventure that we all had as kids. Who didn’t dream of Time Travel adventures as a kid? And again, as an adult, I have of course come to realize that I’d not last a day if I were to fall into this sort of adventure – and although time travel is supposedly possible, albeit only as a one-way journey due to the nature of time-dilation, the undertaking of such a journey, and the physical aspects of what is involved, I’d never want to do it now. Of course, in Playing Beatie Bow, Abigail’s time travel method is very simple (and impossible), but the trouble she gets into in the past is complicated, complex, and dangerous. The book’s dual settings might not appeal to young readers of today, but its lessons about learning to live… show more.

Sometimes, I just want an uncomplicated novel with endearing characters who can entertain me without spinning me with florid words or energetic action pieces, characters who can capture my imagination with simple goals and relatable decisions that become catalysts for major life transformations because I want to believe such simplicity can always lead to such beautiful and unexpected outcomes as those that happen in this book.

When even the shallowest of characters can demonstrate such depth and growth over such a short span of time after pursuing what, on the surface, seems like a shallow goal through shallow means and doing so properly and hilariously, I’m hooked. This is my second favorite book of all time.

In my mind, this book shows one of the great character arcs in literature. The persnickety thirteen-year-old Charlotte begins her 1832 voyage from London to America admiring iron-fisted Captain Jaggery of the Seahawk. When she overhears the crew speaking of mutiny, she snitches on them.

At one point, I was hoping she’d get swept overboard. But Charlotte bonds with the ship’s black cook, Zachariah, and begins to see life beyond her vantage of a rich white child of privilege. As conditions worsen on the Seahawk, Charlotte sides with the crew, becomes a deckhand, and eventually their captain!

This is an old-time, swashbuckling, wind to yer back, sea adventure. I can still smell the bilgewater years after reading it.  

I first read this as a teen and fell hard for the characters that populate this story and Novalee’s life. Pregnant and abandoned, Novalee’s life is the definition of loss at the start of the story—but by the end, her life is filled with such love and richness that it’s easy to forget how she started.

She continues to experience loss as the story continues, but the strength her found family gives her demonstrates how the right people can help us grow. These characters are quirky and loving, and I can’t help but wish they were all real every time I read it.

The Dwarves series (especially the first two books) bring the readers back in time and sets them up, straight from the beginning, on a simpler way of seeing things and also a simpler way of writing, while also being able to convey the true values of the fantasy genre with class.

Life is tough for Angel—her dad is in jail, her mom is irresponsible, and she has to take care of her seven-year-old brother. Paterson doesn’t hold back in this unflinching look at family brokenness, but as sad as the circumstances are, there is hope! Angel meets some new adults and through their small kindnesses, she learns that she is stronger than she ever knew. It’s a great message for any kid who is struggling with too much responsibility. It has a redemption arc that I also loved. 

I still think about the setting of The Ash House all the time.

It is so vivid and so real. The eeriness and spookiness of this place starts from the first page, even the first sentence. We know something is off here in the ash house, and we watch as the main character starts being subsumed by the other kids here.

We worry as he starts losing his identity. But this is a powerful and haunting story about listening to yourself and remembering yourself no matter what else is going on around you, and no matter what anyone else believes.

I love this book, which is also a play, for its witty banter and mistaken identities. Oscar Wilde is a master of acerbic wit and putting his characters in situations that fully shine the light on their humanity and also their faults and foibles.

I read this book with a smile pasted across my face from the first to the last page.

Amy Bloom is one of the authors I admire most in the world, and I loved this story of two fascinating sisters, Eva and Iris, not just for Bloom’s enthralling use of language but also for the spiritedness and intrigue of who the sisters are. (While Iris, "the pretty one,” struggles to make it in Hollywood as a B-movie actress, Eva, “the smart one,” gets roped into offering tarot card readings to help support their ragtag family.)

I loved living in the world that Bloom created in a story that crisscrossed the U.S. and beyond in the 1940s, and I loved being constantly surprised by the sisters’ choices and the events that befall them–and by the riveting words used to describe them.  

Marais does an excellent job of moving among these three point-of-view characters: a Black woman and two white sisters, all brought together by a child and the question of parentage. At the heart of the story is life in apartheid-era South Africa. A must-read for anyone who loves messy families and complex characters.