Books like The Anti-Cool Girl — picked by fans

Frank McCourt's classic book, the memoir of his childhood, is proof in the pudding that the origin of humor is the suffering of the low-status character. And that’s only one reason why I love it.

He had me at “Above all -- we were wet.” His descriptions of the impossible and undignified conditions of his childhood, where children had absolutely no control over anything and adults were at the mercy of life itself, brought me so close to him that I think I started believing we were actually related and scribbled him into the family tree as a long-lost uncle.

McCourt captures the hapless quality of gullible, unsupervised children let loose on an unforgiving world with a buoyancy that comes through every sentence and rises above the brutal conditions of his childhood. 

And the truth he finds in the details, from the brutality of religious authority figures to the abject… show more.

In my book I talk about how many people miss out on the love they expect—the love of a mother, father, spouse, or child—and yet how most of us survive by finding the love we need elsewhere. In Cider with Rosie, Laurie’s father abandons his family, but Laurie’s mother shines: her frisks and gaieties, her fits of screams, her love of man. This is the childhood memoir of one of the great (somewhat unacknowledged) poets of the twentieth century.

After losing both parents to cancer, almost simultaneously, twenty-something Dave becomes father to his much younger brother. Don’t be put off by the jokey title, this book is a heartfelt and hilarious celebration of young men and the way their competitive, raucous humour can be an expression of love and support. I guarantee you will love these two boys-on-the-way-to-be-men.

A young boy, already knowing he’s gay, is growing up in a Scottish slum. The rest of the household consists of people who are drunk, violent, and unemployed. Then, watching the TV, tiny Damian sees Margaret Thatcher, the then British Prime Minister, emerging from the smoke and destruction caused by the IRA’s bombing of the 1984 Conservative Party Conference. Maggie doesn’t have a hair out of place. This little ill-treated boy, sitting on his filthy couch, thinks: “If only she could come here, she’d sort this lot out....” Maggie & Me is so fresh, unlikely, and hilarious, I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t be moved by the story.

Brittainy Cherry’s work never fails to sweep me off my feet and pull me in with its lyricism, grace, and depth. She’s truly a poet, and this story about two musicians as in love with their craft as they are with each other brings out some of her most stunning writing yet. Behind the Bars takes us on a journey through the hero and heroine’s childhoods all the way up to their reunion as adults. Along the way, they face some dark moments and deal with topics including bullying, loss, grief, and dysfunctional family relationships. These moments are real and raw, and instead of sensationalizing or romanticizing them, Brittainy Cherry uses them to show that life can be beautiful and ugly all at once, and that we can always reach out and find the help we need to let a little more beautiful in.

As adults, we don’t always realize how our childhood—and our parents—have played a major role in how we feel about ourselves and our relationships. This is not about blaming parents but realizing how we may not have learned important aspects of healthy relationships because of our upbringing.

This book sets out to help people free themselves from the effects of growing up with immature parents to heal deep wounds that have led to feelings of anger or fear of abandonment. With that newfound freedom comes the ability to create positive relationships with oneself and others.

Yet more dysfunctional families and tormented sibling relationships, but this book is funny as well as clever, and I loved the fractured relationships between Alice and Hanna, twins who have always been saint and sinner. Now the two women are adults, nothing has turned out as they expected in their lives and they struggle with each other as well as with their domineering mother and critical older brother. Some great family tension and well-written dialogue, and despite the subject matter, this isn’t a book that will leave you down-hearted.

I absolutely love this book. The main characters, two teenage girls, who are total opposites, develop a friendship based on peer counseling together. They learn from each other and give each other comfort, advice, and more help on how to resolve their problems. It’s a great insight into what goes on in young adults’ lives. 

The late Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation is brilliantly constructed, intelligent, gritty, direct, even sardonic at times. She was a no-bullshit writer, a forerunner in the field of literary nonfiction, one of the first writers of her generation to tell the truth about mental illness and bulldoze the taboo of stigma related to this otherwise unpalatable topic.  

In this memoir, she takes us by the hand and pulls us tenderly at times, and forcefully at other times, into her intimate world of mental illness. Even as a little girl away at camp she struggles with depression and contemplations of life and death; she attempts suicide for the first time at camp. Later, as an award-winning Harvard student, we see her deteriorate further into madness, until at last she is prescribed Prozac, and things turn around. While the meds help her, she also had foresight into the dangers of pharmaceutical companies, and… show more.

Grief, unfortunately, is a part of life. Western culture has a habit of ignoring and minimizing grief in detrimental ways. When we gently turn toward the difficult stuff in life, we can “feel and deal” in ways that benefit mental health. There are many books about grieving the death of a loved one (a list for another day, perhaps), but few acknowledge the other intense and life-altering kinds of loss and change that children are grieving. Dr. Coombes’ book is much more inclusive–plus, it delivers a treasure trove of activities to help children (and adults) navigate this challenging part of being human. The delightful doodles will appeal to upper elementary and quite a few tweens and teens.