Book picks similar to
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Things a Bright Girl Can Do
Sally Nicholls - 2017
Enraged that she is expected to marry her childhood sweetheart rather than be educated, she joins the Suffragettes, and vows to pay the ultimate price for women's freedom.May is fifteen, and already sworn to the cause, though she and her fellow Suffragists refuse violence. When she meets Nell, a girl who's grown up in hardship, she sees a kindred spirit. Together and in love, the two girls start to dream of a world where all kinds of women have their place.But the fight for freedom will challenge Evelyn, May and Nell more than they ever could believe. As war looms, just how much are they willing to sacrifice?
SISTER
Nickole Brown - 2007
It is a voice thick with the humidity and whirring cicadas of Kentucky, but the poems are dangerous, smelling of the crisp cucumber scent of a copperhead about to strike. Epistolary in nature, and with a novel's arc, Sister is a story that begins with a teen giving birth to a baby girl--the narrator--during a tornado, and in some ways, that tornado never ends. In the hands of a lesser poet, this debut collection would be a standard-issue confession, a melodramatic exercise in anger and self-pity. But melodrama requires simple villains and victims, and there is neither in this richly complex portrait. Ultimately, Sister is more about the narrator's transgressions and failures, more about her relationships to her sister and their mother than about that which divided them. With equal parts sass and sorrow, these poems etch out survival won not with tender-hearted reflections but by smoking cigarettes through fly-specked screens, by using cans of aerosol hair spray as a makeshift flamethrowers, and, most cruelly, by leaving home and trying to forget her sister entirely. From there, each poem is a letter of explanation and apology to that younger sister she never knew.Sister recounts a return to a place that Brown never truly left. It is a book of forgiveness, of seeking what is beyond mere survival, of finding your way out of a place of poverty and abuse only to realize that you must go back again, all the way back to where everything began--that warm, dark nest of mother.
Bingo Love
Tee Franklin - 2017
A chance meeting at church bingo in 1963 brings Hazel Johnson and Mari McCray together. Through their formative years, these two women develop feelings for each other and finally profess their love for one another.Forced apart by their families and society, Hazel and Mari both married young men and had families. Decades later, now in their mid 60’s, Hazel and Mari are reunited again at a bingo hall. Realizing their love for each other is still alive, what these grandmothers do next takes absolute strength and courage.From TEE FRANKLIN (NAILBITER’s “THE OUTFIT,” Love is Love) and JENN ST-ONGE (Jem & the Misfits), BINGO LOVE is a touching story of love, family, and resiliency that spans over 60 years.
Till Human Voices Wake Us
Patti Davis - 2013
In the empty days after her son's death, left alone in her grief by her husband, Isabelle Berendon falls in love with the unlikeliest person in the world: her sister-in-law.Self-published by one of President Ronald Reagan's daughters, who does not identify as a lesbian.
37 Things I Love (in No Particular Order)
Kekla Magoon - 2012
But even with vacation just within reach, Ellis isn’t exactly relaxed. Her father has been in a coma for years, the result of a construction accident, and her already-fragile relationship with her mother is strained over whether or not to remove him from life support. Her best friend fails even to notice that anything is wrong and Ellis feels like her world is falling apart. But when all seems bleak, Ellis finds comfort in the most unexpected places. Life goes on, but in those four fleeting days friends are lost and found, promises are made, and Ellis realizes that nothing will ever quite be the same.
A Royal Romance
Jenny Frame - 2015
When her father dies suddenly, she is called back from her Royal Navy post to assume the crown. While the people acclaim their new Queen, Great Britain’s first openly gay monarch, all George feels is the isolation of her station.Beatrice Elliot’s staunch anti-monarchist views have always been a point of gentle contention with her working class, royalty-loving parents. When Bea—director of a hospice charity—must spend six months working with Queen Georgina, her charity’s new patron, sparks fly and passion blooms. But is love enough to bridge the gap between Bethnal Green and Buckingham Palace?
P.S. I Miss You
Jen Petro-Roy - 2018
All Evie wants is for her older sister to come back. But when her parents forbid her to even speak to Cilla, she starts sending letters. Evie writes letters about her family, torn apart and hurting. She writes about her life, empty without Cilla. And she writes about the new girl in school, June, who becomes her friend, and then maybe more than a friend.As she becomes better friends with June, Evie begins to question her sexual orientation. She can only imagine what might happen if her parents found out who she really is. She could really use some advice from Cilla. But Cilla isn't writing back.
Kiss Number 8
Colleen A.F. Venable - 2019
"Amanda can’t figure out what’s so exciting about kissing. It’s just a lot of teeth clanking, germ swapping, closing of eyes so you can’t see that godzilla-sized zit just inches from your own hormonal monstrosity. All of her seven kisses had been horrible in different ways, but nothing compared to the awfulness that followed Kiss Number Eight. An exploration of sexuality, family, and faith, Kiss Number Eight is a coming-of-age tale filled with humor and hope." [First Second Books]
White Houses
Amy Bloom - 2018
Having grown up worse than poor in South Dakota and reinvented herself as the most prominent woman reporter in America, "Hick," as she's known to her friends and admirers, is not quite instantly charmed by the idealistic, patrician Eleanor. But then, as her connection with the future first lady deepens into intimacy, what begins as a powerful passion matures into a lasting love, and a life that Hick never expected to have.She moves into the White House, where her status as "first friend" is an open secret, as are FDR's own lovers. After she takes a job in the Roosevelt administration, promoting and protecting both Roosevelts, she comes to know Franklin not only as a great president but as a complicated rival and an irresistible friend, capable of changing lives even after his death. Through it all, even as Hick's bond with Eleanor is tested by forces both extraordinary and common, and as she grows as a woman and a writer, she never loses sight of the love of her life.From Washington, D.C. to Hyde Park, from a little white house on Long Island to an apartment on Manhattan's Washington Square, Amy Bloom's new novel moves elegantly through fascinating places and times, written in compelling prose and with emotional depth, wit, and acuity.
Hurricane Child
Kacen Callender - 2018
She's hated and bullied by everyone in her small school on St. Thomas of the US Virgin Islands, a spirit only she can see won't stop following her, and -- worst of all -- Caroline's mother left home one day and never came back.But when a new student named Kalinda arrives, Caroline's luck begins to turn around. Kalinda, a solemn girl from Barbados with a special smile for everyone, becomes Caroline's first and only friend -- and the person for whom Caroline has begun to develop a crush.Now, Caroline must find the strength to confront her feelings for Kalinda, brave the spirit stalking her through the islands, and face the reason her mother abandoned her. Together, Caroline and Kalinda must set out in a hurricane to find Caroline's missing mother -- before Caroline loses her forever.
Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across
Mary Lambert - 2018
In verse that deals with sexual assault, mental illness, and body acceptance, Ms. Lambert's Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across emerges as an important new voice in poetry, providing strength and resilience even in the darkest of times.
Under the Magnolias
T.I. Lowe - 2021
When a few random acts of kindness help to ease the Fosters' hardships, Austin finds herself relying upon some of Magnolia's most colorful citizens for friendship and more. But it's next to impossible to hide the truth about the goings-on at Nolia Farms, and Austin's desperate attempts to save face all but break her.Just when it seems she might have something more waiting for her--with the son of a wealthy local family who she's crushed on for years--her father makes a choice that will crack wide-open the family's secrets and lead to a public reckoning. There are consequences for loving a boy like Vance Cumberland, but there is also freedom in the truth.T. I. Lowe's gritty yet tender and uplifting tale reminds us that a great story can break your heart . . . then heal it in the best possible way.
Moonstone
Jaime Clevenger - 2016
With a successful career in San Francisco and plenty of opportunity for casual relationships, the last thing Joy wants is to return to the small town she’d planned her whole life to escape. But family obligations pull her back home and it isn’t long before Joy runs into someone she’s always dreamed of seeing again—the first girl she ever imagined kissing. Kelsey West.Olympic dreams are a thing of the past for Kelsey. Now an out of work swim coach recovering from a bad relationship, she’s back home only long enough to get her life together. When she learns that Joy Henderson, the high school crush she never forgot, is also back in town, she can’t help but wonder if there’s a chance to rewrite the past.Time has changed their hometown. Time has changed Kelsey and Joy. But when it comes to two women who have never trusted love—has time changed them enough?
The Wayhaven Chronicles: Book Two (Wayhaven Chronicles, #2)
Mishka Jenkins - 2020
Wayhaven has returned to its peaceful routine, and you’ve returned to your less-than-thrilling job as detective. But with your new role as human liaison to The Agency—an organization that governs the supernatural—things should be far from dull.Along with the job comes Unit Bravo, the team you are learning to live with on a more permanent basis. And with one of them comes the continuation of feelings that were just beginning to be explored…But an altogether different presence is rolling into Wayhaven, cloaked in striped tents, blazing lights, and clouds of cotton candy.
Mazie
Melanie Crowder - 2021
Mazie has dreamed of being on Broadway since she could walk. Growing up in her small Nebraska town, that always seemed like an impossible dream. But when Mazie's grandmother dies and leaves her a letter and enough money for a six-week stay in New York City, Mazie jumps at the chance to follow her dream, leaving behind everything--and everyone--she's ever known. Of course, nothing can prepare Mazie for the loudness and chaos of the city. She's homesick for her family and the familiarity of her momma's cooking, and lovesick for Jesse--the boyfriend whose heart she broke when she left. But Mazie is determined to make her time in New York count. She is determined to succeed. With her money running out, and faced with too many rejections to count, Mazie finally lands a role. But there's a catch: the tour is an industrial musical designed to sell farm equipment, bringing Mazie right back to the cornbelt of her hometown she was all too eager to escape.Mazie is the story of a girl caught between two lives--and two loves--as she navigates who she is, what matters most, and the cost of following her dream.