Issue-driven Books, with Emphasis on Characters

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Books about controversial issues
• Books about characters and relationships
• Books similar to Jodi Picoult’s but cleaner

Please Look after Mom
By Kyong-suk Shin
F SHIN
Follows the efforts of a family to find the mother who went missing from Seoul Station and their sobering realizations when they recall memories that suggest she may not have been happy.

Every Last One
By Anna Quindlen
F QUINDLEN
Mary Beth is first and foremost a mother whose three children come first, before her career, or even her life as the wife of a doctor. Caring for her family and preserving their everyday life is paramount. So when one of her sons becomes depressed, she focuses on him, and is blindsided by a shocking act of violence.

The Language of Flowers
By Vanessa Diffenbaugh
DIFFENBA
The story of a woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own past.

State of Wonder
By Ann Patchett
F PATCHETT
A researcher at a pharmaceutical company, Marina Singh journeys into the heart of the Amazonian delta to check on a field team that has been silent for two years--a dangerous assignment that forces Marina to confront the ghosts of her past.

These Things Hidden
By Heather Gudenkauf
F GUDENKAU
When golden girl teenager Allison Glenn is released to a halfway house, she is more determined than ever to speak with her estranged sister. Their legacy of secrets is focused on one little boy. And if the truth is revealed, the consequences will be unimaginable for the adoptive mother who loves him, the girl who tried to protect him and the two sisters who hold the key to all that is hidden.

Edgy Fiction

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Edgy fiction
• Jodi Picoult read-alikes
• Strong characterization
  

She's Come Undone
By Wally Lamb
F LAMB
Bruised by her parents' divorce, her mother's breakdown, and brutal betrayal by a neighbor, Dolores Price tries to retreat from life. She’s angry and defiant which blinds her to the needs of others. While battling for love and acceptance she is supported by some delightfully unconventional friends. Her struggles to understand pain and achieve forgiveness resonate with a sense of life's complexities.

A Virtuous Woman
By Kaye Gibbons
F GIBBONS
In Jack Stokes and Ruby Pitt’s love story, we learn about their very different backgrounds, troubled histories and unlikely but loving marriage. Ruby stunned her good family by running off with a migrant worker who savagely abuses her. When he is killed in a brawl, she is too proud to ask her family for help. She begins doing housework for a wealthy family and meets Jack, a capable tenant farmer who is twice her age.

While I Was Gone
By Sue Miller
F MILLER
Jo Becker is a woman who has everything one could desire: a loving spouse, contented children, and a nice dog or two. When her veterinary practice takes on a new client, however, her past comes back to haunt her. Long ago, it seems, she had escaped her family for a commune in Cambridge. That life came to an abrupt, bloody end when one of her housemates was brutally murdered.

Multicultural Jodi Picoult Read-alikes

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Jodi Picoult read-alikes
• Multicultural books
• Serious themes
  

Stuck in Neutral
By Terry Trueman
YA F TRUEMAN
Fourteen-year-old Shawn McDaniel, who suffers from severe cerebral palsy and cannot function, relates his perceptions of his life, his family, and his condition, especially as he believes his father is planning to kill him.

Kite Runner
By Khaled Hosseini
F HOSSEINI
Traces the unlikely friendship of a wealthy Afghan youth and a servant's son, in a tale that spans the final days of Afghanistan's monarchy through the atrocities of the present day.

Run
By Ann Patchett
F PATCHETT
Struggling with single parenthood and a scandal that cost him his political career, Bernard Doyle fights his disappointment with his adopted sons' career choices before a violent event forces the members of his family to reconsider their priorities.

Namesake
By Jhumpa Lahiri
F LAHIRI
A portrait of the immigrant experience follows the Ganguli family from their traditional life in India through their arrival in Massachusetts in the late 1960s and their difficult melding into an American way of life.

My Mother the Cheerleader
By Rob Sharenow
YA F SHARNOW
Thirteen-year-old Louise uncovers secrets about her family and her neighborhood during the violent protests over school desegregation in 1960 New Orleans.

Jodi-Picoult Read-alike Suggestions

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Jodi Picoult read-alikes
• Well-written literary stories
• Strong characterization

Before You Know Kindness
By Chris Bohjalian
F BOHJALIAN
After a decade of spending the delightful summer week at their country house in New Hampshire, the members of the extended Seton family are confronted by a terrible accident when a partially loaded hunting rifle in the wrong hands leads to tragedy, testing the values, convictions, and relationships that hold the family together.

Speak
By Laurie Halse Anderson
YA F ANDERSON
A traumatic event in the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda's freshman year of high school.

The Truth About Forever
By Sarah Dessen
YA F DESSEN
The summer following her father's death, Macy plans to work at the library and wait for her brainy boyfriend to return from camp, but instead she goes to work at a catering business where she makes new friends and finally faces her grief.

The Knitting Circle
By Ann Hood
F HOOD
Grieving over the sudden loss of her only child, Mary Baxter joins a knitting circle in Providence, Rhode Island, whose members not only teach her a variety of knitting techniques but also valuable lessons about friendship, love, and redemption.