Books like The Ugly Truth — picked by fans

I’m the author of a number of books for kids and teens, many of which imagine young characters having more influence than you might expect. My book The Museum of Lost and Found is about an 11-year-old girl who secretly curates a museum. The Campaign is about a 12-year-old who runs her babysitter’s campaign to become mayor of their town. And This Song Will Save Your Life is about a 16-year-old who secretly becomes an underground DJ. These characters have realistic and relatable kid problems, emotions, and relationships—but they also get to have responsibilities and power well beyond their years. 

I wrestled with big questions as a child, particularly concerning gender inequality. I was aware of the issue as young as 7 years old. I didn’t even feel comfortable challenging the way things were until I was a young adult. Thus began my journey of researching, studying, and embracing women’s rights and gender equality. I feel very passionate about presenting those big questions earlier in the lives of girls, so they start feeling comfortable challenging the places where things don’t make sense, or the areas where inequality still exists. There is a need for more books like these in the market, but I hope you enjoy this list!

I’m a retired teacher. I’m fascinated with stories of scary creatures, especially vampires. As a child, I stayed up late watching Dracula movies. As I got older, my love for vampire movies continued. Some were scary. Some were comical. I enjoyed them all, well, at least most of them. I love stories about traditional vampires as well as those about vampires who are different from the typical stereotype. Vampire hunter stories also intrigue me. When I wrote The Voinico’s Daughter, I wanted to put my own unique twist on the vampire legends as it had been a dream of mine for a long time to write my own vampire story!

I am a historian, and I am fascinated by the interplay and tensions between our moral and material lives. In my books, I try to recover how people in earlier periods thought about good and bad and why they acted the way they did. I try to understand how norms and customs change over time and how we came to think of our own as “normal,” which was all but normal not so long ago. I do not believe historians should play being prophets, but I do believe history can help us make better sense of the present.

I am a 1.5-generation Filipina who migrated to Australia in 1977 at the age of 17. As a migrant, I know the challenges of moving to a new country without friends and extended family. I have a PhD in history from the University of Michigan and am a professor of History at the University of New South Wales in Australia. I have written five books mostly on Filipino women’s history. My book on Filipino migration, which won the NSW Premier’s General History Prize (Australia) in 2022, analyses the migrant's heroic narrative—an account that resonates with my own migration story. 

As one of Australia’s bestselling observational comedy authors, I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to write about the fact that I’ve recently become my parents’ go-to expert on just about everything. From solving technological dilemmas to coaching through society’s ever-changing correctness and reminding them to eat their greens, the elders in my life have inspired me to look at the funny side to aging, and to explore how a middle aged child sometimes crosses over from being helpful to just plain interfering.

I started writing about golf years ago… I went from freelancing to working for Golfweek and pretty soon had a career! I thought I had a brilliant idea: a series of mysteries with a golf theme! Then I learned there were about 267 other golf mysteries already out there, starting with Dame Agatha’s Murder on the Links! Oops.  I eventually wrote seven Hacker novels, finally getting my golf-writer-turned-sleuth through all four majors. I also published a historical novel set in Scotland (sorry, no golf) and just launched the new Swamp Yankee Mystery series, set in a small Rhode Island town remarkably similar to the one I live in!

I’m deeply passionate about us all being happy and healthy at work. I’ve been this way ever since I was old enough to realise just how much time we would spend there! I grew up in a time filled with images of stressed out, chain-smoking professionals, where the word ‘executive’ was synonymous with ‘burnout’. I knew there had to be a better way. I’ve worked in mental health for twenty years and corporate wellbeing for over a decade and I love to combine those experiences to help people have their best day at work every day. 

As an independent traveller, and throughout a career supporting international nature conservation, I’ve been fortunate to see many far-flung places of the world. Over the years, technology (eg. smartphones, internet, social media) has radically changed the way we travel, and indeed our expectations. Nowadays we want instant access, instant answers, instant results; we hate waiting for anything. However, long-haul travel still demands us to wait... in airport lounges, at train stations, bus stops, and onboard our transport while we endure long hours before reaching our destination. While some aspects have changed, patience, humour, and a good book still remain the best companions for any long journey. 

The topic of immigration is deeply in my heart because I am an immigrant myself. I came from El Salvador to the United States when I was 14 years old. Now, I am a teacher in an elementary school. Most of my students are immigrants or children of immigrants. Children and families immigrate around the world looking for better opportunities. These books were written by immigrant authors or authors who had lived closely with immigrants. The stories are real and describe the authentic journey, and experiences of children and families traveling from their native countries to the United States.