Books with category Emotional Rollercoaster
Displaying 15 books

Shred Sisters

2024

by Betsy Lerner

Shred Sisters is a wry and riveting debut novel about family, mental illness, and the hard-won path between two sisters.


It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight, but when her stunning confidence morphs into something erratic and unpredictable, she becomes a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Put simply, she has no brakes.


Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, dreams of winning a Nobel Prize and unlocking the mysteries of the mind. Amy believes in facts, proof, and the empirical world. Except none of that can explain what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the bipolar disorder that will shatter Amy’s carefully constructed world.


As Amy comes of age and seeks to find her place—first in academics, then New York publishing, and through a series of troubled relationships—every step brings collisions with Ollie, who slips in and out of the Shred family without warning. For all that upends and unsettles these sisters, an inextricable bond always draws them back.


Spanning two decades, Shred Sisters is an intimate and bittersweet story exploring the fierce complexities of sisterhood, mental health, loss, and love. If anything is true, it’s what Amy learns on her road to self-acceptance: No one will love you or hurt you more than a sister.

Avalanche: A Love Story

2016

by Julia Leigh

An intensely personal narrative of loss, hope, and longing for a child. In this brave and lucid account, Julia Leigh broaches a challenging life event often left undiscussed: how the struggle to have a child can take an agonizing toll.

Leigh’s experience at the vanguard of medical science is acutely rendered, both physically and emotionally, transmitting what it feels like to so desperately wish for a child while knowing that the odds are stacked against you. From the daily shots she puts herself through at home, to hopes raised and dashed, and finally to the decision to stop treatment, Avalanche bears witness to Leigh’s raw desire, suffering, strength, and, in the end, transformation—a shift to a different kind of love.

The reader looks behind the scenes of a clinic and discovers how things really work: reality is a far cry from the slick marketing of the billion-dollar infertility industry. As for so many women, Leigh’s treatment failed, but her ghost child lingers in memory.

Exotic Neurotic

Exotic Neurotic is a book of poetry which delves into a myriad of poignant themes. It navigates the complex terrain of depression, the imbalance within one's personal self, angst, frustration, youthfulness, antisocial behavior, and violence. In addition, the book explores themes of love, illness, death, human anatomy, physical deformities, elimination, birth, and abortion, making it a reflective and thought-provoking read.

Mine

2013

by Katy Evans

He's mine, and I'm his. Our love is all-consuming, powerful, imperfect, and real...

In the international bestseller REAL, the unstoppable bad boy of the Underground fighting circuit finally met his match. Hired to keep him in prime condition, Brooke Dumas unleashed a primal desire in Remington "Riptide" Tate as vital as the air he breathes... and now he can't live without her.

Brooke never imagined she would end up with the man who is every woman's dream, but not all dreams end happily ever after, and just when they need each other the most, she is torn away from his side. Now with distance and darkness between them, the only thing left is to fight for the love of the man she calls MINE.

Love & Misadventure

2013

by Lang Leav

Lang Leav is a poet and internationally exhibiting artist. Her work expresses the intricacies of love and loss. Love & Misadventure is her first poetry collection, beautifully illustrated and thoughtfully conceived, taking you on a rollercoaster ride through an ill-fated love affair - from the initial butterflies to the soaring heights - through to the devastating plunge.

Leav has an unnerving ability to see inside the hearts and minds of her readers. Her talent for translating complex emotions with astonishing simplicity has won her a cult following of devoted fans from all over the world. Forget the dainty, delicate love poems of yore; these little poems pack a mighty punch.

Reason to Breathe

2013

by Rebecca Donovan

No one tried to get involved with me, and I kept to myself. This was the place where everything was supposed to be safe and easy. How could Evan Mathews unravel my constant universe in just one day?

In the affluent town of Weslyn, Connecticut, where most people worry about what to be seen in and who to be seen with, Emma Thomas would rather not be seen at all. She’s more concerned with feigning perfection while pulling down her sleeves to conceal the bruises - not wanting anyone to know how far from perfect her life truly is. Without expecting it, she finds love. It challenges her to recognize her own worth - but at the risk of revealing the terrible secret she’s desperate to hide.

Reason to Breathe is an electrifying page turner from start to finish, a unique tale of life-changing love, unspeakable cruelty, and one girl’s fragile grasp of hope.

The Kite Runner

2013

by Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner is an unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant. Set against the backdrop of a country in turmoil, this beautifully crafted novel explores themes such as the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption.

Discover the power of fathers over sons—their love, their sacrifices, their lies—in this sweeping story of family, love, and friendship. Told against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years, The Kite Runner is a powerful novel that has become a beloved classic.

Silver Sparrow

2011

by Tayari Jones

Silver Sparrow opens with the intriguing line, “My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist.” Author Tayari Jones masterfully unveils a breathtaking story about deception, familial complicity, and the complex lives of two teenage girls caught in the middle.

Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta during the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon’s two families—the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. This relationship is destined to explode as secrets unravel.

At the heart of this novel are the two girls navigating their intertwined lives, searching for love, demanding attention, and trying to imagine themselves as women. Jones portrays their fragility and strength with raw authenticity, creating a soulful story of friendship and sisterhood that paints an unforgettable picture of the messy knots that bind families together.

Faith

2011

by Jennifer Haigh

Sheila McGann is estranged from her complicated family. But when her older brother Art, pastor of a large suburban parish, finds himself at the center of a scandal, Sheila returns to Boston, ready to fight for him. Her strict mother lives in a state of angry denial; her younger brother Mike has already convicted his brother in his heart. But most disturbing of all is Art himself, who persistently dodges Sheila's questions and refuses to defend himself.

Award-winning author Jennifer Haigh follows her critically acclaimed novels Mrs. Kimble and The Condition with a captivating, vividly rendered portrait of fraying family ties, and the trials of belief and devotion, in Faith.

Imperfect Birds

2010

by Anne Lamott

Rosie Ferguson is seventeen and ready to enjoy the summer before her senior year of high school. She's intelligent—she aced AP physics; athletic—a former state-ranked tennis doubles champion; and beautiful. She is, in short, everything her mother, Elizabeth, hoped she could be.

The family's move to Landsdale, with stepfather James in tow, hadn't been as bumpy as Elizabeth feared. But as the school year draws to a close, there are disturbing signs that the life Rosie claims to be leading is a sham, and that Elizabeth's hopes for her daughter to remain immune from the pull of the darker impulses of drugs and alcohol are dashed.

Slowly and against their will, Elizabeth and James are forced to confront the fact that Rosie has been lying to them—and that her deceptions will have profound consequences.

This is Anne Lamott's most honest and heartrending novel yet, exploring our human quest for connection and salvation as it reveals the traps that can befall all of us.

Please Look After Mom

2008

by Shin Kyung-sook

Please Look After Mom is a stunning, deeply moving story of a family's search for their missing mother - and their discovery of the desires, heartaches, and secrets they never realized she harbored within.

When sixty-nine-year-old So-nyo is separated from her husband among the crowds of the Seoul subway station, and vanishes, their children are consumed with loud recriminations, and are awash in sorrow and guilt. As they argue over the "Missing" flyers they are posting throughout the city - how large of a reward to offer, the best way to phrase the text - they realize that none of them have a recent photograph of Mom. Soon a larger question emerges: do they really know the woman they called Mom?

Told by the alternating voices of Mom's daughter, son, her husband and, in the shattering conclusion, by Mom herself, the novel pieces together, Rashomon-style, a life that appears ordinary but is anything but. This is a mystery of one mother that reveals itself to be the mystery of all our mothers: about her triumphs and disappointments and about who she is on her own terms, separate from who she is to her family. If you have ever been a daughter, a son, a husband or a mother, Please Look After Mom is a revelation - one that will bring tears to your eyes.

The Sweet Gum Tree

Sweet tea, corn bread, and soup beans—everyday fare for eight-year-old Alix French, the precocious darling of a respected southern family. But nothing was ordinary about the day she met ten-year-old Nick Anderson, a boy from the wrong side of town. Armed with only a tin of bee balm and steely determination, Alix treats the raw evidence of a recent beating that mars his back, an act that changes both of their lives forever.

Through childhood disasters and teenage woes they cling together as friendship turns to love. The future looks rosy until the fateful night when Frank Anderson, Nick's abusive father, is shot to death in his filthy trailer. Suddenly, Nick is gone—leaving Alix alone, confused and pregnant. For the next fifteen years she wrestles with the pain of Nick's abandonment, a bad marriage, her family and friends. But finally, she's starting to get her life back together. Her divorce is almost final, her business is booming, and she's content if not happy—until the day she looks up and sees Nick standing across the counter. He's back…and he's not alone.

Once again Alix is plunged into turmoil and pain as Nick tries to win her love, something she resists with all her strength. Only one thing might break the protective wall she's built around her emotions—the truth about Frank Anderson's death. But when that truth comes out and those walls crumble, neither Alix nor Nick is prepared for the emotional explosion that could destroy as well as heal.

The Mill on the Floss

2003

by George Eliot

'If life had no love in it, what else was there for Maggie?' Brought up at Dorlcote Mill, Maggie Tulliver worships her brother Tom and is desperate to win the approval of her parents, but her passionate, wayward nature and her fierce intelligence bring her into constant conflict with her family. As she reaches adulthood, the clash between their expectations and her desires is painfully played out as she finds herself torn between her relationships with three very different men: her proud and stubborn brother, a close friend who is also the son of her family's worst enemy, and a charismatic but dangerous suitor. With its poignant portrayal of sibling relationships, The Mill on the Floss is considered George Eliot's most autobiographical novel; it is also one of her most powerful and moving.

The Story of Lucy Gault

2002

by William Trevor

The Story of Lucy Gault is a brilliant, subtle, and moving story of love, guilt, and forgiveness by the highly acclaimed author William Trevor.

The Gault family leads a life of privilege in early 1920s Ireland. However, the threat of violence forces the parents of nine-year-old Lucy to decide to leave for England, her mother's home. Lucy cannot bear the thought of leaving Lahardane, their country house with its beautiful land and nearby beach, and a dog she has befriended.

On the day before they are to leave, Lucy runs away, hoping to convince her parents to stay. Instead, she sets off a series of tragic misunderstandings that affect all of Lahardane's inhabitants for the rest of their lives.

Snow Angels

1994

by Stewart O'Nan

In Stewart O'Nan's Snow Angels, Arthur Parkinson is fourteen during the dreary winter of 1974. Enduring the pain of his parents' divorce, his world is shattered when his beloved former babysitter, Annie, falls victim to a tragic series of events.

The interlinking stories of Arthur's unraveling family, and of Annie's fate, form the backdrop of this intimate tale about the price of love and belonging, told in a spare, translucent, and unexpectedly tender voice.

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