Are you waiting on hold for one of this month's buzziest books? See our list of read alikes to explore similar stories while you wait.
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
Whistler by Ann Patchett
Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden
Kin by Tayari Jones
Read alikes for Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
These books are thought-provoking reads exploring themes of social media, family relationships, and the extremes to which a character will go to meet their goals.
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Claire O'Connor is a promising writer who left the family's struggling farmstead in western Ireland for London, swearing never to return. But after the unexpected death of her mother, she is racked with grief, and when her father is diagnosed with cancer, she decides to return home to care for him, destroying everything she'd so carefully built up in the process. The pandemic follows, and Claire falls into a comfortable routine, one increasingly shaped by a growing obsession: the lives of the 20-something trad wive s she discovers on social media. When Tom, her lost London love, unexpectedly shows up the next town over, her anxieties and obsessions collide, the resulting conflict forcing Claire and her brothers to finally deal with their family's historic trauma--a trauma whose evidence is carved into the beams of the family home and the stone floors upon which their ancestors bled.
An insanely competitive housing market. A buyer pushed to the breaking point. How far would you go for the American Dream? Eighteen months and eleven lost bidding wars into house-hunting in the overheated Washington, DC, suburbs, thirty-seven-year-old publicist Margo Miyake gets a tip about the perfect house, in the perfect neighborhood, slated to come up for sale in one month. Desperate to escape the cramped apartment she shares with her husband Ian-and, in turn, fix their marriage, have a baby, and get their life started-Margo becomes obsessed with buying the house before it's publicly listed and the masses descend with all-cash offers in hand. With some (harmless!) stalking and a bit of (very light!) trespassing, she worms her way into the homeowners' lives. But just when she believes she's won them over, they uncover her scheme and shut her out. Undeterred, Margo will prove again and again that there's nothing she won't try-no secret too dark to leverage, no tactic too unhinged-to finally kickstart the dream life she's worked so hard to achieve. A deeply dark, laugh-out-loud commentary on class, ambition, and the housing crisis, Best Offer Wins is a propulsive debut from a totally original voice-with a violent scream of female rage at its core.
From the critically-acclaimed novelist and essayist, the hilarious, heartwarming story of the Milanis-an Iranian American family who live in wealth and whose recent foray into the spotlight will force them to divulge long-kept family secrets and bring them closer than ever before When Ali and Homa Milani first immigrated from Iran to the United States, they struggled to make ends meet. Now multimillionaires and self-proclaimed American Fast-Food Moguls, they've established a name for themselves: they're the Milanis, derisively dubbed "Persian Royalty" by prominent Los Angeles gossip rags. On the precipice of getting their own reality TV show, they have it all-a mansion in downtown L.A., a lucrative business, and four spirited daughters. The shy Violet, whose budding modeling career will force her to reckon with her wicked sweet tooth; the outspoken and fiery Roxanna whose manicure is rivalled only by her perfectly curated Instagram; the reclusive Mina who spends most of her days on online fandom forums; the youngest, Haylee, who finds herself falling down internet conspiracy rabbit holes. Each of the Milanis has something to hide, and in front of the glaring lights of a TV camera, the truth threatens to come out at the powerful climax. What will happen when the world discovers the secrets they've been keeping? Sharply observed and compulsively readable, Tehrangeles is a dramatic family saga about the difficulty of healing dysfunctional familial relationships and the ever-present struggle to find acceptance of one's true self.
"Mother May I" Iverson has spent the past twenty years building a massively successful influencer empire with endearing videos featuring her five mixed-race daughters. But the girls are all grown up now, and the ramifications of having their entire childhoods commodified start to spill over into public view, especially in light of the pivotal question: Who killed May's newlywed husband and then torched her mansion to cover it up? April is a businesswoman feuding with her mother over IP; twins June and July are influencers themselves, threatening to overtake May's spotlight; January is a theater tech who steers clear of her mother and the limelight; and the youngest...well, March has somehow completely disappeared. As the days pass post-murder, everyone has an opinion-the sisters, May, a mysterious "friend of the family," and the collective voice of the online audience watching the family's every move-with suspicion flying every direction. A campy and escapist exploration of race, gender, sexuality, and class, The Influencers is an evisceration of influencer culture and how alienating traditional expectations can be, ripe for the current moment when the first generation of children made famous by their parents are, now, all grown up-and looking for retribution.
One of the best read alikes for Ann Patchett is Ann Patchett! Explore her back catalog of books while you wait for her newest title.
From Man Booker International Prize-winning author of Celestial Bodies and Bitter Orange Tree, a new novel about two Omani women whose unbreakable connection is forged as nursing sisters -- a bond considered akin to that of a birth sibling. Raised as sisters, Ghazaala is devastated when her friend Asiya is forced to leave their small mountainside village following a tragic circumstance. It's a separation that haunts her into adulthood, and she never gives up on finding a love that might replace the bond they shared. Years later, Ghazaala's family moves to Muscat, where she falls in love with a professional violinist who lives in their building. She completely surrenders herself to his charm and, despite her parents' opposition, runs away from home to marry him. While balancing the duties of a new wife -- caring for her husband, their home, and, before long, their twin boys -- Ghazaala resumes her education and enrolls in university. Ghazaala's sharp wit catches the attention of another student, Harir, during their freshman year. In the pages of her diary, Harir recounts the story of her deepening, transformative friendship with Ghazaala over the course of ten years. The elusive, ghostly existence of Asiya exerts a force over both their lives, yet neither Ghazaala nor Harir is aware of the connection. From the brilliant mind of Jokha Alharthi comes a tale of childhood friendship, and how its significance -- and loss -- can be recalibrated at different stages of life.
Three generations of women must contend with their family curse and the question of reincarnation.
Jimmy Perrini lives in 1970s suburban New Jersey, a few miles from Manhattan, but a world apart. At the end of eighth grade, after tragedy strikes, Jimmy finds himself lost in a fog of grief that alienates him from friends and family, drifting instead into troubling friendships with two older teenagers: one a notorious local burnout with a fast car, an endless supply of weed, and a shaky grasp of reality; the other a smart, eccentric girl, whom Jimmy finds himself drawn to as they become entranced by her Ouija board, which may just offer the only salve to their grief. As a fateful public drama unfolds, Jimmy is torn between the occult beyond and the cold realities of the place he has called home. Narrated by a much older Jimmy, a literary-turned-commercial novelist, Ghost Town reveals how the past haunts the present the way our ghosts are always with us, even when we think we've left them behind.
In this moving debut novel, two estranged siblings must set aside their differences to deal with their mother's death and her hidden past--a journey of discovery that takes them from the Caribbean to London to California and ends with her famous black cake. In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett's death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a traditional Caribbean black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking journey Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child, challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their family, and themselves. Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor's true history, and fulfill her final request to 'share the black cake when the time is right?' Will their mother's revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever? Charmaine Wilkerson's debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names, can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.
In November 1999, Joan Didion began seeing a psychiatrist because, as she wrote to a friend, her family had had 'a rough few years.' She described the sessions in a journal she created for her husband, John Gregory Dunne. For several months, Didion recorded conversations with the psychiatrist in meticulous detail. The initial sessions focused on alcoholism, adoption, depression, anxiety, guilt, and the heartbreaking complexities of her relationship with her daughter Quintana. The subjects evolved to include her work, which she was finding difficult to maintain for sustained periods. There were discussions about her own childhood--misunderstandings and lack of communication with her mother and father, her early tendency to anticipate catastrophe--and the question of legacy, or, as she put it, 'what it's been worth.' The analysis would continue for more than a decade. ... [This is] an ... intimate account that reveals sides of her that were unknown, but the voice is unmistakably hers--questioning, courageous, and clear in the face of a wrenchingly painful journey.
From Jen Hatmaker--beloved New York Times bestselling author and host of the For the Love podcast--a brutally honest, funny, and revealing memoir about the traumatic end of her twenty-six-year-long marriage, and the beginning of a different kind of love story.
From the New York times best-selling author of The Recovering and The Empathy Exams comes the riveting story of rebuilding a life after the end of a marriage--an exploration of motherhood, art and new love.
The long-awaited follow-up from one of the most original and hilarious voices writing today. Scaachi Koul's first book was a collection of raw, perceptive, and hilarious essays reckoning with the issues of race, body image, love, friendship, and growing up the daughter of immigrants. When the time came to start writing her next book, Scaachi assumed she'd be updating her story with essays about her elaborate four-day wedding, settling down to domestic bliss, and continuing her never-ending arguments with her parents. Instead, the Covid pandemic hit, the world went into lockdown, Scaachi's marriage fell apart, she lost her job, and her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Sucker Punch is about what happens when the life you thought you'd be living radically changes course, everything you thought you knew about the world and yourself has tilted on its axis, and you have to start forging a new path forward. Scaachi employs her signature humor and fierce intelligence to interrogate her previous belief that fighting is the most effective tool for progress. She examines the fights she's had -- with her parents, her ex-husband, her friends, online strangers, and herself -- all in an attempt to understand when a fight is worth having, and when it's better to walk away.
Desiree, Danielle, January, Monique, and Nakia are in their early twenties and at the beginning. Of their careers, of marriage, of motherhood, and of big-city lives in New York and Los Angeles. Together, they are finding their way through the wilderness, that period of life when the reality of contemporary adulthood-overwhelming, mysterious, and full of freedom and consequences-swoops in and stays. Desiree and Danielle, sisters whose shared history has done little to prevent their estrangement, nurse bitter family wounds in different ways. January's got a relationship with a "good" man she feels ambivalent about, even after her surprise pregnancy. Monique, a librarian and aspiring blogger, finds unexpected online fame after calling out the university where she works for its plans to whitewash fraught history. And Nakia is trying to get her restaurant off the ground, without relying on the largesse of her upper middle-class family who wonder aloud if she should be doing something better with her life. As these friends move from the late 2000's into the late 2020's, from young adults to grown women, they must figure out what they mean to one another-amid political upheaval, economic and environmental instability, and the increasing volatility of modern American life. The Wilderness is Angela Flournoy's masterful and kaleidoscopic follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut The Turner House. A generational talent, she captures with disarming wit and electric language how the most profound connections over a lifetime can lie in the tangled, uncertain thicket of friendship.
Sula and Nel are born in the Bottom—a small town at the top of a hill. Sula is wild, and daring; she does what she wants, while Nel is well-mannered, a mamma’s girl with a questioning heart. Growing up they forge a bond stronger than anything, stronger even than the dark secret they have to bear. Strong enough, it seems, to last a lifetime—until, decades later, as the girls become women, Sula’s anarchy leads to a betrayal that may be beyond forgiveness.
A novel about the heartbreaks, triumphs, and betrayals of a group of teenage mothers living on the Florida panhandle.
Ruth, an only child of recent immigrants to New England, lives in an emotionally cold home and attends the local Catholic girl's school on a scholarship. Maria, a beautiful orphan whose Panamanian mother dies by suicide and is taken care of by an ill, unloving aunt, is one of the only other students attending the school on a scholarship. Ruth is drawn forcefully into Maria's orbit, and they fall into an easy, yet intense, friendship. Her devotion to her charming and bright new friend opens up her previously sheltered world. While Maria, charismatic and aware of her ability to influence others, eases into her full self, embracing her sexuality and her desire to be an artist, Ruth is mostly content to follow her around: to college and then into the early-nineties art world of New York City. Ambition and competition threaten to rupture their friendship, while strong and unspoken forces pull them together over the years.