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Memoirs to Fall Into: Real Stories, Raw Voices (2005 – Present)
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items This is my collection of memoirs by writers who don’t just tell their stories—they reclaim them. I know what I’m talking about—I’m writing one myself. These pages cracked me open, stitched me back together, and reminded me what resilience, wit, and h...
Sections
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Her Voice, Her Terms: Memoirs by Women (2005 – Present)
Lived to Tell It: Modern Memoirs by Men (2005 – Present)
Fiction That Feels True: Novels with the Soul of Memoir
Memoirs by Black Authors You Need to Read
Rainbow Realities: Modern Queer Memoirs (2005–Now)
Her Voice, Her Terms: Memoirs by Women (2005 – Present)
These women don’t wait for permission to tell their stories—they write their way into the room. Their words are sharp, funny, tender, and unapologetically alive. Each book feels like being let in on a secret: the kind that changes how you see yoursel...
Beautifully written narrative strong female protagonist probably my favorite memoir to date.
Finding Home: From Cairo to New York: A Memoir
Incredible book about redefining yourself and family dynamics.
Dancing on Daddy's Grave: A Soul-stirring Memoir
Amazing coming of age memoir
The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls
Interesting formatted memoir with fragments of real and make believe conversations .
We Are Too Many: A Memoir by Hannah Pittard
Imperative read, delving into the coverup of an assault, let’s learn from our past mistakes.
Notes on a Silencing: A Memoir: Crawford, Lacy
About her experience with complex PTSD and complex PTSD, including how the trauma from childhood and family dynamics shaped her life, identity, and relationships. Fascinating.
What My Bones Know: Memoir of Healing
This is a memoir about a woman who grows up isolated in a strict, survivalist family in rural Idaho with no formal schooling and teaches herself enough to earn a PhD from Cambridge University.great success story!
Educated: A Memoir: Westover, Tara:
Hysterical and heartbreaking memoir about child star and the aftermath
I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
Wonderful book on memoir form, child’s perspective to adulthood.
Spilled Milk: Based on a true story: Randis, K.L
Powerful memoir about taking back your power as a woman.
Know My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller
Half mystery half memoir altogether captivating!
Raised by a Serial Killer: My Father's Truth
This follows a girl raised off the grid by free-spirited parents on Maui, navigating poverty, adventure, and neglect amid the island’s beauty. It’s a raw, resilient coming-of-age story about finding identity and belonging in a world that’s both idyll...
Freckled: Memoir of Growing up Wild in Hawaii
The memoir charts a journey from suffering and chaos into a life of purpose and growth, using practices like yoga and supportive communities as tools for rebuilding
THIRST: A Memoir: Fierer, Lisa:
Queer, Autistic narrative.. absolutely moving.
Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir by Hannah Gadsby
Traditionally cuban-columbian family Daisy the author comes out as bisexual--a coming of age family memoir.
A Cup of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir
Interest writing style and format worth reading for lyricism and style. GBLT themes but also of self worth.
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
A memoir told through nonlinear snapshots of Maggie O’Farrell’s life where true hardship shape her life. some chapters are super short and some long, fascinating style and form.
I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death
Lived to Tell It: Modern Memoirs by Men (2005 – Present)
These are the men who wrote their way through fire, loss, and reinvention. From music and friendship to survival and identity, each story hums with honesty instead of ego. You’ll find quiet reflection and raw grit in equal measure—memoirs that don’t ...
A gritty coming-of-age memoir full of intense youth, recklessness, and reflection.
Scoundrel Days: A Memoir: Frazer, Brentley - Books
Emotional and gripping journey of a young boy’s migration and self-redefinition
Solito: A Read with Jenna Pick Memoir
A gentle meditation on father-son connection, nature, and memory
The Flitting: Memoir of Fathers & Butterflies
Raban’s intimate reflection on his stroke recovery and his father–son relationship.
Father and Son: A Memoir by Jonathan Raban
Shattered captures a life rearranged by a single moment — and then rebuilt with grit, humour and fierce creative will. Kureishi doesn’t just tell us what happened: he shows us how it feels to lose control, how identity shifts when the body fails, and...
Shattered: A Memoir - Kureishi, Hanif: Books
A quiet, stunning meditation on friendship, loss, and identity. Hsu captures the ache of young adulthood and the beauty of remembering someone well. It’s emotional without being sentimental — lyrical, reflective, and deeply human
Stay True: A Memoir - Hsu, Hua: Books
A tender, shimmering celebration of male friendship and loss, this memoir reads like a late-night conversation—soft laughter, heavy grief, warm gorge of memory. Pedersen invites you into the spaces between road trips, shared cigarettes, and empty cha...
Boy Friends by Michael Pedersen
In this raw, luminous memoir, Rushdie doesn’t just recount survival—he lets you feel it. The knife’s angle, the hospital smell, the ache of a body betrayed and a voice determined to rise again. His prose is precise and velvety; the world closes in, t...
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder
A brittle guitar string snaps, the city hums, and Moore invites you into the underground pulse of New York’s no-wave scene. The pages smell of damp club stairwells and leftover pizza boxes; the words vibrate like feedback in a tiny venue. Memoir as w...
Sonic Life: A Memoir by Thurston Moore
A road trip with David Foster Wallace becomes a mirror held up to art, friendship and identity. Lipsky’s voice is that of quiet observation—air conditioning in a rented car, soda bottles rattling, conversations bleeding into the night. An intimate ru...
Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself
Fiction That Feels True: Novels with the Soul of Memoir
Some fiction just hits closer to truth. These novels blur the line between story and self, written with the raw honesty and emotional precision of memoir. They may be labeled fiction, but they pulse with lived experience—grief, identity, survival, be...
This novel reads like someone’s private diary cracked open — raw, sensual, and unflinchingly honest. Inspired by the author’s own experience with illness and loss, it traces a young woman’s journey through love, travel, and self-destruction with the ...
Life in Men: A Novel by Gina Frangello
Lyrical, intimate, and autobiographical in tone — the kind of fiction that feels like a confession whispered to someone you trust.
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel
Miranda July blurs the border between art and autobiography in this sly, sensual midlife awakening. All Fours reads like a memoir wrapped in fiction—every sentence feels overheard from her real life. It’s funny, intimate, and bodily in a way few book...
All Fours by Miranda July
Moonglow drifts through memory, war, love and loss with the cadence of a man recounting his life. Chabon uses fiction to map the terrain of truth—grandfather stories, rockets, grief, survival—so that reading it feels less like a novel and more like a...
Moonglow: A Novel by Michael Chabon
This novel merges biography, family lore, and imaginative fiction in a hybrid style. Strauss calls it “half memoir and half make-believe.
The Queen of Tuesday: A Lucille Ball Story
Voicey, character-driven, and written like a retrospective life story — part empowerment memoir, part satire in disguise.
Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel by Bonnie Garmus
Fiction written to resemble a memoir, the narrator shares the author’s name/background and the style is intentionally immediate.
Homeland Elegies: A Novel by Ayad Akhtar
Memoirs by Black Authors You Need to Read
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A lyrical, deeply rooted memoir about family, home, and the power of place. Broom chronicles life in her family’s yellow house in New Orleans East—before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina—exploring race, class, belonging, and the weight of inher...
The Yellow House: A Memoir (2019 NBA Winner)
A breathtaking memoir told through words and art, recounting Rembert’s survival of racial violence, years in prison, and his transformation into an acclaimed artist. Raw, visual, and unforgettable.
Chasing Me to My Grave: Artist's Memoir
A bold, rhythmic exploration of family, fame, and healing, blending prose and music as Asante traces the echoes of pain and love across generations.
Nephew: A Memoir in 4-Part Harmony: Asante, M.K.
Soooo fun. A sharp, hilarious, and heartfelt memoir about growing up Black and gay in a religious household, finding freedom, faith, and Beyoncé along the way.
I Can't Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race
— A reflective memoir about masculinity, identity, childhood trauma and finding connection outside of politics-first framing
Another Word for Love: A Memoir: Wallace, Carvell
Moore’s story crackles—he survived a fire once set to kill him, and from those ashes emerges a voice both raw and luminous. His past bruises blend with his present strength; reading it is like feeling the shock of heat, then the cool wash of survival
No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free
The most beautiful writing. She will make you want to research Rastafarian culture. Poetic and just breathtakingly beautiful.
How to Say Babylon: A Memoir - Safiya Sinclair
A story about being othered and finding yourself.. from a black queer perspective
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
A fierce and poetic coming-of-age memoir about growing up Black and gay in the South, navigating desire, grief, and identity with raw honesty and lyrical power.
How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir: Jones, Saeed
A haunting and beautifully written memoir honoring the lives of five young men Ward lost, including her brother, while confronting the forces of racism, poverty, and grief that shaped their Mississippi community.
Men We Reaped: A Memoir: Ward, Jesmyn
Rainbow Realities: Modern Queer Memoirs (2005–Now)
Honest, hilarious, and heartbreakingly human—these memoirs by LGBTQ+ authors explore what it means to live, love, and define yourself out loud. From quiet coming-outs to loud declarations, each story shines in its own color.
A candid, humorous look at gay partnership, family, and the meaning of marriage.
The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and Family
A graphic memoir exploring childhood, coming out, family secrets, and lesbian identity
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic: Bechdel, Alison
A thoughtful, incisive account of gender transition and the politics of identity.
Trans: A Memoir
The memoir of a public figure detailing transition, fame, and self-discovery.
The Secrets of My Life: Jenner, Caitlyn:
Probably my fav of this category …A bold, witty exploration of non-binary identity, faith, family and culture.
Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story - Tobia