I don't think this book is for everyone. If you want something that will mollycoddle your feelings of sadness or justify bad behaviour caused by mental illness, this isn't for you. It's self-aware, informative, heart-breaking and incredibly helpful. I am putting a list of the major trigger warnings though because this book discussed a LOT of things. Growing up the way I did, you’d think I’d be more screwed up than what I actually am. Soon as I turned sixteen, I left that bump in the road I called home and took my chances on the street. Best decision I ever made. Now, at the age of twenty six, I’m educated, employed and damn good at my job. My friends have become my family. Like me, they know what it’s like to grow up unloved. But the saying is true. The world makes way for those who know where they are going. That’s me. I know where I’m going and I’ll get there eventually. On my own terms and at my own pace. But then there’s him.” SFF In the first third of the book, I felt like I was reading a book about a woman making excuses about her self-destructive behaviors with a peppering of research thrown in; for the rest of the book, I felt like I was reading a journalist's extensive research into an important topic with some aspects of memoir added to make the story resonant and relevant. Section 3 should probably even be assigned reading from therapists, and for incoming college freshmen. It's great!

Eventually she had three children (two of them twins via IVF), but, to her surprise, this didn’t mean that she had “arrived” and would never be unhappy again. For her postnatal depression she was offered drugs or therapy, still the go-to solutions. But, she found, other things could help, too: a good diet, exercise outdoors (especially cold-water swimming), being part of a buddy system, and helping others. Below, uncover books that make you cry both tears of utter sadness as well as tears of joy, especially as our characters and protagonists grow, form friendships, and overcome hardship.

The city of Leiodare is unlike any other in the post-climate change United States. Within its boundaries, birds are outlawed and what was once a crater in Appalachia is now a tropical, glittering metropolis where Anna Armour is waiting. An artist by passion and a factory worker by trade, Anna is a woman of special gifts. She has chosen this beautiful, traumatized city to wait for the woman she’s lost, the one she believes can save her from her troubled past and uncertain future. When one night Anna creates life out of thin air and desperation, no one is prepared for what comes next . This is the story of a mentally disabled man whose experimental quest for intelligence mirrors that of Algernon, an extraordinary lab mouse. In poignant diary entries, Charlie tells how a brain operation increases his IQ and changes his life. As the experimental procedure takes effect, Charlie’s intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment seems to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance—until Algernon begins his sudden, unexpected deterioration. Will the same happen to Charlie? Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be,” Joan Didion wrote after losing the love of her life. “The people we most love do become a physical part of us,” Meghan O’Rourke observed in her magnificent memoir of loss, “ingrained in our synapses, in the pathways where memories are created.” Those wildly unexpected dimensions of grief and the synaptic traces of love are what celebrated British children’s book writer and poet Michael Rosen confronted when his eighteen-year-old son Eddie died suddenly of meningitis. Never-ending though the process of mourning may be, Rosen set out to exorcise its hardest edges and subtlest shapes five years later in Michael Rosen’s Sad Book ( public library) — an immensely moving addition to the finest children’s books about loss, illustrated by none other than the great Quentin Blake.

What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic’s wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic’s highest military circles. Born into the slums, fifteen-year-old Day is the country’s most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem. From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths—until the day June’s brother Metias is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect.A collection of the journals, fiction, and letters of the late Esther Grace Earl, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 16. Essays by family and friends will help to tell Esther’s story along with an introduction by award-winning author John Green who dedicated his #1 bestselling novel The Fault in Our Stars to her. Trish Doller is a go-to contemporary romance author for us with easy-to-digest, engaging stories along with the rescuing of animals. In a post-apocalyptic Africa, the world has changed in many ways; yet in one region genocide between tribes still bloodies the land. A woman who has survived the annihilation of her village and a terrible rape by an enemy general wanders into the desert, hoping to die. Instead, she gives birth to an angry baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand. Gripped by the certainty that her daughter is different—special—she names her Onyesonwu, which means “Who fears death?” in an ancient language.It doesn’t take long for Onye to understand that she is physically and socially marked by the circumstances of her conception. She is Ewu—a child of rape who is expected to live a life of violence, a half-breed rejected by her community. But Onye is not the average Ewu. Even as a child, she manifests the beginnings of a remarkable and unique magic. As she grows, so do her abilities, and during an inadvertent visit to the spirit realm, she learns something terrifying: someone powerful is trying to kill her.

How To be Sad is the third "brain" book I have read this year, and shares a lot topically with Ouch! - A History of Pain around some of its discoveries about our more negative mental states. It is fair to say however that unlike Ouch and the Rag And Bone Shop, How To Be Sad is, as its title suggests, somewhat of a self help book. Tied up in a minor misery memoir - Russell is clear she is not writing Angela's Ashes here but it is fair that in discussing why it is important to allow ourselves to be sad, and find ways of being sad productively, she has had her own sadness.

From the Publisher

We live in a world that is based on 'being happy', seemingly at all costs for some, and this book gives a fascinating balance to that saying we need to embrace the negative more instead of trying to shut it out and avoid it all costs! Life isn't all rainbows and unicorns, and we need to take more in our stride and deal with the differing emotions that life throws our way in a more pro-active way, instead of trying to shut out all feelings with pills and medication. As someone who ‘feels sad’ most of the time, I hoped it would both shed some light on why and perhaps also offer some ideas and approaches about how to ‘improve’ my situation and it delivers on both counts on an extraordinary level. One of the most powerful books about sisterhood, Independence is hard-hitting – and new as of 2023. You’ll feel this one long after closing its final chapters. Set in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, this is the story of one family’s struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence in the face of racism and social injustice. And it is also Cassie’s story—Cassie Logan, an independent girl who discovers over the course of an important year why having land of their own is so crucial to the Logan family, even as she learns to draw strength from her own sense of dignity and self-respect.

Hilary hates Jews. As part of a neo-Nazi gang in her town, she’s finally found a sense of belonging. But when she’s critically injured in an accident, everything changes. Somehow, in her mind, she has become Chana, a Jewish girl fighting for her own life in the ghettos and concentration camps of World War II.In 1937 Shanghai—the Paris of Asia—twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree—until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth. To repay his debts, he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from Los Angeles to find Chinese brides. As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, from the Chinese countryside to the shores of America. Rosen said that the book arose after a group of children asked him questions about his son's death and they were able to discuss it in a "matter-of-fact" way. [2] It begins with a picture of Rosen looking happy, with text explaining that he is sad and only pretending to be happy. The book frequently uses a disconnection between text and image to communicate the complex feelings of grief. [3] For more newer (2023) books that will make you cry – which actually took us by surprise – Off the Map is not-your-average fluffy romance. Ambrose Young was beautiful. The kind of beautiful that graced the covers of romance novels, and Fern Taylor would know. She’d been reading them since she was thirteen. But maybe because he was so beautiful he was never someone Fern thought she could have…until he wasn’t beautiful anymore. The story of a stranded pilot, an extraordinary little boy, and their remarkable friendship, The Little Prince has become a cherished fable for generations of readers. As enchanting as it is wise, this beloved classic captures the mysteries of the heart and opens us to the meaning of life and the magic of love.