What’s in it
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorRunning with Scissors
Augusten Burroughs · 320 pages
"Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain. Suddenly, at age twelve, Augusten Burroughs found himself living in a dilapidated Victorian in perfect squalor. The doctor's bizarre family, a few patients, and a pedophile living in the backyard
Coreyography
Corey Feldman
"A deeply personal and revealing memoir and Hollywood-survival story by The lost boys and Stand by me star"-- Lovable child star by age ten, international teen idol by fifteen, and to this day a perennial pop-culture staple, Feldman has not only spent the entirety of his life in the spotlight, he's become just as famous for his off-screen exploits as for his roles. But behind the scenes, his life
Boy Toy
Barry Lyga · 416 pages
After five years of fighting his way past flickers of memory about the teacher who molested him and the incident that brought the crime to light, eighteen-year-old Josh gets help in coping with his molestor's release from prison when he finally tells his best friends the whole truth.
The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls · 296 pages
A story about the early life of Jeannette Walls. The memoir is an exposing work about her early life and growing up on the run and often homeless. It presents a different perspective of life from all over the United States and the struggle a girl had to find normalcy as she grew into an adult.
A Piece of Cake
Cupcake Brown · 480 pages
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The heart-wrenching, uplifting tale about a woman named Cupcake “[Cupcake] Brown’s confessional . . . memoir is one you can’t easily put down. Her life is nothing short of a miracle.”—Chicago Sun-Times There are shelves of memoirs about overcoming the death of a parent, childhood abuse, rape, drug addiction, miscarriage, alcoholism, hustling, gangbanging, near-dea
A Stolen Life
Jaycee Dugard · 273 pages
In the summer of 1991 I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother who loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen. For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse. For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible
The Liars' Club
Mary Karr · 320 pages
The Texas refinery town of Leechfield, perched on the swampy rim of the Gulf, is famous for mosquitoes and the manufacture of Agent Orange - a place where the only bookstores are religious ones and the restaurants serve only fried food. A handful of the Leechfield oil workers gather regularly at the American Legion Bar to drink salted beer and spin long, improbable tales. They're the Liars' Club.
Somebody's Daughter
Ashley C. Ford · 264 pages
Stitches
David Small · 336 pages
Finalist for the 2009 National Book Award and finalist for two 2010 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards: the prize-winning children's author depicts a childhood from hell in this searing yet redemptive graphic memoir. One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched toget
A Man Named Dave
Dave Pelzer · 339 pages
From the Publisher: "All those years you tried your best to break me, and I'm still here. One day you'll see, I'm going to make something of myself." These words were Dave Pelzer's declaration of independence to his mother, and they represented the ultimate act of self-reliance. Dave's father never intervened as his mother abused him with shocking brutality. But even after he was rescued, his lif
My Story
Elizabeth Smart, Chris Stewart · 308 pages
"For the first time, ten years after her abduction from her Salt Lake City bedroom, Elizabeth Smart reveals how she survived and the secret to forging a new life in the wake of a brutal crime On June 5, 2002, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart, the daughter of a close-knit Mormon family, was taken from her home in the middle of the night by religious fanatic, Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wand
The Education of Augie Merasty: A Residential School Memoir
Joseph Auguste Merasty, David Carpenter · 120 pages
From publisher: Now a retired fisherman and trapper, Merasty was one of an estimated 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children who were taken from their families and sent to government-funded, church-run schools, where they were subjected to a policy of 'aggressive assimiliation.' As Merasty recounts, these schools did more than attempt to mold children in the ways of white society. They we
First Person Plural: My Life as a Multiple
Cameron West · 354 pages
Silent No More: Victim 1's Fight for Justice Against Jerry Sandusky
Aaron Fisher, Michael Gillum, Dawn Daniels · 221 pages
A victim of Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky's sexual abuse, Aaron Fisher first spoke up against Sandusky at age 14, weathering ostracism, harassment, fear, frustration, and guilt through the years it took to finally bring the coach to justice.
Good Morning, Monster
Catherine Gildiner · 368 pages
As seen on Good Morning America's SEPTEMBER 2020 READING LIST and FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2020!"We need to read stories about folks who have been through hell and kept going... Fascinating." —Glennon Doyle, A Favorite Book of 2020 on Good Morning America"Gildiner is nothing short of masterful—as both a therapist and writer. In these pages, she has gorgeously captured both the privilege of being given ac
Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
David Goggins · 366 pages
Damaged
Cathy Glass · 339 pages
'I'm not bad, am I, Cathy?' I held her closer to me. 'No sweet, of course you're not bad. What was happening to you was bad. It was never your fault. You mustn't think that.' Eight-year old Jodie's behavior is so challenging and disturbing that she has already been through five foster carers in four months. But it is Jodie who is the real victim. Only Cathy has th
Betrayed
Lyndsey Harris, Andrew Crofts · 320 pages
A mother. A daughter. A family torn apart. The heartbreaking true story of an unimaginable betrayal. For the first six years of her life, Sarah Harris was a normal, happy, popular little girl. But from the age of six her life was a living hell - as she became the victim of a vicious eighteen-month hate campaign. Before long she was suspended from school, alienated from her friends, completely bewi
Call Me Cockroach
Leigh Byrne · 332 pages
The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir
Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich · 344 pages
Before Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working to help defend men accused of murder, she thinks her position is clear. The child of two lawyers, she is staunchly anti-death penalty. But the moment convicted murderer Ricky Langley's face flashes on the screen as she reviews old tapes--the moment she hears him speak of his crimes--she is overcome with the
I'm Glad My Mom Died
Jennette McCurdy · 320 pages
A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life. Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a
What My Bones Know
Stephanie Foo · 352 pages
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life“Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to SomeoneONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
Jeanette Winterson · 240 pages
Memories of the author about her difficult childhood as the adopted daughter of an English mother with strong religious convictions, and her subsequent search for her biological mother.