Books like The Death of Jayson Porter — picked by fans

This novel is an immersive read with heaps of empathy for all its characters but especially for the two sisters whose perspectives are at the center of the story: the twin who disappears to live a secret life, passing as white, and the twin left behind.

We don’t get the perspective of Stella, the vanished twin, until 14 years after her disappearance, 150 pages into the book. By then, I was fully absorbed in the grief and unanswered questions of the people she’d abandoned, eager to finally know where she’d been all this time and to understand her complex motivations and the emotional and mental toll of relinquishing—and hiding—her racial identity, her community, her sister, and her past. I picked this book up and didn’t put it down until it was done.

I did not take to this book right away. Both main characters seemed rigid and selfish in ways that put me off initially. When I came back to the novel some years (decades?) later, I could better see and appreciate the complexity of building a life in racist America of the 1920s. The rigidity that had initially put me off seemed much more understandable as a defense mechanism in a society that was largely hostile to them as women of color.

Giving the book another go, I’ve come to admire the way Larsen uses her characters’ decisions (about whether to pass as white, have children, trust the men they’ve chosen to live with, etc.) to explore complicated ideas surrounding color and race. There are also some scathing indictments of whites, particularly white men that raise some pretty big questions about how race and gender work together, even in our own… show more.

Birdie and Cole are sisters with biracial parents on the brink of danger during the turbulent 1960s.

Despite their attempts to cling to each other, their parent’s involvement with a violent anti-establishment group will eventually separate them: Cole with her dark-skinned father and Birdie with her white mother.

The girls' desperate attempt to remain together and later find each other is heartbreaking and encouraging. This book made me cry.

RM is famous for steamy romance, but this book was a shift in a more literary direction.

I love the challenges Zale Rowen faces in his dogged attempts to find deadbeat dads in Chicago. His personal struggle is not so much biracial as it is emotional since his own father left him. 

The book is excellently written and is a definite page-turner for those who love suspense and want to discover who they are genetically and emotionally. RM is also a personal friend; his inspiration kick-started my fiction writing journey. 

Fifteen-year-old Leigh is struggling to deal with the mental illness of her mother, that ultimately led to her suicide. A talented artist, Leigh deals with her sorrow by keeping away from others, including her best friend, Axel. Yes, this starts out as a sad story about loss, but the emotional journey Leigh embarks on is full of the stunning culture of Taiwan as she gains a deeper understanding of herself and her mother’s life. Not only is the diction wonderful in this gorgeously written book, but the symbolism behind the red bird who comes to Leigh repeatedly, whom she believes is her mother, is mystically poignant. When I finished this book, I returned from a world far from Dallas and was left with a true feeling of hope.

I have read a few of Dave’s books and the one thing that I absolutely love about his stories is the ability he has to pull me in right from the beginning. When I read his first book, it was like I could see it as if it were a movie playing out in my head. His scene-setting, descriptives, etc. are wonderful.

This is a story told from dual perspectives. Our male protagonist is Theodore Finch. He’s a rebel type, funny, and spontaneous. He goes after Violet Markey—our female first-person perspective—after discovering that she, too, is grappling with demons from her past. What I love about this book is how alive Theodore is as he walks the tightrope of death. While tragedy abounds in this story, you can sense a shaky joy in Theodore. His punk, fun-chasing exterior hides a vulnerable soul in search of love. 

I knew a lot of teen boys like him when I was in high school. Jennifer Niven did a remarkable job capturing the raw energy that Theodore zaps into the lives of those around him. Sometimes, there are people like Theodore who crash through our lives—people with a magic to them—that we wish we could hold onto. 

This book is a complex mystery revolving around a boy accused of a terrible crime, a boy who is currently unable to speak. It is solvable, as the protagonist is the detective character, though not every detail may be known until the explanation. What I love about this book are the difficult issues handled well for young readers, the excellent friendship between the protagonist and his sister, and the wisdom about interpersonal relationships and emotions that carries this novel into depths not usually seen in a young reader’s mystery. One observation about shame and anger continues to ring in my mind, reminding me that emotions seen on the surface often have deeper roots.

Fabiaschi’s story is told from two very different perspectives.

One is from earth and told from the perspectives of a grieving daughter and husband as they grapple with their loss. The other is from purgatory or a stasis from the perspective of the mother/wife who seems to have committed suicide. But everything is not as it seems. From the afterlife, Maddy tries to help her grieving family find answers and closure.

I was fascinated by the way Maddy attempts to affect the lives of her loved ones.

This is not a work of fiction but a memoir by a novelist, an unflinching portrait of generations of a family ever at the brink. It reads almost as vignettes, exquisitely crafted and somehow soothing even in their brutal honesty. Poignantly rendered pieces of the author’s life reflect aspects of Appalachian culture that can often come across as stereotyping, but the personal nature of this work combined with Dodd White’s skilled pen makes it an authentic view into struggles endemic to the region. He bravely writes of suicides in his family, most heartbreakingly that of his son. Until I read this book, Joan Didion’s A Year of Magical Thinking was secure in its position at the top of my “best memoirs” list.