Here are 100 books that The Obsession fans have personally recommended if you like
The Obsession.
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Two facts about me as a reader: I like books that deal with difficult issues, and I like reading a lot of them. There’s something about watching teens, for whom everything feels new, deal with the toughest stuff imaginable and come out the other side. I love a protagonist who has been through the wringer. Some people call these stories dark or morbid. I prefer to think of them as hopeful. My own writing history is as diverse as my reading habits. I’ve published in poetry, romance, and criticism, but these days I’m all about YA, like the politically-charged thriller I’m querying or my queer New Orleans ghost story, The Women of Dauphine.
Epic fantasy can be a hard sell for me, but Laini Taylor’s intricate worldbuilding sweeps me off my feet. There’s a love story at the center of this duology, characters from different and equally tragic worlds, but there’s also lots of magic: moths who carry dreams, orphaned half-gods, and floating palaces of magic metal. Oh, and there’s a robust cast of ghosts. Need I say more?
The magical Sunday Times bestseller by Laini Taylor, author of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy
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The dream chooses the dreamer.
Since he was five years old, Lazlo Strange has been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to go in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself - in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.
Menopause unlocked a previously unknown superpower for Liv Wilde – psychic visions during hot flashes. While her visions rarely have life and death consequences, for the first time Liv sees a dead body in a premonition. When she comes face-to-face with the man…
Two facts about me as a reader: I like books that deal with difficult issues, and I like reading a lot of them. There’s something about watching teens, for whom everything feels new, deal with the toughest stuff imaginable and come out the other side. I love a protagonist who has been through the wringer. Some people call these stories dark or morbid. I prefer to think of them as hopeful. My own writing history is as diverse as my reading habits. I’ve published in poetry, romance, and criticism, but these days I’m all about YA, like the politically-charged thriller I’m querying or my queer New Orleans ghost story, The Women of Dauphine.
What’s more all-consuming than being in love with your best friend? An uncontrolled fire, maybe–or a few of them. This turbulent romance between two teenage girls is told in prose poetry, and like the best novels in verse, every carefully formatted word carries weight. The narrative jumps back and forth in time, and it dives into the (main) narrator’s mind so intimately you’ll forget you don’t even know her name.
From New York Times bestselling author Ashley Woodfolk, Nothing Burns as Bright as You is an impassioned stand-alone tale of queer love, grief, and the complexity of female friendship.
Two girls. One wild and reckless day. Years of tumultuous history unspooling like a thin, fraying string in the hours after they set a fire.
They were best friends. Until they became more. Their affections grew. Until the blurry lines became dangerous.
Over the course of a single day, the depth of their past, the confusion of their present, and the unpredictability of their future is revealed. And…
I don’t know how much of who we are is determined by genetics, and how much is from the environment, but I enjoy using characters and stories to explore the question. My scientific and medical background allows me to pull from my training, clinical patients, and scientific studies to create stories that explore characters who are at the precipice of a problem and need to fight against their inner beliefs to learn who they truly are. It’s like a chess game, moving the pieces around the board to see which side will win!
I love Glasgow’s exploration of identity while dealing with some very tough issues, such as substance abuse and the death of a friend.
At the beginning of the novel, the features for each character seem set in stone. There’s the popular girl, the stoner, and the influential parents. The protagonist, Emory, tries to create her own image while learning who her friends and family really are.
But what I think really sets this story apart is how each character is so relatable. I can identify with all of them while they struggle to see themselves for the first time.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Pieces comes a stunning novel that Vanity Fair calls “impossibly moving” and “suffused with light”. In this raw, deeply personal story, a teenaged girl struggles to find herself amidst the fallout of her brother's addiction in a town ravaged by the opioid crisis.
For all of Emory's life she's been told who she is. In town she's the rich one--the great-great-granddaughter of the mill's founder. At school she's hot Maddie Ward's younger sister. And at home, she's the good one, her stoner older brother Joey's babysitter. Everything was turned on…
Menopause unlocked a previously unknown superpower for Liv Wilde – psychic visions during hot flashes. While her visions rarely have life and death consequences, for the first time Liv sees a dead body in a premonition. When she comes face-to-face with the man…
Two facts about me as a reader: I like books that deal with difficult issues, and I like reading a lot of them. There’s something about watching teens, for whom everything feels new, deal with the toughest stuff imaginable and come out the other side. I love a protagonist who has been through the wringer. Some people call these stories dark or morbid. I prefer to think of them as hopeful. My own writing history is as diverse as my reading habits. I’ve published in poetry, romance, and criticism, but these days I’m all about YA, like the politically-charged thriller I’m querying or my queer New Orleans ghost story, The Women of Dauphine.
A normal high school in Wisconsin disappears, along with everyone in it. Stranded on an alien planet, the accidental voyagers must figure out who (or what) they’re up against, how best to survive, and whether there’s any way to return. Meanwhile on Earth, their stunned families struggle to cope with what they’ve lost.
The Woods, my favorite comic series of all time, is split into nine volumes, and the first hits the ground running. With Lord of the Flies-level social politics and a high body count,this sci-fi saga is not for the faint of heart.
On October 16, 2013, 437 students, 52 teachers, and 24 additional staff from Bay Point Preparatory High School in suburban Milwaukee, WI vanished without a trace. Countless light years away, far outside the bounds of the charted universe, 513 people find themselves in the middle of an ancient, primordial wilderness. Where are they? Why are they there? The answers will prove stranger than anyone could possibly imagine. As fans of James Tynion IV's work in the Batman universe (Batman Eternal, Red Hood and the Outlaws), we were eager to publish his first original comic series. Plus, The Woods gives us…
I think about the positive identity development of Native youth all the time and not just because I am an educator and author. I love my Ojibwe language and culture, but I want to turn Native fiction on its head. We have so many stories about trauma and tragedy with characters who lament the culture that they were always denied. I want to show how vibrant and alive our culture still is. I want gripping stories where none of the Native characters are drug addicts, rapists, abused, or abusing others. I want to demonstrate the magnificence of our elders, the humor of our people, and the power of forgiveness and reconciliation.
I love this book because it has a gripping story that keeps you guessing and flipping pages. I also love it because it showcases a strong, female, Native protagonist solving a mystery and acting with agency, power, and knowledge of self. It does a lot to disrupt the victim narratives about Indigenous people we have often seen in literature.
I also love this one because Angeline Boulley is really connected to her own Native community, and it shows up in the work. It gives you a window into Ojibwe culture rather than an imagining of the culture.
A PRINTZ MEDAL WINNER! A MORRIS AWARD WINNER! AN AMERICAN INDIAN YOUTH LITERATURE AWARD YA HONOR BOOK!
A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB YA PICK
An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller
Soon to be adapted at Netflix for TV with President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama's production company, Higher Ground.
“One of this year's most buzzed about young adult novels.” ―Good Morning America
A TIME Magazine Best YA Book of All Time Selection Amazon's Best YA Book of 2021 So Far (June 2021) A 2021 Kids' Indie Next List Selection An Entertainment Weekly Most Anticipated Books…
In my younger days, as the son of a medical professor and a public health nurse, I was more interested in healing society than patients. But my political interests and research agenda as a professor of political science ultimately led back to medicine. I found that profit-maximizing market competition in health care failed miserably to promote value in therapeutics and economize on society’s scarce resources. I became aware of the neglect of public health to prevent disease for vulnerable groups in society and save money as well as lives. Pervasive and enduring economic conflicts of interest in the medical-industrial complex bear primary responsibility for severe deficits in quality, equality, and economy in American health care.
I found, as a history buff, The Struggle for Drug Reform to be an eye-opener about how America’s exceptionally high drug prices among other deficits in health care quality and coverage resulted from the past exercise of power by the pharmaceutical industry, the lynchpin of America’s “medico-industrial complex.”
I was impressed by historian Tobbell’s meticulously researched account of the industry’s strategic alliances with self-interested medical scientists, not just conservative political forces, and its use of anti-communist propaganda to fight off the threat of drug pricing regulations.
I personally found important her discussions of how the industry allied with the American Medical Association against universal health care, against FDA demands for evidence about drug efficacy and safety before allowing drugs on the market, and against the threat to its profits from generic drugs.
Since the 1950s, the American pharmaceutical industry has been heavily criticized for its profit levels, the high cost of prescription drugs, drug safety problems, and more, yet it has, together with the medical profession, staunchly and successfully opposed regulation. "Pills, Power, and Policy" offers a lucid history of how the American drug industry and key sectors of the medical profession came to be allies against pharmaceutical reform. It details the political strategies they have used to influence public opinion, shape legislative reform, and define the regulatory environment of prescription drugs. Untangling the complex relationships between drug companies, physicians, and academic…
In my younger days, as the son of a medical professor and a public health nurse, I was more interested in healing society than patients. But my political interests and research agenda as a professor of political science ultimately led back to medicine. I found that profit-maximizing market competition in health care failed miserably to promote value in therapeutics and economize on society’s scarce resources. I became aware of the neglect of public health to prevent disease for vulnerable groups in society and save money as well as lives. Pervasive and enduring economic conflicts of interest in the medical-industrial complex bear primary responsibility for severe deficits in quality, equality, and economy in American health care.
I find Angell’sThe Truth About the Drug Companies extremely valuable for teaching students about how the pharmaceutical industry translates high profits into power resources to protect and increase those profits over time.
The former New England Journal of Medicine editor exposed how drug companies enlist politicians, the FDA, and medical academia for their cause. And armies of lawyers to extend monopoly marketing rights for years.
It was my first introduction to how they spend more on marketing than research, much of that on “copy-cat” drugs of dubious superiority to ones with expired patents.
As a tax (and high drug price) payer, I was disturbed to learn how they use government funds for basic research and then rig and spin their reporting of clinical studies to inflate their products’ therapeutic value and underplay their risks.
During her two decades at The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell had a front-row seat on the appalling spectacle of the pharmaceutical industry. She watched drug companies stray from their original mission of discovering and manufacturing useful drugs and instead become vast marketing machines with unprecedented control over their own fortunes. She saw them gain nearly limitless influence over medical research, education, and how doctors do their jobs. She sympathized as the American public, particularly the elderly, struggled and increasingly failed to meet spiraling prescription drug prices. Now, in this bold, hard-hitting new book, Dr. Angell exposes…
Most people know the slowburn romance. A spark flickers at deliberate pace until finally passion ignites. But what about the slowburn mystery? As a reader and a writer, I’m drawn to mysteries that twine as a well-drawn character, usually an amateur sleuth, gets pulled into investigating some eerie event. These mysteries begin with a straightforward query, and as the sleuth digs, the mystery grows. The pace leaves room for well-developed subplots—often, in my favorites, a slowburn romance, too. I love a book where I can settle into the world while the story gathers steam. And in the end, when that slow flame finally blazes… Oh, it’s so worth the wait.
In All That’s Left To Say, dual timelines braid threads of a mystery together in a way that allowed me to contrast Hannah then and now and wonder not just about the mystery Hannah’s trying to solve, but about how she became the master sleuth she thinks she needs to be to get answers.
This contrast, as much as the mystery, drew me into the story and had me turning pages every time we jumped between past and present. Of course, the enemies-to-friends-to-lovers romance also helped. How Lord imbued a single tie-straightening scene with more sexual tension than most kissing scenes might be the biggest mystery in this book.
Hannah MacLaren has grown up between two worlds: scraping by happily with her single, working mum and avoiding the Maryland upper crust in the next town over, where her wealthy cousin and best friend Sophie lives. The plan is to get out: Hannah from paycheck-to-paycheck life, and Sophie from the cosseted world she doesn't fit into.
But just before junior year begins, something goes horribly wrong. Sophie overdoses at a party, leaving behind a shocked community and bereft best friends. As the haze of grief begins to clear, Hannah teams up with Sophie's other best friend, Gabi, to find out…
I’m a Canadian writer born in Northern Ireland. My first book, A Nice Place to Die, introduced Northern Ireland detective DS Ryan McBride. In 2019, A Nice Place to Die won the RWA Daphne du Maurier Award for Mainstream Mystery and Suspense, was shortlisted in the Crime Writers of Canada Awards in 2021, and was a 2023 Silver Falchion Award finalist. As for my choices, each of these fabulous, atmospheric mysteries has richly drawn settings inhabited by characters the reader comes to care deeply about. This brings a book alive for me — each has a wonderful, compelling cast of characters and a clever, complex plot.
This is the first of Dervla’s Detective Cormac Reilly books - and what a wonderful start to a new series.
Here is a book as dark and unpredictable as the early spring weather in Galway. Cormac springs to life, fully formed as a complex, honest policeman, uncompromising and determined to solve a case that has re-emerged after haunting him for over twenty years.
Back then he rescued a little boy and his sister from terrible squalor and abuse. Now grown up, that boy has apparently committed suicide and his missing sister has returned claiming he was murdered and accusing the police of a cover up.
Add to this, Cormac’s own problems with a new posting in Galway, a hostile squad of detectives and a relationship he’s frantically trying to hold on to. A wonderful, complex, engrossing book.
It's been twenty years since Cormac Reilly discovered the body of Hilaria Blake in her crumbling Georgian home. But he's never forgotten the two children she left behind...
When Aisling Conroy's boyfriend Jack is found in the freezing black waters of the river Corrib, the police tell her it was suicide. A surgical resident, she throws herself into study and work, trying to forget--until Jack's sister Maude shows up. Maude suspects foul play, and she is determined to prove it.
Cormac Reilly is the detective assigned with the re-investigation of a seemingly accidental overdose twenty years ago--the overdose of Jack…
Growing up, I commonly read a sci-fi or fantasy novel a day. I craved freshly innovative stories, not megastar copycats. Innovation lacking, I stopped reading. I loved Salvatore’s invention of the Drow and favored groundbreaking stories where authors build on a predecessor’s shoulders rather than writing formulaic remakes for easy sales. Devastatingly, when I began writing, publishers, agents, and literary voices unitedly screamed at authors to “stay in their genre.” Write sci-fi or fantasy, never both. That wasn’t me, so I wrote about what happens when technology clashes with magic. The result? Mosaic Digest recently dubbed me “one of speculative fiction’s most inventive voices.”
Although heists and team-driven stories are difficult to mess up, I rarely find a gem with fun, snarky, and interesting characters like those delivered by Bardugo.
Clever banter effortlessly drives the storyline from beginning to end. When you start to feel the characters are proving to be one-dimensional and predictable, they begin to change and evolve (albeit a bit slowly for my tastes), which made for a surprisingly satisfying read (I’m including book two in this observation).
Worldbuilding is intelligent enough to keep you trusting the author when you grow concerned that the ending will be unrealistically implausible. Okay, maybe that last observation is my personal pet peeve with modern authors, but Six of Crows pulled off the credibility factor reasonably well.
*See the Grishaverse come to life on screen with Shadow and Bone, now a Netflix original series.*
Nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2017, this fantasy epic from the No. 1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of the Grisha trilogy is gripping, sweeping and memorable - perfect for fans of George R. R. Martin, Laini Taylor and Kristin Cashore.
Criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams - but he can't pull it off alone.
A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can't walk…
