Books like Neshama — picked by fans

Brilliantly written in free verse poetry format, SPARK captures the raw emotion and devastation caused by wildfires and the transformation that hope brings to a community and humanity. Chris Baron is a master storyteller, bringing characters to life layer by layer as if they live and breathe! Spark is so much more than a book about a wildfire. It illuminates the spark within all of us and how our words, our actions can have a powerful, positive impact on our families, friends, community, and the world. Impossible to put down, I read it in one sitting.

An illuminating, brilliant must-read novel filled with compassion, hope, and humanity that will leave you thinking about how you can be a steward to help save our forests!

The book tackles so many critical and necessary conversations with such care and thought. 

Some of those topics include racism, classism and class segregation, the stress of excellence and being a “model citizen,” family expectations, ableism and neurodivergent treatment in a neurotypical world, police brutality and power imbalances. The book never feels bloated or didactic.

These topics are all so organically woven into the narrative that they only invite the reader to engage and think about the systems in the world we live in. All the Noise at Once is realistic in the difficult, but also the hopeful.

Aiden and Brandon, and their friends and family, go through so many hard things, but there is also light at the end of the tunnel. There is also joy and humor and a promising future.

Especially in these times, a dose of realistic hope is more important than ever.

This is quite a backlist title--published in the 90s--but as a workaholic, I found it so incredibly insightful, constructive and hopeful. I knew some of these things, but the exercises it gives to examine the why behind our drivenness, and how to helpfully address the past and look to the future empowered me so much, and gave me so many ideas of how to address these themes in my future novels.

This is the book the world needs now. Fast-paced, relatable and unputdownable, SAME PAGE tells the story of two tween friends who find themselves on opposite sides when one of their parents supports banning books. When do you speak up for what's right? What if you disagree with a parent's views? Deeply impressed with how Swartz addresses antisemitic incidents and bullying in the novel.

Highly recommend.

I am a sucker for books that riff on classic stories or myths, and this coming-of-age novel, Lovely War, told from the perspectives of Greek gods and goddesses, fits the bill.

World War I centers this novel, and while fantastical points of view may seem whimsical, the realistic descriptions of trench warfare, post-traumatic stress disorder, and racial injustice are not.

World War I brings teenagers together as friends and romantic partners, but will it also divide them forever? That is just one of the questions posed by Lovely War.

First of all, Heather’s writing is so clear and so emotional, it’s hard not to get sucked into this world immediately. Second, the characters are so well-rounded.

You can feel their ache radiating off the page. The micro poetry Hannah leaves all over the city breaks my heart every time I read them, but what absolutely sends me is how the girls learned to process grief and all the other Big Emotions by making soup. This book easily has crossover appeal for both teens and adults.

This story is told in such an unusual way!

Medema writes in-verse as well as uses emails, texts, and Google searches to tell the story of a teen who finds out that yes, she really is the odd one out in her family because her dad is not actually her father. She and the heart-wrenching Kodiak Jones take us through what it means to find the people you love, whether they are actual blood-relations or not. If you’re not sobbing at the end of this book…

Ugh, this book! When Max’s mom dies of cancer, he imagines the tumor has taken up residence in his own brain as his way of dealing with his grief and anger.

As his anger grows, he is sent to this alternative school where he meets the colorful and off-beat Fish, a girl with pink hair and a past, and The Monk, a boy with a strange collection and secrets of his own. The thing I love most about this book is how Pixley brings in Kafka’s Metamorphosis and Shakespeare’s Hamlet to help Max process how he feels about his mother’s death.

Ahh, I’m crying again just thinking about it!

I first read this book pre-publication in 2016, and I still think about it at least once a week.

The story is a haunting portrayal of a girl lost in a blended family with a stepmother who treats her worse than Cinderella and a father who only wants to see the shiny surface of his shiny new family. It’s told in a then/now timeline which slowly reveals not only what June did to land her on death row but the abuse she endured that got her there. This one is heavy, but oh so worth the read.