11 Books Like My Only Story

Each of us at times has felt isolated or disconnected. What does it take to pull us out of it? Sometimes reconnecting happens in ways that are unexpected. When we look back, we see we couldn’t have mapped out the path back with the most sophisticated GPS.

Then again, we’re not Monica Wood, who in, “The One-In-a-Million Boy” connects dots and lines between places and people so adroitly, we end up looking back at our crucial crossroads, the choices that have led us to where we are today.

One in a Million seems early as if it’s going to be a sad book. I found the opposite. I found that Wood gives hope to those who feel alone. Through her characters, she suggests we will likely find purpose and bridges in the most unlikely places. An 11-year-old boy and a 104-year-old Lithuanian immigrant? Come on. And yet…

Will Ona Vitkus… show more.

Charming three-stranded story about a young woman serving time for Quirky characters. Found familyss. Sweeping saga of art and music. And a love letter to Firenze . I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, separated into chronological titled vignettes with threads of the characters deftly woven throughout. Evelyn meets Darnley and Ulysses in a tuscan villa during WWII and this random connection frames a lifelong friendship. The characters were deftly drawn, their relationships realistic and ultimately hopeful and loving, albeit often not traditional. manslaughter, a retired teacher who leads a book club with the inmates and a retired machinist who becomes the handyman at a bookstore. At the beginning of the book, Violet is released from prison and dropped off by her sister at a furnished apartment with the message that she is not welcome back home. And so begins her reintroduction to the world. Generous characters, found family, literary references, redemption… show more.

I first read Lolita when I was 14 and have read it every few decades since, learning something new each time.

I love the first-person immediacy of it and the way it is a crime novel in reverse: the narrator is already imprisoned but not for the crime he describes. It is a love story turned on its head: what the narrator says is love is in fact abuse.

It is a road trip across the vastness of the US, like one I took when I was a student.

This book could almost be a study on psychology.

The writing itself is so stunning that I could get lost in the words themselves. But at its heart, the novel captures something about mistakes and ego and lifelong consequences that makes me want to cry. The progression over the course of the protagonist Briony’s life is painfully beautiful.

It’s one of those books that are so great that it’s hard for me to even describe how it makes me feel.

The title of this book really intrigued me. That, and the fact that the author had died very shortly after completing the novel, requesting her friend to see it through its journey, meant I felt compelled to read it.

The other hook for me was that the story is set in Guernsey, an island I have visited and where I was aware there had been a great deal of deprivation in WWII. I wasn’t disappointed. I loved the wit, the cast of wonderful characters, and the story that developed from a chance correspondence.

In 2017, Jason Reynolds introduced the world to Long Way Down, a young adult novel that follows a fifteen-year-old’s sixty-second elevator passage from the seventh to the ground floor. Written in narrative verse, the revenge-seeking teenager meets up with ghosts who press him to decide if he truly wants to use a gun as a means to avenge the murder of his older brother.

It appears the author is using a literary platform to incite the public to WAKE UP! to the cost of gun violence. Yet, how ironic that the very theme of Long Way Down caused the book to be censored, even though it has been bestowed with countless accolades.

Shouldn’t the array of positive reviews and numerous awards override a censorship board? 

This book has one of the most interesting characters I’ve ever come across in fiction. Evie Decker is an introverted and slightly eccentric teen living in small-town America whose ordinary life takes a completely different turn when she hears a young musician, Drumsticks Casey, being interviewed on the radio. Anne Tyler can be depended on to create fascinatingly quirky characters – I’ve long been a big fan of her writing – but I think she outdid herself with Evie. The story is unexpected and moving and funny and sad – really, it provides all the feels. The evolving relationship between Evie and Casey, with its ups and downs and twists, is perfectly told, and the dialogue sparkles with authenticity. 

I loved the novel’s unforgettable narrator, Perry L. Crandall, who has an IQ of 76.

A masterpiece of narrative voice, Lottery is easily the most engulfing book I’ve read in ten years. (I had a beloved sister with developmental disabilities and expected to be reduced to mush by page 5, but instead I was filled with joy.) The story follows Perry and his loathsome, money-grubbing sibs after Perry wins a boatload of dough in the state lottery.

This book is not what you think it will be, in about a million ways, and the ending is a heart-filling surprise. It made me want to be a better person. Everyone I’ve recommended this to adored it. (P.S. I’m not related to the author but I wish I were.)

I’m drawn to books that buck expectations, whether that’s through the format, content, or approach. So I adore how this book absolutely tears them all down and creates something more original instead. Chunks of this book are written like social media posts, which create quick, digestible sections that let the absurdity, humor, and social musings really hit.

I also admire how Lockwood is able to switch so smoothly between hilarity, heartbreak, anxiety, and sadness; I was cackling one minute and then ugly crying just a few pages later. I’ve never read a book quite like this before. Lockwood’s writing style inspires me to take more risks in my own stories.

I love a good look at class realities from nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America.

So I was eager to dive into a book about Trust’s central character, Ida Partenza, the daughter of an early twentieth-century anarchist, but also the secretary and ghostwriter for wealthy financier Andrew Bevel.

Part of what is so captivating (and mind-boggling) about Trust is its metafictional structure: Is it a novel? Wait, is it a memoir? Wait, is it Bevel’s story, or Ida’s, or Bevel’s wife’s?

To say more, I’m afraid, would ruin too many wonderful surprises, but I will say that some of the loveliest, most memorable writing in this book appears in the voice of Bevel’s wife, Mildred.