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If you loved
Books like Crooked Little Heart
A warm, riotously funny, and unexpectedly suspenseful portrait of a messy family navigating the perils of adolescence and obsession under the California sun. These 12 books are the closest matches in mood, pace and themes, with what each one shares with Crooked Little Heart.
- tender
- tense
- absorbing
- sun-drenched
- 01
Grace (Eventually)
Anne Lamott
A funny, bittersweet, and poignant exploration of faith and the wild adventure of being fully alive.
- 02
Harvesting the heart
Jodi Picoult
An emotionally raw exploration of how the ghosts of our childhoods haunt our attempts at motherhood and marriage.
- 03
The Book of Ruth
Jane Hamilton · 1988
A raw, fiercely empathetic portrait of a marginalized woman finding her own voice amidst the suffocating grip of rural poverty and family dysfunction.
- 04
Where the heart is
Billie Letts · 1995
A big-hearted, folksy embrace of a novel about the families we build when the ones we were born with leave us behind.
- 05
Today will be different
Maria Semple
A hilarious and frantic sprint through a single day of derailed plans, buried secrets, and the messy reality of midlife reinvention.
- 06
Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace · 1996
A sprawling, tragicomic labyrinth of footnotes and hyper-articulate despair that asks what it means to be entertained to death.
- 07
A Map of the World
Jane Hamilton · 1994
A devastating, beautifully observed descent into the nightmare of a single, irreversible mistake and the long, grueling climb back to grace.
- 08
Not So Snow White
Donna Kauffman
A glamorous, globe-trotting sports romance about dropping the party-girl armor and finding a second act in life and love.
- 09
Bird by Bird
Anne Lamott
A warm, witty conversation with a wise mentor who gives you permission to write terribly on your way to writing well.
- 10
Reasons to live
Amy Hempel · 1985
A masterclass in saying everything by saying almost nothing, wrapping profound grief in sharp, brittle wit.
- 11
Miracle play
Susan Richards Shreve
A tender but suffocating portrait of a family drowning in its own fierce, protective love.
- 12
Lit
Mary Karr · 2009
A darkly hilarious, fiercely unsentimental plunge into the abyss of addiction and the messy, miraculous climb back out.
