Fifteen Brilliant Family Dramas | Reading Recommendations
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.ค. 2024
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Love that you featured Katherena Vermette she is one of my favourite writers.
You’re the first person I’ve seen speak about The Arsonists’ City. I was also so surprised with how much I love that book. This video has added to my library hold list! Thanks!
I honestly took screen shots of 10 of these recommendations. They sound amazing and I can’t wait to try them. Excellent video. Thank you so much.
Poisonwood Bible. Purchased Sleepwalker's Guide on your recommendation. Thanks.
Love the sound of The Arsonist’s City. Will be looking out for it ❤
Great list. I have a few already on my TBR and some I have not heard of. Thank you. I have read all of Lily King. Keep going. She is wonderful. I'd recommend Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler.
Love Marriage was so good, I agree with everything you've said about it. A family drama I absolutely loved was Pachinko.
The relationship in Father of the Rain sounds a lot like the mother-son relationship in Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, which I loved. Added several of these to my TBR! Thank you!
So many amazing recommendations!! I recently read Crow Lake and adored it. Had a couple of these on my list already but also will be adding a few more!
My favorite family drama I’ve read this year is The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. It’s told from the perspectives of 4 different family members-mom, dad, teenaged daughter about to leave for university, and 12yo son.
Great that you enjoyed Crow Lake…I love Mary Lawson’s writing and have read most of her books. Recently I read The Frozen River and found there is a reason for the hype around it. Loved it!
So many new recs 😄I've read (and loved) All the Little Bird Hearts - powerful, quietly but cleverly done - and Love Marriage (which might need a re-read, but I remember enjoying it at the time, especially the complicated relationships and characters).
A Place for Us is probably my favorite multi-POV book. Loved the change of perspective on the story.
I haven't read most of these but very excited to read them! Family dramas immediately reminds of We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates. I dont know if you've read that one but it's brilliant! The Accidental by Ali Smith is another very interesting family drama in which you gain different insights depending on which character's POV you're following.
What an incredible list! A Place For Us is an all time favourite of mine. I’d recommend The Most Fun We Ever Had and The Last Romantics 😊
I would recommend’The Glass Castle’ by Jeanette Walls, a real family ‘drama’ set in America and also Four Winds by Kristin Hannah about the American Dustbowl
I’ve read All the little Bird Hearts & loved it.
Looking forward to reading some you mentioned
A Sleepwalkers Guide to the Universe
A Place For Us
The Arsonists City
All read and loved because of your excellent recommendations
Some recent books with similar themes that I loved
How To Build A Boat by Elaine Feeney
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
Greta & Valdin
The Road to Dalton by Shannon Bowing
Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur
All That’s Left Insaid by Tracey Chein
Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark
☘️👋🍀🤗📕📖📚☕️
I was going to say Hello Beautiful as well
Excellent recommendations! Thank you😊
If i could recommend a book to you along these lines...its called Miss Jane by Brad Watson. The author only wrote four books before his untimely death and all four were longlisted for prestigous awards including this one. Its about a family in the early 1900s in Mississippi who have a daughter with a birth defect that can be surgically cured if she was born yoday. The book focuses on her and how the family navigates her life and her beautiful relationship with her doctor. If you dont love it...ill nuy you a book!!
Based on your list I think Collected Works by Lydia Sandgren might be a great fit for you! And bonus that it’s translated since I know you’re trying to read more of those.
Thank you for the recommendation :)
I just finished both books in Jennifer Lynn Barnes's Debutant duology. Major family drama to the max!
This is one of my favourite kinds of video, with older books and a theme of recommendations.
So many of the things you said you love in books are things I love too.
I need to go back and add many to my wishlist!!
I love Lily King. I just bought a copy of father of the rain. I also have silver sparrow and bodies of light on my shelves unread.
From other countries with different perspectives/family life I'd say A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Housseini (one of my all time faves), Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (can't remember if dual perspective), nervous conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga, the poisonwood bible by Barbara Kingsolver xx
Thanks for the recs. I haven't read Nervous Conditions or Cutting For Stone so I'll have to give them a go :)
Love your book reading style. 💕
No one does a book synopsis better than you! Have added the majority of these to my tbr! Loved this.
Really enjoyed this video! I've already read (and loved!) many, but I put Father of the rain on my tbr.
I have just subscribed to your chanel. Such an eloquent, clear and very informative book genre review. It's so refreshing to firstly have a book chanel without the person waving a book around while you are trying to look at it. Someone who speaks clearly and I can understand. I'm British and so are you so that's helpful 😅. I've grown tired of many of the book chanel on TH-cam, yours is so good, thank you. I'm 73 and an avid reader since the age of 5. But I just feel I need good quality suggestions , which you provide. Well done. Julie x
Thank you so much for such a kind comment :) I'm glad you got some recommendations from the video!
Oh my goodness thank you for mentioning The Strangers was part of a loose trilogy. I adore The Break and The Strangers, I live in Winnipeg so I have no idea how I completely missed the release of the third one.
Thanks for all the recommendations, I really enjoyed All among the Barley by Mellisa Harrison. Set in rural East Anglia after the war mostly on a small farm.
💕😀xx Thanks Mercedes, an EXCELLENT list. I’ve been able to reserve many of the choices from my library. 📚🥰
Thank you enjoyed listened to your choice of books
Love the sound of all of those - I've read Silver Sparrow, The Strangers, Crow Lake, Tidal Zone, Love Marriage and All the Little Bird Hearts and really enjoyed all of them. I look forward to getting to the rest. Thanks!
I read The House of Broken Bricks after hearing you talk about it in another video and really liked it! I second the recommendation
I'm so glad to hear that you enjoyed it :)
I strongly agree with the pick of Dolver Spartows on audio....told so well abd a great, not so rare story.
You're still one of the very best book tubers out there! Love hearing your thoughts. The two I've read - both of which I adored were Crow Lake and A Place for Us. Excellent! Mary Lawson also wrote another I loved called A Town Called Solace. I recently finished Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, which was really good fam drama with multiple POVs; you'd probably like it too.
Awww, thank you so much! I really need to read The Bee Sting asap
Great video. The only one I’ve read is High House. I already have a couple of others on my TBR list, and will now add a few more based on your recommendations. I think you should consider Beneficence by Meredith Hall. It’s a multi perspective family drama set in rural Maine, 1940-1960 time period. Another family drama that I recommend is The Queen of Dirt Island by Donal Ryan. Coming of age amongst 4 generations of gritty, devoted women in rural Ireland. Oh, and Fight Night by Miriam Toews, also a good one. ~Darlene
Thanks for the recommendations. They sound great :)
Really great recommendations, thank you! I have not read any of those and have added quite a few to my TBR. Some of my favourite family dramas: Vigdis Hjorth "Is Mother Dead", Karl Ove Knausgard "A Death in the Family" (Scandinavian family dramas are great and they write a lot of those), Penelope Mortimer "The Pumpkin Eater" (not sure is can be classed as a family drama, but it is - it is just a book as no other), Paul Murray "The Bee Sting"
Thanks for the recs! They all sound great :)
My favourite genre! Loved this video, so many great recommendations and a few new ones to my tbr. Also enjoying the comments section for other recommendations! I feel that my suggestions you’ll have read as they've been pretty popular but mine are:
This must be the place by Maggie O'Farrell,
The most fun we've ever had by Claire Lombardo,
America is not the heart by Elaine Castillo,
The Dutch house by Ann Patchett and
Memphis by Tara Stringfellow.
I also just finished Goodbye vitamin which is a short, heartbreaking but funny look at alzheimers ❤
Also really high on my tbr list that fits into this selection is When we were sisters by Fatimah Asghar
Thanks for the recommendations :)
Family dramas are my favourite genre so this was heaven! So many of my favourites on this list :)
I either own, or have read, most of these books because of your recommendations. I loved The Paper Palace, Hello Beautiful and The House of Spirits by Isabelle Allende.
i’m in the middle of (and adoring!) The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes, which is about four orphaned Irish sisters. like a few of the novels you mentioned climate change is a big theme. and there's a sheep on the cover. what's not to like! lol
I was waiting for my copy from the library and it just came in :) I love the cover!
Thanks for the family drama recommendations. You’ve highlighted them so brilliantly that I have several on hold at my library. The quintessential portrait of a dysfunctional family in novel form would be East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Other novels dealing with family dynamics that you might enjoy are: The Dinner by Herman Koch, Maame by Jessica George, Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Cespedes, Cloudstreet by Tim Winton, A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith and Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger. Since you’re such a prolific reader, I’d be interested to learn if any of these titles are new to you.
Thanks for the recommendations :) I've read and loved East of Eden and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I've also read Cloudstreet but wasn't a big fan. I've heard of all bar Ordinary Grace so I'll have to look into that one!
Thanks Mercedes! Ive added a good handful to my tbr.
My recommendations for family drama books are:
Maggie O Farrell s Instructions for a Heatwave ( you have probably already read it though)
Anne Tyler s A Spool of Blue Thread
and two books that I read a long time ago and loved, so I dont know if I would rate them so highly now....but I imagine I would:
Isabel Allende s House of the Spirits ( this is set in Chile)
Rani Manicka s The Rice Mother ( this, if i remember rightly, is set in Indonesia)
Happy summer reading!!
Thanks for the recommendations :) I've read the Maggie O'Farrell and Anne Tyler but not the other two so I'll add them to the tbr!
Thank you for that marvellous stroll through some of my favourite books. Like you I can’t get The High House out of my head. Being Irish our family novels are rather shot through with trauma which I feel overblown at the expense of happier stories. I recommend This is Happiness by Niall Williams which stands alone as a very enjoyable and unusual family story. The best family novel I know is Commonwealth by Ann Patchett who’s a thorough affectionate and funny novel about the blended and extended family. Anything by the marvellous Sue gee but especially Earth and Heaven which has all of you rustic English family life elements. I loved Wolf Border by Sarah Hall . The early Margaret Drabble was brilliant on sisters especially Jerusalem the Golden and A Summer Bird Cage. Anne Tyler is brilliant on family too but is an acquired taste. If you go back further to the English writer Elizabeth Taylor you have about a dozen wonderful books mostly about Family in rural England .A Summer Season is marvellous and Palladian. Keep your recommendations coming please. We have similar taste.
Thanks so much for all the recommendations! I love Wolf Border too! I've only read one Anne Tyler book so I definitely need to try some more.
I've read a few of these based on your recommendations from previous videos and given them 4+ stars (The High House, A Place For Us, The Arsonists' City, Crow Lake). I've also read and loved Lily King's Euphoria and Writers & Lovers so I definitely need to get to the one you mentioned here along with most of the other novels you talked about :) If you haven't read Road Ends by Mary Lawson, please consider bumping it up your TBR- I loved it even more than Crow Lake. Might I also recommend Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane, Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson, and Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane.
I haven't read Road Ends yet so I'll make sure that's the next Mary Lawson book I pick up. I keep meaning to read a Mary Beth Keane book as they all sound intriguing. Thanks for the recommendations :)
I loved The High House and When the Lights Go Out. I think I read them because of one of your videos.
The father in When the Light Go Out made me so angry. I still think about the rabbit scenes.
Have you read Brick Lane by Monica Ali? I read it many years ago but it was excellent.
I haven't but I really need to!
I love family dramas as well!
I guess many with a difficult family situation growing up are looking for answers in books, at least I am...
From the african continent I enjoyed "The Wanderers " by Mputhumi Ntabeni about a daughter in search for her father and the reason for leaving her, "Nervous Conditions " by Tsitsi Dangarembga, a coming of age story, "The secret lives of Baba Segi's wifes" by Lola Shoneyin about a polygamous household is written with humour.
Thanks for the recommendations. They sound great :)