10 Must-Read Books to Add to Your Reading List

I’ve been a reader for as long as I can remember. I was sick recently and I hadn’t finished a book for a week. A WEEK! I was dying! I felt completely beside myself and outside myself. No escaping my life and going into the literary world for a whole week. There’s nothing quite like it.

I could never choose a favorite book. Never ever! I have read so many amazing books that were phenomenal for so many different reasons that there is no number one.

People often ask why I stay up until four every night (or morning) reading. It’s because I need to read the same way we all need to eat. It fuels me. It gives me life. And so I wanted to introduce you to 10 must-read books.

Accidents of Marriage by Randy Susan Meyers

Randy Susan Meyers is not the typical writer in that she surprises you. She writes with such a candor that is so hard to capture. This book made me feel. It made me FEEL. I was in the dark up until the end because I just didn’t know what was going to happen. There was so much detail in this book and and appreciate it so much the accuracy surrounding what happens after the accident.

In this book you go face to face with a family in trouble. There’s an abusive husband, a wife tip-toeing, and then an accident that brings it all to a head. This book details every step back from that and everything it takes from her and everything the family goes through. You’re completely in the dark all the way until the end. You just don’t know how it’s going to end. As a woman, I just wanted to hold the wife. It was amazing.

Defending Jacob by William Landay

If I like a book by a new author, I will stalk all their other books. This was my first book by this author and I will definitely read more books by him. It was shocking until the very end (for me). I loved the fact that I couldn’t predict what was going to happen.

It centers around Andy, who is a prosecutor; he’s happily married with a young son who is charged with murder. This is a psychological thriller, but it’s so much more than that. It has a theme of family, loyalty, allegations, how the past and hidden truths always come back to bite you, and the lengths that a father goes to to defend his son. It will resonate with all parents, and anyone who loves a good thriller. It will shock you and it’ll make you wonder, what would you do? So read it! And then comment and tell me your answer!

Family Pictures by Jane Green

Secrets, lies, starting over: This book had it ALL! It centers on two families, and you would not want to be in the shoes of either one of these moms.

Imagine your foundation being ripped from under you, and everything you hold dear turning out to be false. This book gives you two seemingly beautiful, intact families … and then it completely shatters them. It’s hard to watch, but even more beautiful to see come back together. It’s a reminder that us women and moms each have a fight in us.

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Reading this was a reminder of everything about being young and having that first love. We all had one. You watch two teens — one with a good family, the other not so much — and you see them fall in love and you fall in love with them. This is a YA (young adult) book, but it resonates so much with adults too. There is are universal themes of high school, peers, first love — things we can all relate to. It takes you way back. Your first love, your first partner, and your first shot at defying the odds. They know it’ll end, but they fight for it anyway. You’ll wish for your very own Park.

Outside the Lines by Amy Hatvany

This was another first read from this author for me. It involves a daughter who is trying to find her father, who has been living on the streets most of her life. From her high hopes of saving him from himself to revelations about secrets her mother kept from her, this book will make you happy and it’ll make you sad. You’ll want so desperately to save him yourself, and her work volunteering at a shelter while trying to find her dad will warm you like a spring day. There wasn’t a dull moment in this book for me. It has a valuable lesson in it: People are who they are. You can’t save everyone.

The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes by Diane Chamberlain

This book was riveting. The body of a pregnant woman who went missing almost two decades earlier is found. When the wrong person is accused of the crime, CeeCee Wilkes must decide whether or not to come forward or let an innocent man die. This book focus on the choices we make, both good and bad; family; and the undying love a mother has for her daughters. The two biggest themes for this book, though, are secrets (BIG ones) and forgiveness. Even, maybe, the mistakes we make when we’re young and how those mistakes can still haunt us. This is definitely a must-read.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

A distinguished, well-off family and several young cousins/friends are the focus of this book. It’s about teenage love, angst, secrets, lies, and a really big accident. I would say the central theme of this book is that how when something is so traumatizing, we don’t allow ourselves to see the truth, or to remember that which we can’t handle. The book really centers around one summer with this group of four, but it flashes back and forth to previous summers.

At first this book was disappointing to me because it didn’t make enough sense. But all of a sudden something is revealed, and it’s like it slams in your face and you just get it. And it’s good.

The Opposite of Maybe by Maddie Dawson

Maddie Dawson is a new author to me, and she hit the nail on the head with this book. It was funny and it had so much heart in it.  It was yet another book that reminded me that often times things can be painfully clear (as they are in this book) from the outside, but when you’re on the inside you’re completely oblivious.

The Opposite of Maybe follows Rosie, who has been in a relationship with Jonathan for longer than most Hollywood marriages last. When things shift, Rosie ends up moving back in with her spitfire grandmother who raised her, and then realizes she’s accidentally pregnant at 44. The book follows her journey as she figures out her relationship, not just with Jonathan but with her grandmother as well, and uncovers tragic secrets surrounding things she believed about her mother. This book wasn’t too heavy or too light. It was just right.

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Steadman

What would you do if you’d had two miscarriages and one stillbirth, and then one night you find a boat, washed ashore, with a baby and a dead man? Isabel is sure that this baby is a gift from God. But her husband, Tom, a lighthouse keeper who keeps meticulous records, wants to report it. They make a choice … maybe it’s the right one or maybe it’s the wrong one. You have to decide for yourself. Life at sea has isolated them from the world. Two years later when they return to the mainland, they are reminded there are other people out there and that their choice had consequences for not just them, but others as well. This book will soon be turned into a movie by Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks productions and I can’t wait!

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

In this age where bullying is all too familiar, this book brings it all front and center. A  student arrives home from school to a package on his door step from a classmate who has recently passed away. Inside he finds cassette tapes and a letter from his classmate. She writes that there are thirteen reasons why she killed herself, and that he is one. Each cassette tape will tell him a story about what was going on in her life, and it will send him around the city to different places she had been that have to do with what he is hearing on the tapes. You’ll go inside not just his head, but also her head, and it puts you face to face with the devastating realities that bullying can have.

What books have you loved recently? Share in the comments.

Book covers from Amazon.com. Thumbnail image: henry… / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND