(Part 2) Best family life fiction books according to redditors

Room by Emma Donoghue. It's one of those where you don't want to tell people the plot before you read it, but if you want to know here you go: A young woman gets kidnapped and kept in a reinforced shed. Her captor rapes her, and she gets pregnant. The boy grows up in that shed, and he's never been outside, and the book starts on his fifth birthday. He narrates the book, and it's super weird (he only knows his mom and the bad guy and TV), super tense (he and his mom escape, of course), and a really great book even though it makes you feel slimy as hell sometimes.

you should read [Room] (http://www.amazon.com/Room-A-Novel-Emma-Donoghue/dp/0316098337)

this one: https://www.amazon.com/Pain-Free-Life-Chronic-Pain-Without/dp/0446577618

I'd totally understand if you'd hate it, but The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt is one of my absolute favourites. And no, it has nothing to do with the Tom Cruise film.

I think you might find this Dan Savage talk supportive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brZIb4MG8oA

I don't know what your goals are - do you? - but I think you should also look into Esther Perel: https://www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_rethinking_infidelity_a_talk_for_anyone_who_has_ever_loved/discussion

Alain de Botton wrote a book in which (spoiler alert!) the husband cheats on the wife and never comes clean. I didn't know that was part of the plot, so it really made me think hard about my own marriage values when I read it. But yeah, it might be a good perspective for you, as well: https://www.amazon.com/Course-Love-Novel-Alain-Botton/dp/1501134515

One of my most valued mentors healed her marriage after an affair, if that is the direction you're thinking of heading?

What sort of support are you looking for, here? Are you trying to end the affair? Or the marriage? Or both? Do you know what you want?

If It's For My Daughter, I'd Even Defeat a Demon Lord. As long as that change in relationship doesn't bother you, otherwise it's all three of those things to a T.
https://www.amazon.com/Daughter-Even-Defeat-Demon-Lord-ebook/dp/B072HQWPN5

There is Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith. It's written in epistolary form. I think a lot of Smith's work is supposed to be about Appalachia.

I think that House Rules does a great job of crafting an authentic autist character. Recommended.

They're up to Volume 4 now and 5 is coming out this April. You can get it on Amazon.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple

For poetry, Cyril Wong.

For short stories and novelettes, the late Goh Sin Tub.

For song writing, Dawn Fung.

I've heard good things about Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians but as he has moved to NYC, I'm not sure if that counts as being a "writer in Singapore".

Have you read Jojo Moyes' books? The One Plus One is a great one, or maybe Me Before You (this one is a bit sad though) :)

Handle With Care is one of the saddest things I've ever read. So many feels.

It's probably pretty telling that the character I relate to most in fiction is pretty damn unlikeable. That would be Victoria/Egg in Boy Proof: self-sufficient, cynical, and obsessively nerdy while pushing everyone away. It was so refreshing to read about a character who didn't have friends fawning over her and wasn't treated as a martyr because people weren't fawning over her. Narratively, the situation was a pretty clear-cut case of "You really brought that on yourself, you know" rather than "Poor MC!"

I will draw a distinction between characters who are meant to be unlikeable, characters who are inadvertently unlikeable, and characters I probably wouldn't want to be friends with in real life.

Whether your MC is a hero(ine) or antihero(ine), you're supposed to be rooting for them. Everyone thinks they're the hero of their own story, and they should have internal motivations and justifications to match. The bully isn't spreading a rumor about the girl she hates because she's a bully: she's doing it because she feels she deserves it. Show why she thinks the objective victim deserves it. Maybe she humiliated her at the science fair and she's been nursing a grudge. Maybe she gave her a nasty look on the bus. Maybe everyone thinks she's Little Miss Perfect and she's not. Maybe the evidence said she stole the money but she didn't really. Reading about these justifications and looking at situations from another perspective is why reading good fiction makes you more empathetic: you get to know characters who have entirely different thought processes.

Some more examples:

Meant to be unlikeable, but you're rooting for them because you understand them:

• Gilly in The Great Gilly Hopkins (MG about foster care) - angry, rude, thieving
  
• Elisa in The Girl of Fire and Thorns (YA fantasy about a fat, religious princess) - borderline case as I thought she was a very sympathetic character, but she does wallow quite a bit in self-pity before she develops a (seriously impressive) spine.
  
• Tris in the Circle of Magic books (MG-YA fantasy about mage school) - abrasive and prickly
  
• Daisy in How I Live Now (YA WWIII) - emotionally flat
  
• Eleanor in Eleanor & Park (YA contemporary set in the 80s) - pretty sure the reader is meant to understand that Eleanor is isolated by both personality and circumstance. She's not exactly reaching out to anyone.
  
• Claudia in Incarceron (YA steampunk/fantasy mashup) - imperious, demanding, self-centered
  
• Meggy in Alchemy and Meggy Swan (MG historical fiction) - cranky and resistant to change
  
• Matilda in Matilda Bone (MG historical fiction) - pious and judgmental
  
  Meant to be likeable and they're not:
  
  
• Ivy Rowe in Fair and Tender Ladies (adult historical fiction about Appalachia) - twit
  
• Eve in... Eve (YA dystopia) - self-centered twit
  
• Tris in Divergent (YA dystopia) - no discernible personality that I could find to base a judgment on
  
• Briar Wilkes in Boneshaker (YA steampunk + zombies) - Again with the lack of personality thing. Among all the characters, she came closest to having a personality, but was still a cardboard cutout.
  
  When characters are supposed to be likeable and they're just not, the fault usually seems to lie with the author for failing to tack on a complete, nuanced personality. Or, the personality is there and the decisions run entirely contrary to the informed traits and it's clearly not a case of "humans are occasionally inconsistent."
  
  I think what annoys me the most is when characters make dumb decisions that run contrary to what we know about that character. For example, in Eve, [when](#s "Caleb tells her that she should move on because all of the small children she supposedly loves and all of the men she's supposed to be deathly afraid of will certainly die when she is tracked, Eve throws a hissy fit because obviously he's a cruel man who doesn't want her love and is just trying to get rid of her.") Also, even though she's never seen a movie or really read about (what the reader knows as) modern times, "the crickets sound like cheerleaders!" :D :D :D This runs entirely contrary to what we're supposed to know about her (she's desperate to get to a different location, she's terrified of men, she protects people).
  
  In comparison, Nell from Into the Forest (adult dystopia) makes some [objectively terrible decisions](#s "like giving up a chance to return to society and fingering her sister"), but they make sense for the context and what we know about her character (scared of change, totally focused on the memories of her family). Daisy from How I Live Now is another unlikeable but sympathetic character making [bad decisions](#s "such as splitting up the group, obsessing about an incestuous relationship, etc"), but again they're presented in a way that makes sense for her mindset and circumstances.
  
  Likeable characters I probably wouldn't want to be friends with, but root for anyways:
  
  
• Aly in Trickster's Choice - keeps trying to score points off people with snark and humiliating come-uppances. Fun to read about, but annoying in real life.
  
• Gemma Doyle in A Great and Terrible Beauty - overly concerned with being in the popular crowd, which is not my thing.
  
• Tally from Uglies - again with popularity as a major motivation
  
• Anna in A Countess Below Stairs - so selfless she'd make me suspicious
  
  These girls have complete personalities and are sympathetic in text despite their flaws. However, I feel like I "know" them well enough that I can tell we probably wouldn't get along in real life.
  
  tl;dr: Readers are supposed to root for the MC even if they are objectively unlikeable. When the reader doesn't want to root for the MC, it's probably because the author didn't convey their personality clearly or consistently. I wouldn't want to be real-life friends with many of my favorite characters.

I liked California: https://www.amazon.com/California-Novel-Edan-Lepucki-ebook/dp/B00GG0GJ2Q/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1506023269&sr=8-3&keywords=california

And Sleepless: https://www.amazon.com/Sleepless-Novel-Charlie-Huston-ebook/dp/B002XHNONI/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1506023332&sr=1-1&keywords=sleepless

And a friend wrote this strange indie book: https://www.amazon.com/That-Great-Terrible-Brian-Scott/dp/0996843205/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&dpID=41g6nFlhgNL&preST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=detail

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple


Every Day by David Levithan


Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer


Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

I just read this book a few weeks ago.

Funny how coincidence works. Decent read btw.

IT IS! I love a book that gives me such vivid ideas of what its characters look like, and when reading this, I find myself doing just that. I am sad it's almost over, I don't want it to be! And, I am a Goodreads junkie! I find myself using it quite often for reviews over Amazon.

I like books based on secrets and stuff? Ok that probably makes zero sense. But books like the one I am reading, and big brother books like Nineteen Eighty Four.. and I just bought Where'd You Go, Bernadette. Clearly I like technology mysteries. Also, House of Leaves!

Here's a link to the Amazon page of the book if anyone is interested.

I'm glad you liked it!

Maybe try This is where I leave you or We're all Damaged. I also really love Kent Haruf's books.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. I'm not usually into heartwarming stories, but this was one unexpectedly great book.

riding the bus with my sister

the perks of being a wallflower

house rules

Check out Room. I haven't read it but it's gotten glowing reviews. Story told from a kid's perspective/language.

https://www.amazon.com/House-Rules-Novel-Jodi-Picoult/dp/0743296443/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539746146&sr=8-1&keywords=house+rules+by+jodi+picoult

This book is fiction but I really recommend it. It shows the thoughts and perspective of everyone in the family when one child is not neurotypical.

They're not recent reads, but in my early 20s I read Women Who Run With The Wolves, and the Handmaid's Tale. Women Who Run With the Wolves is about the stories that different cultures tell about women, and I found it tremendously empowering. I still read it when I need a girl power boost. The Handmaid's Tale is a cautionary tale (and a really great read) about the intersection between religion/politics/women's issues, and it really taught me to look skeptically at the combination of fundamentalist religion and politics that was just starting to take hold.

In the last few years, I've just loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. It's a short novel, but as someone who's suffered from life-long depression, it was just so wonderful, and hopeful.

BQ I just devoured "We Are All Damaged" by Matthew Norman. I read it in a couple of days, so clearly I enjoyed it (and it's an easy read). If you happen to be a 30 or 40 something. B and I came up with an analogy last night - Moby Dick (and other big ol' books like that) are like a huge batch of super spicy curry. It's yummy and probably good for you. But, eating the whole batch in one sitting? Rough. You need some breaks to eat some mango with sticky rice (like We Are All Damaged) periodically, while working your way through the batch of curry.

Yesterday - I read a lot. I was supposed to hang with a friend, but my other friend was supposed to come over and help me fix my trim. So, I waited and waited for fix-it friend, and then it started raining, so fix it friend texts saying "it's raining." and I text saying, "so, reschedule?" and he texts saying, "driving." So, I wait and wait and wait and wait and finally text, "You ok?" and he texts back, "oh yah, I stopped at the bar." Fuck. Me. So, my evening plans got toasted. But, I finished my book, so there's that.

Today

• Work - Hell if I know. I'm bored. I need new projects to work on. I might just say screw it and do the policy stuff without the input of my coworker. Grrr. ARgh.
  
• Exercise - Z-health appointment. Also, I wore sandals today, because I've been walking around my house barefoot successfully. Um, nope. That was a mistake. Oh well. I only have to walk as far as where my car is (a few blocks).
  
• Life - it's L's birthday. So, I need to frost cupcakes (buy powdered sugar) and then we're going to an outdoor concert tonight. Should be fun. (Oh right - I need to buy tickets, too.)

The Humans: A Novel

This book really sheds some light on what it means to be human. It's got it funny points, but it's more of a reflection on being a human being -- flaws and all. It was written by a person who was going through his own depression and self-loathing.

The link is https://www.amazon.com/Bounce-Story-Love-Global-Indian-ebook/dp/B00UZQFPIG

At least in the reddit app I use, the above link wasn't clickable

https://www.amazon.com/Pain-Free-Life-Chronic-Pain-Without/dp/0446577618

I'm currently reading The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt, recommended to me by another Haskeller.

Goodreads



Amazon Link
I recommend this as consolation for your self, not to ignore the issue but I think it would be of much help for your journey thru this situation, which I can barely imagine how you feel. Nevertheless I'll pray for him to accept help, for him to change and for your relationship.

I love my job because I get to care for people, work with friends, and have fun. I work in dietary at a nursing home. We are always goofing off and doing silly stuff.

Last summer I played a particularly funny practical joke on a coworker. She had ordered a meal from the kitchen, so I fixed up her plate. I have found a cicada shell outside during my break, so I gently placed it on top of her meal to spook her. Apparently the heat from the meal woke a tiny spider who had been living inside...ended up scaring myself more than my coworker, lol.

I would like to read this.

Glitter all the things

Other books of hers that also deal with moral/philosophical dilemmas:

My Sister's keeper - deals w Genetic engineering - a child was conceived to help save her sister. but she doesn't want to...

19 Minutes - deals w parents of a son who guns down his classmates (like columbine)

So it goes a little something like this.

I absolutely love to read. I have an entire books wish list. I don't know how to pick just one!

• I suppose I would really like to have this one. I remember seeing it when it hit the shelves, and shortly after hearing everybody talk about how awesome it was, and I have yet to read it. Being a mom to a small child, this is right up my alley.
  
  
• I haven't read anything super recently, but the last thing I read was the Mortal Instruments series. SO GOOD. I can't wait for the first movie to come out.
  
  Thanks for the contest. :)

This book is 99¢ and sounds hilarious

Guess this flag!! I had to choose an image that didn't show the entire flag so it doesn't say the name. However, I know you'll figure it out since you're the flag master!!!

"My Abandonment" www.amazon.com/My-Abandonment-Peter-Rock/dp/0156035529 is based on a true story www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1140240/posts.

"Room" www.amazon.com/dp/0316223239 was based on several stories of kidnapped children being found alive after man years.

"My Happy Life" www.amazon.com/My-Happy-Life-Lydia-Millet/dp/1933368764 is written like a memoir but thankfully isn't based on any true story.

You should get us boo this book because I have heard so many good things about Jodi Picoult.16 bucks an hour!!!

There's a great book that deals with this ethical issue... Great read.

California by Edan Lepucki

I just got finished reading this. It's about a couple living in the California woods after society has mostly collapsed and gone to shit. Really solid post-apocalypse novel that focuses in on a small group of characters and their various attempts at re-building society. It also deals a lot with trust in relationships (as the chapters alternate being narrated by the wife then husband).

I'd liken it to a literary novel version of The Walking Dead or Lost, just without the zombies and scifi-purgatories.

A tragedy to triumph story: "The Bounce!: A Story of Love, Loss and the Life of a Global Indian" by Mohan

It is a Kindle eBook - Amazon.com / Amazon.in

The Humans by Matt Haig. The MC is an alien disguised as a human who learns about humanity through interacting with humans. A bit like Douglas Adams or Third Rock from the Sun, but with a more serious storyline and a focus on human relationships.

someone said they asked Mikyx over Twitter DM and he said it was this one book

my bookclub book that was suggested by me but i have not started or bought yet. it will be made into a movie!

Happy Birthday & Merry XMas /u/caraeeezy

ebook that i want to suggest to everyone

I will take you up on this too if you still feel like doing it for more than 99 cents. I couldn't find under .99 either but these are all under $3.00 as well:

Look Behind You $2.00

[Miss Peregrine's Home for Pecuilar Children] (http://www.amazon.com/Miss-Peregrines-Home-Peculiar-Children-ebook/dp/B004FGMDOQ/ref=sr_1_18?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419918189&sr=1-18) $1.99

[Eleanor and Park] (http://www.amazon.com/Eleanor-Park-Rainbow-Rowell-ebook/dp/B008SAZHLQ/ref=sr_1_24?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419918189&sr=1-24) $2.50

[Me before you] (http://www.amazon.com/Me-Before-You-Jojo-Moyes-ebook/dp/B0089EHWQE/ref=sr_1_30?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419918263&sr=1-30) $2.99

Thank you so much! I am new here and it seems nice :)