Books like Messages

I love this book because it made me think about how far someone can go to leave one version of their life behind.

I kept thinking about the choices the characters make and the way those choices continue to affect people long after they were made. I was especially drawn to the family relationships and to the tension between who we believe ourselves to be and who other people think we are.

I also loved that Brit Bennett never makes her characters easy to judge. I sometimes understood a decision even when I disliked it. That stayed with me. The novel made me think about family, identity, and whether we can ever completely separate ourselves from where we came from.

First of all, Jen Sincero’s voice is hilarious, down-to-earth, and completely refreshing.

She basically grabs you by the shoulders and tells you to stop messing around. I remember laughing out loud while reading this. What I love most is that she shares her own journey in an honest, testimony-style way, so it doesn't feel preachy. Instead, it feels relatable.

Her writing style is great in that it makes you see the small ways you may be downplaying your ambition or talking yourself out of bigger goals. It’s the perfect reality check when you need to stop doubting yourself and start confidently going after what you want.

I can probably find a way to put this novel into every book category there is – I love it that much!

Elizabeth Zott is a brilliant chemist in the 1960s, a time when society accepted that only men could be brilliant or chemists. But through a series of opportunities and her defiance in the face of attempts to marginalize her, Elizabeth becomes a de facto leader of a small but mighty group of women who change their circumstances and thereby begin to change the world. 

This book showed me things that both thrilled me and made me look so deeply at myself, at times, it was painful. I love it because it shows me—on a soul level—that everything is listening. The idea that water, something so ordinary and taken for granted, yet so integral to life, could respond to words, emotions, and intention made me slow down and really consider the energy I carry and put out into the world.

It taught me that healing doesn't always have to be loud or dramatic—it can be as subtle as a whispered “thank you” to a glass of water. Reading this book changed how I speak to myself and others, how I bless my tea, and how I cry. It made me believe in words, thoughts, and emotions as a force of transformation. I keep it close for when I need to reconnect with the softness of… show more.

Long before he became a Trump apologist, Rudy Giuliani was regarded by some as “America’s Mayor" in the wake of 9/11.

He led the city’s response to the World Trade Center attack, and in the view of many, he provided strong leadership in that crucial time, marshaling the city’s resources during the search, recovery, rescue, and beginning of the clean-up process. He attended what seemed like an endless stream of funerals for FDNY and NYPD members who were killed on 9/11, eulogizing the city’s dead heroes.

Barrett and Collins – two skilled NYC reporters – dive deep into the failings of the Giuliani mayoral administration that may have contributed to the loss of life among first responders that fateful day, including the well-documented problems with FDNY radios that hampered the efforts to evacuate FDNY members before the Twin Towers collapsed.

This book is well-written with language that’s easy off the tongue and sweet on the ears. I appreciate the main character, Dèja’s, spunk, and confidence despite her family being unhoused. I also enjoyed how the story’s characters, though from different cultural backgrounds, get along organically while working together on a difficult school assignment.

The ending is satisfying and hopeful. And I truly appreciate the story’s takeaway theme—confronting the past is more empowering than ignoring it.

The September 11th terrorist attack is a difficult history to introduce.

Picture books can be a good way to start the conversation, especially with 8 and 9-year-olds. In This Very Tree, Sean Rubin broaches the topic through a remarkable Callery pear tree in the Twin Towers plaza which survived the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

Rubin’s poignant artwork conveys both the destruction of that terrible day in New York City and the rebuilding efforts afterwards. Informative and lengthy back matter provides more information to complement the brief illustrated text. This picture book leaves the reader with an ultimately hopeful outlook of resilience and renewal. 

Chief Pfeifer was the first ranking officer to arrive at the World Trade Center on the morning of the attack. He was in the area to investigate a report of a gas leak when he saw a plane crash into the North Tower.

He was being followed by a film crew for an unrelated documentary. The film footage shows him in the WTC lobby as he tries to determine what is going on and as he and others begin the rescue operation that would engulf virtually the entire FDNY and turn tragic when the Twin Towers collapsed.

This book takes you beyond the news coverage and provides a first-hand account from a ranking FDNY member who was on the scene. 

Racing away from Ground Zero, 16-year-old Kyle encounters a bizarre sight: an angel, clinging to the Brooklyn Bridge. Kyle stops to help and discovers the “angel” is a teenage girl, her wings a costume from a school play. But the girl doesn’t remember anything about who she is. Thus begins a quest that pulls Kyle in conflicting directions: to find his dad (a first responder), to care for his uncle (a disabled cop), and to help this girl find her way home.

I love that the book begins with an act of kindness to a stranger, something we saw often after 9/11. And while we sometimes say we’d love to forget an event like 9/11, Gae’s book bears witness to the need to remember.

Allende loves her Chilean homeland with a longing, a tenderness, an exasperation derived from the country’s turbulent history and her long experience of exile and emigration in Venezuela and the United States.

This book made me fall in love all over again with the country, which I first visited a quarter century ago – and it will make you fall in love with it too, whether or not you’ve ever visited Chile.

With a novelist’s imaginative flare, Allende travels through time and across borders, searching her memory to tell the story of her lonely childhood, her remarkable family, the tumults that forced her abroad (including the death of her father’s cousin, President Salvador Allende), and a long life lived at a distance from the place she still calls home, regardless of decades of displacement.