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How to Save a Life

Sara Zarr · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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Where We Belong

Emily Giffin · 384 pages

Her carefully constructed life thrown into turmoil by the appearance of an eighteen-year-old girl with ties to her past, New York television producer Marian Caldwell is swept up in a maelstrom of personal discovery that changes both of their perceptions about family.

Teen PregnancyAdoptionMother and DaughterCharacter-Driven
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The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

Lisa See · 371 pages

The story of a Chinese mother and her daughter, who has been adopted by an American couple, tracing the very different cultural factors that compel them to consume a rare native tea that has shaped their family's destiny for generations.

AdoptionTeen PregnancyMother and DaughterCharacter-Driven
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Regretting You

Colleen Hoover · 363 pages

Grief and MourningMother and DaughterTeen PregnancyEmotional
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Out of the Dust

Karen Hesse · 235 pages

"Dust piles up like snow across the prairie. . . ." A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo's life, scarring her inside and out. Her mother is gone. Her father can't talk about it. And the one thing that might make her feel better -- playing the piano -- is impossible with her wounded hands. To make matters worse, dust storms are devastating the family farm and all the farms nearby. Wh

Mother and DaughterDeath of a ParentGrief and MourningEmotional
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Missing Mom

Joyce Carol Oates · 464 pages

"Nikki Eaton, single, thirty-one, sexually liberated, and economically self-supporting, has never particularly thought of herself as a daughter. Yet, following the unexpected loss of her mother, she undergoes a remarkable transformation during a tumultuous year that brings stunning horror, sorrow, illumination, wisdom, and even--from an unexpected source--a nurturing love." --Dust Cover.

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMother and DaughterCharacter-Driven
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The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Ann Brashares · 310 pages

Carmen got the jeans at a thrift shop. They didn't look all that great; they were worn, dirty, and speckled with bleach. On the night before she and her friends part for the summer, Carmen decides to toss them. But Tibby says they're great. She'd love to have them. Lena and Bridget also think they're fabulous. Lena decides they should all try them on. Whoever they fit best will get them. Nobody kn

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningEmotionalCharacter-Driven
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Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Cheryl Strayed · 315 pages

A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again. At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she'd lost everything when her mother died young of cancer. Her family scattered in their grief, her marriage was soon destroyed, and slowly her life spun out of control. Four years after her mot

Grief and MourningDeath of a ParentMother and DaughterCharacter-Driven
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Looking for Jane

Heather Marshall · 400 pages

Teen PregnancyAdoptionMother and DaughterEmotional
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The Year of the Rat

Clare Furniss · 306 pages

I always thought you'd know, somehow, if something terrible was going to happen. I thought you'd sense it, like when the air goes damp and heavy before a storm and you know you'd better hide yourself away somewhere safe until it all blows over. But it turns out it's not like that at all. There's no scary music playing in the background like in films. No warning signs. Not even a lonely magpie. One

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningEmotionalCharacter-Driven
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Perfect

Natasha Friend · 232 pages

Following the death of her father, a thirteen-year-old uses bulimia as a way to avoid her mother's and ten-year-old sister's grief, as well as her own.

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMother and DaughterEmotional
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The Beginning of After

Jennifer Castle · 425 pages

In the aftermath of a car accident that killed her family, sixteen-year-old Laurel must face a new world of guilt, painful memories, and the possibility of new relationships.

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningEmotionalCharacter-Driven
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The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Kim Edwards · 408 pages

Kim Edwards's stunning family drama evokes the spirit of Sue Miller and Alice Sebold, articulating every mother's silent fear: what would happen if you lost your child and she grew up without you? In 1964, when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins, he immediately recognizes that one of them has Down Syndrome and makes a split-second decision that will haunt all their lives fo

AdoptionGrief and MourningMother and DaughterMultiple POV
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The Bad Mother's Handbook

Kate Long · 370 pages

1997: the year Blair was elected, and Diana died; and the year that changed everything for Charlotte, Karen and Nan. Charlotte is doing her 'A'-levels. And she's pregnant. Karen, her mother, is thirty-three; now she's about to be a grandmother. How chuffed is she with that? And then there is Nan, who isn't so bothered about her granddaughter's pregnancy -- she has other things on her mind. Wher

Teen PregnancyMother and DaughterAdoptionEmotional
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Someone Like You

Sarah Dessen · 288 pages

Halley has always followed in the wake of her best friend, Scarlett. But when Scarlett learns that her boyfriend has been killed in a motorcycle accident, and that she's carrying his baby, she's devastated. For the first time ever, Scarlett really needs Halley. Though their friendship may be tested by the strain, like a true friendship, it will endure.

Teen PregnancyMother and DaughterGrief and MourningYoung Adult
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Someone Else's Life

Katie Dale · 485 pages

When Rosie Kenning's mother, Trudie, dies from Huntingdon's disease, her whole world falls apart. Not only does Rosie desperately miss her mum, but now she has to face the fact that she could have inherited the fatal illness herself. Until she discovers that Trudie wasn't her biological mother at all. But as Rosie delves into her past to discover who she really is, she is faced with a heart-breaki

Death of a ParentMother and DaughterAdoptionEmotional
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As I Lay Dying

William Faulkner · 250 pages

Written in stream-of-consciousness style with multiple narrators, the story follows a journey wherein the family of a dead woman try to transport her body to her birthplace in Mississippi in accordance with her wishes. When a ford across a river is flooded they are forced to take a roundabout route and it becomes a desperate race to complete their mission before the body begins to decompose.

Death of a ParentTeen PregnancyGrief and MourningCharacter-Driven
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I Liked My Life

Abby Fabiaschi · 283 pages

"An emotional journey of love, loss, healing, and redemption. I rooted for every character." -- Lisa See, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Snow Flower and The Secret Fan. "I Liked My Life is a treasure of a novel. Warm-hearted and clever, the story will keep you reading until the final delicious revelation." -- Diane Chamberlain, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. "

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMother and DaughterEmotional
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If I Stay

Gayle Forman · 272 pages

*Just listen, Adam says with a voice that sounds like shrapnel. I open my eyes wide now. I sit up as much as I can. And I listen. Stay, he says.* Choices. Seventeen-year-old Mia is faced with some tough ones: Stay true to her first love—music—even if it means losing her boyfriend and leaving her family and friends behind? Then one February morning Mia goes for a drive with her family, an

Grief and MourningDeath of a ParentCharacter-DrivenEmotional
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Full Measures

Rebecca Yarros · 315 pages

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMother and DaughterEmotional
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The Forgotten Garden

Kate Morton · 648 pages

AdoptionMother and DaughterEmotionalMultiple POV
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Counting by 7s

Holly Goldberg Sloan · 380 pages

AdoptionGrief and MourningEmotionalCharacter-Driven
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Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, A Pregnant Teenager

Beatrice Sparks · 245 pages

When Annie discovers she's pregnant by her boyfriend, she's devastated. She has never felt so alone. With no one she can talk to, she pours her heart out to her diary, confiding her feelings of panic, self-doubt, and the desperate hope that some day she can turn her life around. She decides she wants to keep her baby and dreams of loving and caring for this little person. But after the baby is bor

Teen PregnancyAdoptionEmotionalYoung Adult
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I'll Give You the Sun

Jandy Nelson · 400 pages

A brilliant, luminous story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three y

Death of a ParentGrief and MourningMother and DaughterEmotional
🙂
AdoptionMother and DaughterTeen PregnancyCharacter-Driven
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