100 Books Like Sorrowland

What intrigues me about this book is the way the author, Margaret Atwood, took the (Genesis 30) story of Jacob, who impregnated his wife's handmaiden to produce the children which his wife could not conceive.

She then puts herself in the place of that handmaiden and asks some serious questions. Was that handmaid even given a choice in the matter? What would have happened to her if she had refused? She then rolls the same idea forward 4,000 years to a pseudo religious society in which the sole purpose of handmaidens is to use their bodies to conceive and gestate the next generation for those whom they serve.

I have never read a novel so close to prophecy.

Published in 1995, Parable starts in July 2024 amidst the election of an autocrat who, by the sequel Parable of the Talents, literally pledges to “make America great again.” I started my platform in 2015 in the same context.

This novel pulled me into its harrowing tale of how to survive civilizational collapse: the dismantling of systems, norms, and climate change that we are all currently going through.

The lesson is ultimately about embracing change, caring for and trusting each other in community, and coming up with our own ways of being together. So many of our ancestors have survived periods of collapse by the same principles. These ancestral lessons still guide me, and I believe are critical to surviving AI dystopia.

People kept telling me to read it, so I finally did–just in time to include it on this list. Rotating narrators–a White missionary’s wife and four daughters from the American South–represent disparate points of view concerning their family’s move to the Belgian Congo in 1959.

One thing I loved is the attention to historical detail and Kingsolver’s ability to include multiple, complex subplots to better frame the colonial history of this particular time/place and to better demonstrate the insidious ongoing brutality of colonization in terms of inequitable global wealth.

Language and religion play a major role in the plundering resource extraction industries, as do political and military interference, apartheid, and so much more. I loved her exploration of language(s): the power held in naming and misnaming. The youngest daughter sums it up best. “My life: what I stole from history, and how I live with it.” Characters are primarily White… show more.

While the crimes committed against the Mennonite women in this story are the catalyst, I love this book because it shows the power of collective action when it is harnessed by women.

The women, who generally are so unworldly and governed by a paternalistic social structure, find their voice in the secret meeting they conduct in the hayloft. I find their debates fascinating.

In a modern context, it seems impossible that the women could forgive the injustice and violence done to them, but it is their faith that compels the possibility of such an outcome. Despite their illiteracy, the discussion is wise, even heated and fierce. It is their innate sense of democracy, rightness, and justice that brings me back to this book again and again.

It was a brilliant decision on Natalie's part to create a graphic novel that lays out the many facets and layers that make up the dynamics of cults. It has been a pleasure for me to get to know Natalie. A former member of the Jehovah's Witnesses, she is now a dynamic and independent individual. This graphic novel explores a wide variety of aspects of the tactics used by Jehovah's Witnesses, including shunning, the reasons why cult family members will disavow non-cult family members, and a great deal more. This seemed to me to be an excellent option for storytelling geared for minds that have a tendency to gravitate toward visuals.

This unexpected discovery—the story of Meg of St. Michael’s Mead in the 14th century—exemplifies the best of what draws readers to historical fiction. First, there's the heroine, Meg, a young woman coming of age and marked by a facial disfigurement. Immediately, we understand her outsider status, her alienation, and her inevitable struggle against others' scapegoating.

This scapegoating stems not only from typical ignorance but also from the very real fears of the time that she might be a child of the Devil. Meg's life and journey are populated with memorable allies and enemies, but it's her determination to cultivate her talents in women's health—despite the opposition of the male medical elite—that lends her story contemporary relevance.

Samina is a rebel living in a traditional Pakistani community. I loved the tension between the expectations of her extended family set against her intellect and ambition. I found the quiet, subtle support of her mother really appealing, too.

It is a story steeped in drama and tragedy as well as triumph of the spirit. It opened my eyes, made me smile and made me weep. I thoroughly recommend this book for those readers who want quiet voices to be heard. 

The only male author on this list, Coleman Dowell’s Southern Gothic tale is included because it contains some of the most nuanced writing of female characters I’ve ever encountered. Too Much Flesh tells the narrative of a well-endowed farmer named Jim, his petite wife Effie, and a young man, Jabez, whose mutual obsession with Jim leads to, well, something of a frenetic climax. A story within a story, the tale is told to us by a “spinster schoolteacher” (the book was published in 1977), Miss Ethel, who channels her sexual repression into this story of the farmer.

Neither Miss Ethel nor Jim’s wife, Effie, come across as one-dimensional—they feel and act like real people on the page. Dowell himself was gay and deftly handles this queer narrative in a way that is somehow both quiet and stunning, and makes an interesting case study for the time period and genre. And… show more.

While other scholars have focused on how various definitions of womanhood influenced the formation of the United States’ political and legal systems, Mark Kann pays closer attention to how perceptions of manhood shaped the creation of the U.S. during the early republic. In A Republic of Men, Kann contends that the U.S.’s founders sought to establish a republic based on male authority and female subordination. During the early years of the republic, as Kann describes it, political and legal authorities connected white men to productivity and reason while linking all women to inherent weakness and dependency. I found Kann’s book especially helpful for understanding how American political and legal authorities sought to institutionalize rights and privilege for white men only. 

This book is about political intrigue and control. I was lured into austere Florentine rooms where, behind wooden panels, ears were listening to every conversation. In darkened medieval streets, I heard footsteps following footsteps, and in great palaces, men with power did as they pleased.

Katherine Mezzacappa has captured the oppressive mood beautifully, setting the scene for the lovely Guilia to emerge and change everything. Her innocence evolves into wisdom, keeping me, the reader, totally engaged and hoping for her salvation.