Here are 100 books that We Are Not from Here fans have personally recommended if you like
We Are Not from Here.
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I'm a YA writer based in Toronto, Canada. I have four novels under my belt, but I’ve only just begun to tackle difficult topics and character voices in my work. The most interesting books I’ve read are the ones that challenge the reader the most. I’m trying to incorporate that more into my work moving forward, and I think young readers really need to hear it. With so much pressure for perfection —in school, at home, even online—it can be reassuring to find characters who don’t have it all together, who still find happiness despite their flaws, and who find people who will love them through the ups and downs of changing for the better.
This book is written in verse, so the whole thing is like one long poem. The audiobook is read by the author, which I think captures the intent of the book beautifully.
Xiomara, or X, is a young girl living in Harlem who feels suffocated by her overbearing religious mother and her brilliant twin brother’s academic accomplishments. X writes poetry for her school assignments, but she also uses it as a form of diary to express the feelings she can’t otherwise. She challenges religion, her mother’s opinions, and the friends she makes at school.
One thing I really liked was how she’d write one poem for her assignment, and then the following poem would be titled “what I actually turned in.” The book uses different styles of poetry to convey different feelings and to set different scenes, and it explores a wide range of topics—from religion to dating and sex…
WINNER OF THE THE CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL 2019
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES CHILDREN'S BOOK PRIZE 2019
THE WINNER OF THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
THE WINNER OF THE MICHAEL L.PRINTZ AWARD
THE WINNER OF THE PURA BELPRE AWARD
THE WINNER OF THE BOSTON GLOBE-HORNBOOK AWARD
'I fell in love at slam poetry. This one will stay with you a long time.' - Angie Thomas, bestselling author of The Hate U Give
'This was the type of book where "I'll just do 50 pages" turned into finishing it in 2 reads. I felt very emotional, not just because the…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I am convinced that my life would be better if I had read more books by Latina/Latine authors while growing up. To be able to see oneself in a story is powerful. I didn’t have that for a long time. It made me feel invisible. It made me feel like being an author was as realistic as becoming an astronaut or a performer in Cirque du Soleil. Now, as a professor of Creative Writing and author of several books (and more on the way!), I dedicated my life to writing the books I needed as a young Latina. I hope others find something meaningful in my stories, too.
This is the first book I ever read by a Latina author. I was nineteen years old and a student at a small private liberal arts college in Connecticut. My professor assigned it to my American Literature class. I thought she’d made a mistake because some of the words in the book were in Spanish. I didn’t know you could do that—write in English but have some words in Spanish peppered throughout the dialogue and text. I was stunned.
I remember reading about Esperanza and her experiences in her Mexican neighborhood in Chicago, meeting characters on Mango Street, and falling in love with both the story and Cisneros’ playful, vulnerable, poetic writing style. After reading this book, I knew I also wanted to be a writer.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A coming-of-age classic, acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world—from the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.
The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Told in a series of vignettes-sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous-Sandra Cisneros' masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been more drawn to nonfiction than fiction. I remember spending hour after hour with my mother’s World Book Encyclopedias, memorizing breeds of dogs, US state capitals, and how to sign the alphabet. I loved reading books to learn about all kinds of things, and still do. But when it comes to fiction, unless the words are arranged like musical notes on the page, I struggle to read past chapter three. I need the narrator’s voice to make my brain happy and interested. While reading, I need to feel something deeply—to laugh, cry, or have my thoughts dance so rhythmically I find myself fast-blinking.
I love the narration of this book. It is rich, lush, and vibrant. Each scene is painted like the sky at sunrise. The main character Esperanza’s journey—from riches to rags, from pampered to grateful, from fearful to hopeful—is very satisfying.
Seeing the world through Esperanza’s viewpoint was heart-wrenching and eye-opening. The ending contains a delightful surprise, which, in my opinion, also makes for a great read.
Esperanza Rising joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content!
Esperanza thought she'd always live a privileged life on her family's ranch in Mexico. She'd always have fancy dresses, a beautiful home filled with servants, and Mama, Papa, and Abuelita to care for her. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California and settle in a Mexican farm labor camp. Esperanza isn't ready for the hard work, financial struggles brought on by the Great Depression, or lack of acceptance she now faces. When Mama gets sick and a strike…
AcClaim is a dark, high-society romance about Beatrix Winslow-Hale, a successful romance author who believes desire can be negotiated and controlled—until enigmatic billionaire Dorian Wolker crosses the line between consensual surrender and violation. Publicly humiliated and emotionally shattered, Beatrix turns to Manon de Rochemaure, her fiercely loyal best friend and…
I am convinced that my life would be better if I had read more books by Latina/Latine authors while growing up. To be able to see oneself in a story is powerful. I didn’t have that for a long time. It made me feel invisible. It made me feel like being an author was as realistic as becoming an astronaut or a performer in Cirque du Soleil. Now, as a professor of Creative Writing and author of several books (and more on the way!), I dedicated my life to writing the books I needed as a young Latina. I hope others find something meaningful in my stories, too.
All I can say is the pigeon scene. You will have to read the novel to find out what I am referencing, but oh my God, this novel is so good. Dominicans and Dominican-Americans in 1960s New York City? Fierce female protagonists? Writing that makes me stop and want to copy down sentences on a Post-It? Yes, please. I was cracking up, teary-eyed, and satisfied when reading this gem of a novel. I would read anything Angie Cruz writes.
My family came to the United States as undocumented immigrants from Guatemala. There is a lot of negative rhetoric being shared about undocumented immigrants. There are many reasons why people make the impossible decision to leave their native countries and travel to the United States. Reading books about these experiences creates empathy, compassion, and understanding.
Indivisibletells the story of Mateo Garcia and his little sister. Their parents are picked up by immigration officials. His school life is interrupted by this terrible event. Mateo has to help take care of his sister while not knowing what is going to happen to his parents. As a daughter of immigrants, I felt very drawn to the story. I understand what a difficult decision it is for parents to make to leave behind their home countries to try to make a better life for their children.
There is a word Mateo Garcia and his younger sister Sophie have been taught to fear for as long as they can remember: deportation. Over the past few years, however, the fear that their undocumented immigrant parents could be sent back to Mexico has started to fade to the back of their minds. And why wouldn't it, when their Ma and Pa have been in the United States for so long, they have American-born children, and they're hard workers and good neighbors?
When two ICE agents come asking for Pa, the Garcia family realizes that the lives they've built are…
My family came to the United States as undocumented immigrants from Guatemala. There is a lot of negative rhetoric being shared about undocumented immigrants. There are many reasons why people make the impossible decision to leave their native countries and travel to the United States. Reading books about these experiences creates empathy, compassion, and understanding.
In Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet, Penelope Prado has a dream of opening a bakery. While working in her father’s restaurant, she meets Xander, a good-looking boy whose immigration status leaves him in jeopardy. This book really resonated with me because Xander is dealing with a consequential issue of facing deportation. That’s a very scary thing to face at such a young age, and I think a lot of youth are in similarly precarious situations.
As an aspiring pastry chef, Penelope Prado has always dreamed of opening her own pasteleria next to her father's restaurant, Nacho's Tacos. But her mom and dad have different plans -- leaving Pen to choose between disappointing her traditional Mexican-American parents or following her own path. When she confesses a secret she's been keeping, her world is sent into a tailspin. But then she meets a cute new hire at Nacho's who sees through her hard exterior and asks the questions she's been too afraid to ask herself.
Xander Amaro has been searching for home since he was a little…
"A profound and often affecting story of resilience." —Kirkus Reviews
The Silent Women, an extraordinary novel inspired by the real women of Oak Ridge, Tennessee—the Manhattan Project’s “Secret City," where thousands kept the deadliest secret of World War II—is a sweeping, absorbing, and deeply human story about chosen…
Stories of migration journeys and their knock-on impact through the generations are part of my family history. Like Jacques, the key protagonist in Austerlitz, I too wasn’t told the whole story of my family’s past. Stumbling on stories of colonialism, migration, and racism as an adult has opened up an understanding of a very different world to that of my childhood. The books I have recommended are all excellent examples of migration stories and through the use of beautiful prose pack a punch in a ‘velvet glove’.
This is a book I have been recommending to teenagers and adults alike.
This is no ordinary romantic tale of girl meets boy; it is a very much contemporary take on the notion. Two very different protagonists, from two very different backgrounds are brought together in the immigrant ‘melting pot’ of New York City. In what could be seen as a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, the characters are much more self-aware than in Shakespeare’s original and thankfully this leads to a more enlightened outcome, for them, and the people they meet on their journey.
Using deceptively simple short chapters which chart the course of one day, it cleverly deals with so many of life's big issues (including migration) primarily through the two teenage narrators.
The internationally bestselling love story from Nicola Yoon, author of Everything, Everything - coming as a major film starring Yara Shahidi in 2019.
The internationally bestselling love story from Nicola Yoon, author of Everything, Everything. Now a major film starring Yara Shahidi and Charles Melton!
Natasha- I'm a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny.
Or dreams that will never come true. I'm definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him.
When I was eleven, I picked up a book about a girl and a boy who get lost on a backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada. It’s the first book I can remember reading over and over and over again. I wanted to be in that tent and in that forest figuring out how to survive. Since then, I’ve been hooked on books about people facing grueling physical challenges, surviving in the wilderness, and finding out what they’re made of. They’re urgent and compelling and the stakes are high, and I’ll never stop loving the thrill of reading about people being pushed to their physical and mental limits.
This book had me at the premise. College sophomore Avery Delacorte is flying home for Thanksgiving when her plane goes down in the Rocky Mountains. She and Colin, a teammate from her college swim team, survive, along with three young boys. Avery and Colin have to keep themselves, and the boys, alive for five days in the mountains during a snowstorm. I love the way this book shows the struggle of surviving in the wilderness during the winter and explores the complicated feelings Avery has after rescue and the impact those feelings have on her relationships.
An adventurous debut novel that cross cuts between a competitive college swimmer’s harrowing days in the Rocky Mountains after a major airline disaster and her recovery supported by the two men who love her—only one of whom knows what really happened in the wilderness.
Nineteen-year-old Avery Delacorte loves the water. Growing up in Brookline, Massachusetts, she took swim lessons at her community pool and captained the local team; in high school, she raced across bays and sprawling North American lakes. Now a sophomore on her university’s nationally ranked team, she struggles under the weight of new expectations but life is…
When I was eleven, I picked up a book about a girl and a boy who get lost on a backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada. It’s the first book I can remember reading over and over and over again. I wanted to be in that tent and in that forest figuring out how to survive. Since then, I’ve been hooked on books about people facing grueling physical challenges, surviving in the wilderness, and finding out what they’re made of. They’re urgent and compelling and the stakes are high, and I’ll never stop loving the thrill of reading about people being pushed to their physical and mental limits.
This book is tense! Jess is alone in the Canadian wilderness, still injured from the car accident that killed her mom, and now her dad has been murdered and his cabin burned down. Jess must figure out how to survive in the cold with no shelter and no way out when nobody knows where she is. This is part survival story and part thriller. Jess is driven by her desire to survive as much as her desire for revenge. The survival aspect here is enough to keep you reading, but I also loved trying to piece together the mystery of why her dad was killed.
Jess is stranded in the woods. She has few supplies and only her dog for company. Her survival skills are limited, and she has disabilities that make physical labor a challenge. And winter is on its way. How did she get here?
Alternating between the past and the present, this tightly-paced novel tells the story of a girl who survived a car crash that killed her mother, then was pulled from foster care and sent to live with her estranged survivalist father in the remote Canadian wilderness. Jess was just beginning to get to know her dad when a secret…
Broken Boots, Redeemed Soul: A Veteran’s War with Sin and Salvation
by
Brian Lofton,
Broken Boots, Redeemed Soul: A Veteran’s War with Sin and Salvation, is a raw and faith-centered memoir about life after military service—and the internal battles many never see. Brian Lofton shares his journey through addiction, shame, identity loss, and spiritual distance, revealing how the hardest struggles often begin after…
When I was eleven, I picked up a book about a girl and a boy who get lost on a backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada. It’s the first book I can remember reading over and over and over again. I wanted to be in that tent and in that forest figuring out how to survive. Since then, I’ve been hooked on books about people facing grueling physical challenges, surviving in the wilderness, and finding out what they’re made of. They’re urgent and compelling and the stakes are high, and I’ll never stop loving the thrill of reading about people being pushed to their physical and mental limits.
This isn’t a wilderness story, but it is about survival and a girl pushing herself to her physical limits. Annabelle starts running as a way to survive the grief and guilt she feels after losing her best friend and her boyfriend to gun violence. What starts as a few miles turns into a run across the country, from the west coast to Washington DC, supported by her grandfather and her brother. As she puts her body through this grueling experience, she slowly shares the horrible event that set her on this path, and as she pushes through the pain, she slowly begins to heal. Caletti expertly combines the present-day narrative with the past to make this a gripping novel.
"This is one for the ages." -Gayle Forman, author of the #1 bestseller If I Stay "A book everyone should read right now." -The New York Times Book Review "A vital and heartbreaking story that brings together the #MeToo movement, the effects of gun violence, and the struggle of building oneself up again after crisis." -Elle "Equal parts heartbreaking and hopeful." -BookPage
A Printz Honor Book
Each step in Annabelle's 2,700-mile cross-country run brings her closer to facing a trauma from her past in National Book Award finalist Deb Caletti's novel about the heart, all the ways it…
