99 Books Like The Bitter and Sweet of Cherry Season

To my knowledge, no one has written a main character like Don Tilman before. A tall, handsome genetics professor who’s never had a second date, he approaches his need for a wife with typical precision and the use of a complex spreadsheet. Don navigates the unfamiliar world of feelings and unplanned activities with his customary efficiency, but what is this strange new emotion he’s feeling?

I simply adore this book and often read it twice a year. It’s an absolute delight, funny, poignant, and so incredibly life-affirming. You’ll be cheering Don and Rosie on and hoping that everything works out for them. I do every time, and I know what happens!

The Mackade Brothers is a series that has stayed with me over the years because of the playful family bond that links four young men together. Each one of their stories leaves me warm and tingly inside. So, with a blissful sigh and a hug, I have placed them all on my bookshelf of accomplishments. Reading is a struggle for me, so every book that calls me back to its pages for another read is excellent. And this series has done that three or four times now. I love that Nora can approach a complex topic with a light touch. Keeping the darkness from being too heavy.

This story stayed with me for some time after I read it. The main character's situation was so palpable my heart ached for her. Any book that touches my heart is a must-read for all my friends. The setting is winter; to really understand it, read it then. It will add to its power. The courage both characters show when facing the odds is heartwarming.

With the unusual title, this book was recommended to me by a bubbly store book clerk. Afraid to tell her no, thank you. I paid for the book and fled the store. I was hooked from the first line of the book to the last. As LJ takes the stage full of suspicion, Andra is on edge yet stoic. They seem an unlikely pairing. The unfolding of the story is like a long-awaited date night. Hopeful, warm, with the promise of more. This story is a reminder that odds can be overcome if you are strong enough to stand alone when others want you to sit down. 

Want to spend 10 glorious hours with Meryl Streep?

I loved her audiobook performance of Tom Lake. Her intonation mirrors the exact qualities that the main characters, who are actors, strive for: neither underacted nor overacted. Just genuine. 

Ann Patchett is a treasure, and in Tom Lake, she effortlessly navigates two timelines: one in which Lara tells her daughters about meeting famous actor Peter Duke in a long-ago play. These scenes are just as compelling as the flashbacks in which we learn about her time with Duke before he became a famous movie star.

It's a talent, the ability to tell a mostly ordinary life in a page-turning way. Her imagery is magnificent. Every scene is wondrous. Touching. So real.

The conventional wisdom is that middle-grade girls read books a lot more than boys do. Maybe so... but if there’s any book that could encourage more boys to read, you couldn’t do much better than this goofball adventure story. In 1895, Stan, a clueless but earnest eleven-year-old, is sent to a mining camp in northern Michigan with his “sweet Mama,” his snarky cousin Geri, and his no-nonsense grandma. Between the unfamiliar milieu and his wildly overactive imagination, Stan undergoes an endless string of indignities that convince him he’s the victim of every evil under the sun, even as he searches for his long-lost father and struggles to become the man he aspires to be. Hilarious, engaging, and full of heart, this is one for everybody (including girls!). And don’t miss the sequel, I Almost Died. Again.

I’ll never forget this book because it put me front and center of a murder trial from the perspective of the victim’s family.

Imagine sitting in court and looking into the eyes of the man who killed your nearest and dearest. What would that feel like? How would I even begin to process that experience?

I found this story really opened a whole new perspective in the genre of true crime writing. 

You can’t beat this book when it comes to courtroom drama and difficult trial preparation because of uncooperative witnesses and your client. Most of all, the attorney is troubled by the fact that he is not sure his client is innocent. As a former trial lawyer, I faced this dilemma many times.

It’s a battle between one’s conscience and one’s duty to represent a client fully and fairly. The insanity defense has become more complex since this book was written, but its introduction in the novel is still fascinating.

This is one of my all-time favorite books. I read this book in third grade when I found it in the stacks of my school library. I love this book because when I was a little girl, I was learning more about my mother’s mental health struggles and experiencing grief from my father’s death.

I dove into the story of Lyric’s childhood and her relationship with her big sister, Summer, who was Schizophrenic. I gained a better understanding of the complexities of mental illness and what it can look like navigating that with family. It taught me early on that I wasn’t alone, and I felt connected to Lyric and her big sister, Summer.

This enemies-to-lovers story about a romance writer and a literary fiction writer who strike a bet to write their next book in each other’s genre blew me away with its hilarious dialogue and realistic emotional stakes.

January struggles to write another Happily Ever After upon learning her recently deceased father had a secret life with another woman. She goes to deal with his beach house, only to find that her college writing rival is her neighbor for the summer.

As part of Gus and January’s renewed rivalry, they go on a series of dates to teach each other about their genre, and they develop mutual professional respect that bleeds into attraction.

One highlight is when they write flirty notes and hold them up through their neighboring windows. This is a true rom-com, so hilarious and sexy, but it commits to realism and reaches for heavy, heart-wrenching emotional stakes and the… show more.