Books like No Biking in the House Without a Helmet — picked by fans

I was stunned by the similarities between the men in Gupta’s life and my own. This book laid bare the violence of the model minority myth and how it erases pain, demands silence, and turns belonging into a performance.

I saw so much of myself in her unraveling of that narrative. They Called Us Exceptional reminded me that telling the truth about our families isn't betrayal, it’s a form of generational care. Prachi writes with a kind of fierce compassion that made me feel seen, especially in the messiness.

If you've ever felt the pressure to be exceptional at the expense of being whole, this book is a balm, a reckoning, and a quiet act of rebellion.

Hard to imagine a memoir about suicide can be entertaining but, honestly, it was.

Sean Dietrich’s father shot himself when Sean was a child. The book is a roller-coaster ride of emotions Sean experiences as he comes to terms with that event. While the backdrop of the story is that sad beginning, the details of Sean’s life lived along the way are often funny.

His description of math and why he hates it is downright hilarious: “Math is one of those things the good Lord allowed on this earth to remind mankind that the devil is real,” that paragraph begins. Sean details his journey from being a high school dropout to becoming an award-winning, hugely popular author and columnist with brute honesty, a distinctly Southern perspective, and a wit that puts him right up there with Will Rogers.

There is so much wit and humor in this memoir that touches upon the immigrant experience from the perspective of the first-generation adult child. Deb goes on a journey to learn who his parents are as individuals and gains a perspective that is often difficult to achieve in the Indian community because parents don’t often share with their children who they are on the inside. The vulnerability with which Deb shares his childhood desire to blend into the white community in which he was raised was so relatable because I’d had a similar upbringing in another part of the country. This book made me laugh hard, think more deeply, and want to know my parents better.

The first time I read David Rosenfelt’s Andy Carpenter series, I immediately thought that Groucho Marx had moved to North Jersey, gone into law, and adopted a rescue dog. Rosenfelt’s reluctant lawyer hero goes at his oddball cases with a collection of even odder associates. Dry, witty, and a little self-effacing, Rosenfelt’s style brings to life a cast of characters that made me reluctant to put his books down. I started the series with the third book, Bury the Lead, first but quickly caught up. The first book in the series is Open and Shut. Mystery and animal lovers will find a place in their heart and funny bone.

I loved the main character Paddy Meehan’s voice in this series. Paddy is a lowly copygirl at a Glasgow newspaper with dreams of becoming an investigative journalist during a time when girls are expected to marry out of high school and have babies, not unlike the way things were when I entered the work world. Paddy is intelligent and driven and so outside the mold that her family and boyfriend, indeed the Scottish community, cannot understand her drive to be more than what society demands she should be. She’s someone I rooted for every step of the way as she navigates the old boys’ club in the 1980s and 1990s. Combine Paddy with Mina’s brilliant writing, realistic dialogue, and compelling plotlines, and this series is one to be savored. 

Known for his Lincoln Lawyer and Harry Bosch crime/mystery series, this novel is the first one about Connelly’s investigative reporter Jack McAvoy.

I really enjoyed the immersion of the protagonist into the journalism newsroom world as he tries to link his brother’s unexpected murder to a series of nationwide murders.

With all odds against him, I liked the way Jack kept fighting the upstream battle to arrive at an astonishing conclusion to the case.

I enjoy when misogynist, mansplaining jerks get what they deserve (What? you ask. Spoiler alert, and to quote Inigo Montoya: “humiliations galore”). I’ve been subjected to the presence of men who think they’re smart, funny, and engaging but who are, in fact, none of those things, and let me tell you, I’d rather dig my own liver out with a spoon than waste another minute of my time with them.

I loved reading this book because the intellectual smackdown brought to the main character by a young woman superior to him in every way makes for riveting reading. Nothing makes me feel more hopeful than seeing a loathsome person get what’s coming to them. 

If rolling on the floor laughing your ass off is your thing, then Carl Hiaasen is for you. This was my entry into whack-job Florida crime capers, and it still puts me in stitches.

The carousel of nuttiness starts spinning when two rare “blue-tongued voles” are nicked from Amazing Kingdom of Thrills, a low-rent theme park. Bouncing off each other is a crowd of madcap and/or menacing characters. The racketeer park owner. The two boneheaded thieves. An enviro-radical granny. An oversexed dolphin. A security chief hopped up on steroids. An actress who plays a goofy park critter. A gonzo former Florida governor turned eco-guerrilla. And, as the only normal person in sight, an ex-journo PR flak. Now, just climb aboard and hang on.

I love a good family drama where there’s a found family.

A young reporter is assigned to write the obituary of an alive woman, Mrs. Kip. Mrs. Kip lost her husband, never remarried, and never had children. But she lived what could appear to be a thousand lives as she held different roles and careers throughout her life.

In order for one job/role/calling to end, a part of her had to die. Now, faced with a young blonde who favors her, Mrs. Kip feels as though maybe this is the daughter she never had, the daughter who would listen to the stories, the daughter that might not be family by blood, but family by heart.

This story gave me a lot of “spread the Gospel” vibes, but also reminded me to not sleep on the seniors in our lives. They have a lot to offer, too. 

Robin Robertson’s noir narrative The Long Take might seem like an unusual choice for this list.

Essentially a long noir poem, The Long Take concerns Walker, a Canadian veteran of D-Day with acute PTSD who finds life unraveling in the urban landscapes he inhabits after the war.

With a poet’s precision, Robertson follows Walker as he moves from city to city, taking it all in. Homelessness, crime, race—nothing is spared.

Why, you’d think you were in a 40s film noir, reading about it all, and then you find Walker on the streets of LA in 1948 seeing some of those very films being shot, films like Act of Violence and Criss Cross.

An outstanding achievement, The Long Take is a wholly original work of art.