Books That Tell it Like it Is

Try these books if you're looking for:

• contemporary fiction
• authentic books
• honest books - tell the story like it is, without shying away from anything
• focus on characters and relationships

The Road 
By Cormac McCarthy
F MCCARTHY
A man and his son walk alone towards the coast, and this is the moving story of their journey. The Road is an unflinching exploration of human behavior-from ultimate destructiveness to extreme tenderness. The dialog is terse and terribly authentic. Although this novel is set in a post-apocalyptic America; the nature of the story, the relationship between father and son, and the powerful dialog all lead me to recommend this as “realistic fiction.”

Going Bovine 
By Libba Bray
YA F BRAY
Cameron Smith, a disaffected sixteen year-old who, after being diagnosed with Creutzfeld Jakob's (aka mad cow) disease, sets off on a road trip with a death-obsessed video gaming dwarf he meets in the hospital in an attempt to find a cure.

Say What You Will 
By Cammie McGovern
YA F MCGOVERN
A girl confined to a wheelchair by cerebral palsy and a boy stymied by an obsessive-compulsive disorder are assigned to spend time together in what becomes a blossoming friendship that neither expected.

Fast-paced Compelling Apocalyptic Bio-Thrillers

Try these books if you're looking for:

• fast-pace
• thrillers
• apocalyptic stories
• strong plot
• adventure

Blindness 
Jose Saramago
F SARAMAGO
A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" whose victims are confined to a vacant mental hospital, while a single eyewitness to the nightmare guides seven oddly assorted strangers through the barren urban landscape. Blindness is an eerie, elegantly written dystopian novel about a society stricken with a sudden, debilitating epidemic. It emphasizes intimate psychological detail and incisive social commentary over action.

Lock In 
John Scalzi
F SCALZI
When a new virus sweeps the globe a discovery is made -- that a few rare individuals have brains that are receptive to being controlled by others, meaning that from time to time, those who are "locked in" or fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus, can "ride" these people and use their bodies as if they were their own. This skill is quickly regulated, licensed, bonded, and controlled. Nothing can go wrong. Or can it?

The Age of Miracles
Karen Thompson Walker
F WALKER
Imagines the coming-of-age story of young Julia, whose world is thrown into upheaval when it is discovered that the Earth's rotation has suddenly begun to slow, posing a catastrophic threat to all life. This haunting dystopian novel is driven primarily by nuanced characterization, thought-provoking social commentary, and realistic, sensitively drawn human drama.

The Children of Men 
P.D. James
MYSTERY JAMES
The year is 2012. The country is under the absolute rule of the Warden. Then by chance, Theo Faron meets a young woman who seeks to challenge the power of the Warden's regime. A compelling, bleakly atmospheric dystopian novel about near-future industrial society plagued by mysterious and devastating medical phenomena. The suspenseful plot serves as an avenue for intimate character drama, thought-provoking social commentary, and haunting meditations on human behavior in extreme conditions.

Clean Reads that Have It All

Try these books if you're looking for:

• clean reads
• good story/plot
• strong female characters
• some action
• some romance

The Woman in White 
Wilkie Collins
MYSTERY COLLINS
One of the greatest mystery thrillers ever written, Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White was a phenomenal bestseller in the 1860s, achieving even greater success than works by Dickens, Collins's friend and mentor. Full of surprise, intrigue, and suspense, this vastly entertaining novel continues to enthrall readers today. The story begins with an eerie midnight encounter between artist Walter Hartright and a ghostly woman dressed all in white who seems desperate to share a dark secret. The next day Hartright, engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie and her half sister, tells his pupils about the strange events of the previous evening. Determined to learn all they can about the mysterious woman in white, the three soon find themselves drawn into a chilling vortex of crime, poison, kidnapping, and international intrigue. Masterfully constructed, The Woman in White is dominated by two of the finest creations in all Victorian fiction: Marion Halcombe, dark, mannish, yet irresistibly fascinating, and Count Fosco, the sinister and flamboyant Napoleon of Crime. This is one of my all-time favorite classic books.

A Duty to the Dead 
Charles Todd
MYSTERY TODD Bess Cr #1
Bess Crawford, a nurse in World War I, promises Lieutenant Arthur Graham that she will carry his request to his dying brother, a request that is treated with skepticism, leading Bess to carry it out herself, putting her own life at risk for Arthur’s sake and thrusting her into a maelstrom of intrigue and murder. I also really loved his The Walnut Tree, which is not a mystery but is set in the same period and has some really great characters.
 

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society 
Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
F SHAFFER
As London is emerging from the shadow of World War II, writer Juliet Ashton discovers her next subject in a book club on Guernsey-a club born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi after its members are discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island. Another book with great characters and a new look at World War II.

The Forgotten Garden 
Kate Morton
F MORTON
“Nell,” abandoned as a child, leaves her adoptive parents in Australia and travels to England to trace her story, to find her real identity – a quest that ultimately leads her to Blackhurst manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Montrachet family. Kate Morton writes beautifully and her plots are so complex - without taking anything away from her compelling characters - that you have to read to the last page to really solve the mystery.

Some Serious YA Mystery and Adventure

Try these books if you're looking for:

• teen reads
• serious/dramatic books
• male characters
• reads like: The Black Reckoning (Books of Beginning); Nathan Fox's Dangerous Times; Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children; Hollow City; Confessions: The Private School Murders; Confessions of a Murder Suspect.

The Replacement 
By Brenda Yovanoff
YA F Yovanoff
Mackie Doyle is a Replacement, left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years before, and when creatures under the hill decide that they want him back, he must decide where he really belongs and what he really wants.

In the Shadow of the Blackbirds 
By Cat Winters
YA F WINTERS
In San Diego in 1918, as deadly influenza and World War I take their toll, sixteen-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches desperate mourners flock to seances and spirit photographers for comfort and, despite her scientific leanings, must consider if ghosts are real when her first love, killed in battle, returns.

Anna Dressed in Blood 
By Kendare Blake
YA F BLAKE
For three years, seventeen-year-old Cas Lowood has carried on his father's work of dispatching the murderous dead, traveling with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat, but everything changes when he meets Anna, a girl unlike any ghost he has faced before.

The Girl is Murder 
By Kathryn Miller Haines
YA F HAINES Iris And #1
In 1942 New York City, fifteen-year-old Iris grieves for her mother who committed suicide and for the loss of her life of privilege, and secretly helps her father with his detective business since he, having lost a leg at Pearl Harbor, struggles to make ends meet.