Here are 100 books that Pieces of My Mother fans have personally recommended if you like Pieces of My Mother. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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The Glass Castle

By Jeannette Walls ,

Book cover of The Glass Castle

Zarah Dara Author Of What The Quiet Knew

From my list on hidden trauma and the lives we never speak about.

By Zarah Dara Author

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m passionate about this theme because I grew up inside the kind of silence most people never see—the kind shaped by responsibility, fear, love, and the need to stay strong before you’re old enough to understand why. I’ve lived through the quiet wounds, the invisible burdens, and the unspoken grief that shaped every part of me. Stories like these make people like me feel less alone. They remind us that survival has its own language, and that the things we carry silently are worth naming. I write about quiet pain because it’s the world I came from, and the world I learned to rise out of.

Zarah's book list on hidden trauma and the lives we never speak about

Book cover of The Glass Castle Book cover of Girl, Interrupted Book cover of The Light We Lost Book cover of Things We Don’t Talk About Book cover of A Little Life

Zarah Dara Why Zarah loves this book

I loved this book because it captures childhood in the rawest way—messy, painful, confusing, and resilient.

Walls writes about instability and survival with such clarity that I found myself nodding through entire chapters. I related deeply to the burden of growing up too fast and learning how to take care of people before you ever learned how to take care of yourself.

What moved me most was the love within the chaos—the complicated, contradictory love between parent and child that shapes you long after you’ve grown. It reminded me that you can carry pain and tenderness at the same time, and both can be true.

The Glass Castle

By Jeannette Walls ,

Why should I read it?

28 authors picked The Glass Castle as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now a major motion picture starring Brie Larson, Naomi Watts and Woody Harrelson.

This is a startling memoir of a successful journalist's journey from the deserted and dusty mining towns of the American Southwest, to an antique filled apartment on Park Avenue. Jeanette Walls narrates her nomadic and adventurous childhood with her dreaming, 'brilliant' but alcoholic parents.

At the age of seventeen she escapes on a Greyhound bus to New York with her older sister; her younger siblings follow later. After pursuing the education and civilisation her parents sought to escape, Jeanette eventually succeeds in her quest for the 'mundane,…

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Book cover of The Village That Betrayed Its Children

The Village That Betrayed Its Children by Karen Elizabeth Lee,

This is the story of a shocking crime committed in the 50s and 60s in a small rural village, and a criminal who was never brought to justice. The Principal in our two-room school was a pedophile who molested nearly all of the young female students. He was protected by…

Crying in H Mart

By Michelle Zauner ,

Book cover of Crying in H Mart

Margaret Whitford Author Of The History We Carry

From my list on challenging maternal relationships.

By Margaret Whitford Author

Why am I passionate about this?

Of the five books I recommended, four are memoirs, and one is a novel that reads like a memoir. I read these books because the subject, the maternal relationship, fascinates me, and also because I wanted to learn from these other writers. Each book gave me some ideas about how to approach my own exploration of my relationship with my mother. At the same time, the books reinforced my belief that each of us carries our family history forward, especially our maternal history. To live fully requires understanding and integrating that past. 

Margaret's book list on challenging maternal relationships

Book cover of Where Rivers Part Book cover of Crying in H Mart Book cover of Pieces of My Mother: A Memoir Book cover of You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir Book cover of In My Mother's House

Margaret Whitford Why Margaret loves this book

This is a stunning debut by a talented artist.

In the memoir, the narrator grieves for her mother, and in doing so, revives her Korean self and the parts of her culture she'd rejected as an adolescent. A beautiful grief memoir that reveals the ways in which a daughter's ties to the woman who gave birth to and raised her never dissolve. In Zauner's case, one of the strongest ties is the love of Korean food she shared with her mother. She finds her way back to her mother through cooking.

The book made me think about the ways in which my mother and I connected through some third thing that created the bridge between us. 

Crying in H Mart

By Michelle Zauner ,

Why should I read it?

20 authors picked Crying in H Mart as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2021

The New York Times bestseller from the Grammy-nominated indie rockstar Japanese Breakfast, an unflinching, deeply moving memoir about growing up mixed-race, Korean food, losing her Korean mother, and forging her own identity in the wake of her loss.

'As good as everyone says it is and, yes, it will have you in tears. An essential read for anybody who has lost a loved one, as well as those who haven't' - Marie-Claire

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer,…

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You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

By Sherman Alexie ,

Book cover of You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir

Margaret Whitford Author Of The History We Carry

From my list on challenging maternal relationships.

By Margaret Whitford Author

Why am I passionate about this?

Of the five books I recommended, four are memoirs, and one is a novel that reads like a memoir. I read these books because the subject, the maternal relationship, fascinates me, and also because I wanted to learn from these other writers. Each book gave me some ideas about how to approach my own exploration of my relationship with my mother. At the same time, the books reinforced my belief that each of us carries our family history forward, especially our maternal history. To live fully requires understanding and integrating that past. 

Margaret's book list on challenging maternal relationships

Book cover of Where Rivers Part Book cover of Crying in H Mart Book cover of Pieces of My Mother: A Memoir Book cover of You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir Book cover of In My Mother's House

Margaret Whitford Why Margaret loves this book

I loved this gorgeous memoir, in part for its compelling structure—a blend of prose and poetry.

The narrator explores his grief in the aftermath of his mother's death, and in doing so, reminded me of the ways in which grief never leaves you, though it changes over time. Alexie seeks to, and succeeds in, animating his mother as the complex and deeply traumatized woman she was. Studying how he portrayed his mother gave me some new ways to think about how I might present my own.

This writer placed his very personal story of grief within the context of larger losses he experienced as a Native American man—familial, cultural, environmental. At the same time, Alexie's memoir is an ode to human resiliency. It is a memorable book. 

You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

By Sherman Alexie ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked You Don't Have to Say You Love Me as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A searing, deeply moving memoir about family, love, loss, and forgiveness from the critically acclaimed, bestselling National Book Award-winning author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

Family relationships are never simple. But Sherman Alexie's bond with his mother Lillian was more complex than most. She plunged her family into chaos with a drinking habit, but shed her addiction when it was on the brink of costing her everything. She survived a violent past, but created an elaborate facade to hide the truth. She selflessly cared for strangers, but was often incapable of showering her children with the…

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Book cover of The Village That Betrayed Its Children

The Village That Betrayed Its Children by Karen Elizabeth Lee,

This is the story of a shocking crime committed in the 50s and 60s in a small rural village, and a criminal who was never brought to justice. The Principal in our two-room school was a pedophile who molested nearly all of the young female students. He was protected by…

Gone to An Aunt's

By Anne Petrie ,

Book cover of Gone to An Aunt's : Remembering Canada's Homes for Unwed Mothers

Karen Elizabeth Lee Author Of The Full Catastrophe: A Memoir

From my list on showing human life in its reality.

By Karen Elizabeth Lee Author

Why am I passionate about this?

I have a great interest in personal stories, well written. My memoir, The Full Catastrophe, was published in 2016. I wanted an answer to my own question “How could a well-educated, intelligent woman marry an abusive man?” Writing allowed me to find my answers. From that time on, I have taught people to write their own memoirs, have lectured on memoir, facilitated group discussions on memoir, and written articles on memoir. I am now in the process of writing another memoir. 

Karen's book list on showing human life in its reality

Book cover of American Bastard Book cover of The Glass Castle Book cover of By Chance Alone: A Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz Book cover of Gone to An Aunt's : Remembering Canada's Homes for Unwed Mothers Book cover of Pieces of My Mother: A Memoir

Karen Elizabeth Lee Why Karen loves this book

I read this book for two reasons—I have two adopted siblings and I am in the midst of writing a memoir about growing up in a rural Ontario village in the 50s and 60s. Petrie tells of her own experience as an unwed mother and the stories of six other women she has managed to locate after all this time, who talk about their experiences of being young and pregnant in the 50s and 60s. At that time, unwanted pregnancies brought shame onto the girl herself and her family, so they had to be carefully hidden. Often the girl was sent to a mother and baby home run by churches and the Salvation Army, where judgment dictated the responses to these girls. Petrie breaks through her own desire to remain separate from the other girls to tell an honest and heartbreaking story of what life was like in…

Gone to An Aunt's

By Anne Petrie ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Gone to An Aunt's as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Thirty or forty years ago, everybody knew what that phrase meant: a girl or a young, unmarried woman had gotten herself pregnant. She was “in trouble.” She had brought indescribable shame on herself and her family. In those days it was unthinkable that she would have her child and keep it. Instead she had to hide. Most likely she would be sent away to a home for unwed mothers, where she would stay in secrecy until her baby was born and given up for adoption. “Gone to an aunt’s” was the usual cover story, a fiction that everyone understood but…

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By Chance Alone

By Max Eisen ,

Book cover of By Chance Alone: A Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz

Karen Elizabeth Lee Author Of The Full Catastrophe: A Memoir

From my list on showing human life in its reality.

By Karen Elizabeth Lee Author

Why am I passionate about this?

I have a great interest in personal stories, well written. My memoir, The Full Catastrophe, was published in 2016. I wanted an answer to my own question “How could a well-educated, intelligent woman marry an abusive man?” Writing allowed me to find my answers. From that time on, I have taught people to write their own memoirs, have lectured on memoir, facilitated group discussions on memoir, and written articles on memoir. I am now in the process of writing another memoir. 

Karen's book list on showing human life in its reality

Book cover of American Bastard Book cover of The Glass Castle Book cover of By Chance Alone: A Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz Book cover of Gone to An Aunt's : Remembering Canada's Homes for Unwed Mothers Book cover of Pieces of My Mother: A Memoir

Karen Elizabeth Lee Why Karen loves this book

Eisen was a fifteen-year-old boy in 1944 when the Nazis sent him and his family to Auschwitz-Berkenau to become slave labour. He tells the story after seventy years, recalling the back-breaking work and his survival through luck or chance and the kindness of some good people. This is a “must-read” for anyone who thinks that this atrocity didn’t or couldn’t happen in our modern world, and an inspiration to those of us who sometimes feel our own struggles are insurmountable. This book touched me personally because my own children’s grandfather was sent to the same concentration camp.

By Chance Alone

By Max Eisen ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked By Chance Alone as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An award-winning, internationally bestselling Holocaust memoir in the tradition of Elie Wiesel’s Night and Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz

In the spring of 1944, gendarmes forcibly removed Tibor “Max” Eisen and his family from their home, brought them to a brickyard and eventually loaded them onto crowded cattle cars bound for Auschwitz-Birkenau. At fifteen years of age, Eisen survived the selection process and was inducted into the camp as a slave laborer.

More than seventy years after the Nazi camps were liberated by the Allies, By Chance Alone details Eisen’s story of survival: the backbreaking slave labor in Auschwitz I,…

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American Bastard

By Jan Beatty ,

Book cover of American Bastard

Karen Elizabeth Lee Author Of The Full Catastrophe: A Memoir

From my list on showing human life in its reality.

By Karen Elizabeth Lee Author

Why am I passionate about this?

I have a great interest in personal stories, well written. My memoir, The Full Catastrophe, was published in 2016. I wanted an answer to my own question “How could a well-educated, intelligent woman marry an abusive man?” Writing allowed me to find my answers. From that time on, I have taught people to write their own memoirs, have lectured on memoir, facilitated group discussions on memoir, and written articles on memoir. I am now in the process of writing another memoir. 

Karen's book list on showing human life in its reality

Book cover of American Bastard Book cover of The Glass Castle Book cover of By Chance Alone: A Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz Book cover of Gone to An Aunt's : Remembering Canada's Homes for Unwed Mothers Book cover of Pieces of My Mother: A Memoir

Karen Elizabeth Lee Why Karen loves this book

This recommendation returns to one of my most passionate interests—that of adopted children and the families they are placed in. Beatty is a poet and this is reflected in her memoir—it is not the usual chronological narrative as most memoirs are. She breaks the myth of the “special” or “chosen baby” to tell her truth of the lives of adopted children. Beatty exposes, through vignettes and her poetry, her meetings with her birth mother, her adopted family, her attempts to know who she is and where she came from. She breaks open the belief that you can “create” a perfect family using children from other birth mothers, when all her life, she feels, is a lie and she has no grounding in the world. This memoir is her quest to find out who she is.

American Bastard

By Jan Beatty ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked American Bastard as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

American Bastard is a lyrical inquiry into the experience of being a bastard in America. This memoir travels across literal continents-and continents of desire as Beatty finds her birthfather, a Canadian hockey player who's won three Stanley Cups-and her birthmother, a working-class woman from Pittsburgh. This is not the whitewashed story, but the real story, where Beatty writes through complete erasure: loss of name and history, and a culture based on the currency of gratitude as expected payment from the adoptee. American Bastard sandblasts the exaltation of adoption in Western culture and the myth of the "chosen baby." This journey…

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In My Mother's House

By Margaret McMullan ,

Book cover of In My Mother's House

Margaret Whitford Author Of The History We Carry

From my list on challenging maternal relationships.

By Margaret Whitford Author

Why am I passionate about this?

Of the five books I recommended, four are memoirs, and one is a novel that reads like a memoir. I read these books because the subject, the maternal relationship, fascinates me, and also because I wanted to learn from these other writers. Each book gave me some ideas about how to approach my own exploration of my relationship with my mother. At the same time, the books reinforced my belief that each of us carries our family history forward, especially our maternal history. To live fully requires understanding and integrating that past. 

Margaret's book list on challenging maternal relationships

Book cover of Where Rivers Part Book cover of Crying in H Mart Book cover of Pieces of My Mother: A Memoir Book cover of You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir Book cover of In My Mother's House

Margaret Whitford Why Margaret loves this book

This lyrical novel is told from the perspective of two characters—the mother, Genevieve, and the daughter, Elizabeth.

In her old age, the Austrian-born mother reveals the family's complex history to her American-born daughter. Though Jewish, Genevieve’s father denied that history to portray the family as Catholic. Much of the novel’s power turns on the unraveling of that history.

The book made me think about the secrets that exist within families and the ways in which people shape their histories to suit the stories they wish to believe about themselves. I thought, too, about the cost of silence within families. I was also fascinated by the portrait of Vienna, as my mother spent a number of years there during a similar time period. 

In My Mother's House

By Margaret McMullan ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In My Mother's House as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In My Mother's House is a beautiful, haunting, and expertly told novel about a daughter's obsession to understand her mother's commitment to silence about their family's experiences during WWII Vienna. The story of Elizabeth and her mother Jenny is remarkable for its fullness of details: the pieces of family silver the grandmother mails to Jenny, piece by piece, over the years; Jenny's vivid memories of her uncle's viola d'amore lessons; the smell of the wood floors in the family's Vienna home. It's an emotional story of what is inherited from one generation to the next.

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Where Rivers Part

By Kao Kalia Yang ,

Book cover of Where Rivers Part

Margaret Whitford Author Of The History We Carry

From my list on challenging maternal relationships.

By Margaret Whitford Author

Why am I passionate about this?

Of the five books I recommended, four are memoirs, and one is a novel that reads like a memoir. I read these books because the subject, the maternal relationship, fascinates me, and also because I wanted to learn from these other writers. Each book gave me some ideas about how to approach my own exploration of my relationship with my mother. At the same time, the books reinforced my belief that each of us carries our family history forward, especially our maternal history. To live fully requires understanding and integrating that past. 

Margaret's book list on challenging maternal relationships

Book cover of Where Rivers Part Book cover of Crying in H Mart Book cover of Pieces of My Mother: A Memoir Book cover of You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir Book cover of In My Mother's House

Margaret Whitford Why Margaret loves this book

A beautiful memoir in which the author reimagines her mother's life, telling the story in her mother's voice.

She benefited from stories her mother told her, much as I did in writing my memoir. Yang has taken it further by writing the book from her mother's perspective. It is the story of two generations of Hmong women—the author's mother and her grandmother. The narrative spans decades, starting with America's secret war in Laos. The narrator's mother fled Laos for Thailand and eventually the United States.

This memoir's structure gave me ideas about how to craft my own book, and especially how to animate my mother in the telling. It also made me think about the ways in which refugees remain outside the dominant culture of their adopted countries. 

Where Rivers Part

By Kao Kalia Yang ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Where Rivers Part as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This powerful memoir about a Hmong family’s epic journey to safety is a profound “testament to the miraculous strength of women and the indomitable resolve of the human spirit” (Cristina Henríquez, author of The Book of Unknown Americans).

Born in 1961 in war-torn Laos, Tswb’s childhood was marked by the violence of America’s Secret War and the CIA recruitment of the Hmong and other ethnic minorities into the lost cause. By the time Tswb was a teenager, the US had completely vacated Laos, and the country erupted into genocidal attacks on the Hmong people, who were labeled as traitors. Fearing…

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It Started with Malaga

By Karen O'Connor ,

Book cover of It Started with Malaga

Beth Haslam Author Of Fat Dogs and French Estates, Part 6

From my list on memorable memoirs set in different countries.

By Beth Haslam Author

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an author living in the depths of rural France. I currently write humorous memoirs about our wacky lives here in a rural backwater where we’re surrounded by meadows, forest, and a motley collection of mostly rescued animals. Aside from being a passionate animal lover, I have a special interest in reading accounts of others who travel and those who have relocated to a different country. After a long day’s work on our domaine, there’s nothing better than curling up on the sofa—cat on my lap, dogs in a happy heap—and getting lost in a great memoir. A glass of wine never goes amiss, either.

Beth's book list on memorable memoirs set in different countries

Book cover of From Nettles to Nightingales Book cover of It Started with Malaga Book cover of Vereeniging Fares South Book cover of Chilblains and Chitterlings Book cover of Two Old Fools Fair Dinkum

Beth Haslam Why Beth loves this book

The book is fun, fascinating, and an excellent reference for anyone travelling to Malaga.

I loved the author’s honest approach to sharing her emotions, which added great colour to her writing. It’s a terrific debut memoir by Karen O’Connor, and I look forward to reading about her future travels.

It Started with Malaga

By Karen O'Connor ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked It Started with Malaga as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When Karen’s son, Johnny, invited her to tag along on his work trip to Malaga, she jumped at the chance. Little did she know that this cheery break from a long Washington winter would result in an adventure that would awaken her soul in ways she could not anticipate.Follow Karen in her favourite blue jacket as she explores the city, makes new friends and falls deeper in love with Spain.Fans of The Lonely Planet series, Bill Bryson and engaging travel memoirs will thoroughly enjoy this book."Karen O’Connor’s first travel book is a delight. It invites the reader to share her…

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This Boy's Life

By Tobias Wolff ,

Book cover of This Boy's Life: A Memoir

Wayne Harrison Author Of The Spark and the Drive

From my list on coming of age unstoppable, underdog protagonists.

By Wayne Harrison Author

Why am I passionate about this?

Since I began reading seriously (albeit late in life!), I’ve been seduced by the travails of underdog protagonists trying to save their own lives through transformation. If you had told me when I was a teenager—drinking too much, racing muscle cars, and scraping by with Ds and Cs in a vocational high school—that I would end up teaching writing at a university, I would’ve said you were nuts. It wasn’t until I started college in my mid-twenties that I actually read a novel for the pleasure of it. My novel and short story collection are expressions of my cheering on the young underdogs who bravely fight to change their worlds despite all odds.  

Wayne's book list on coming of age unstoppable, underdog protagonists

Book cover of Winter's Bone Book cover of Monster Book cover of Billy Bathgate Book cover of This Boy's Life: A Memoir Book cover of Story of a Girl

Wayne Harrison Why Wayne loves this book

Celebrated author and Stanford professor Tobias Wolff recounts his perilous teenage years in the 1950s Pacific Northwest. Clever, conniving Toby (self-named Jack Wolff) will do whatever it takes to reinvent himself in a memoir full of larger-than-life characters, thrilling events, emotional rollercoasters of betrayals, broken dreams, and hard-won triumphs, all conveyed in prose so lucid that the book has been college assigned for its poetic honesty at the sentence level for decades. Guaranteed you’ll be floored by what it takes for Wolff to ultimately transcend the merciless circumstances of his life. 

This Boy's Life

By Tobias Wolff ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked This Boy's Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“A classic of the genre.”―New York Times

The 30th anniversary edition of Tobias Wolff's "extraordinary memoir" (SF Chronicle), now with a new introduction by the author.

Thirty years ago Tobias Wolff wrote a memoir that changed the form. The “unforgettable” (Time) This Boy’s Life is the story of the young, tough-on-the-outside but vulnerable Toby Wolff. Separated by divorce from his father and brother, Toby and his mother travel from Florida to Utah to a small village in Washington state, with many stops along the way. As each place doesn’t quite work out, they pick up to find somewhere new. In…

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