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11 Books, 30 Days, One Reader: My April Reading Wrap-Up
76
items This month took me everywhere: into the minds of people with autism trying to navigate a world that wasn't built for them; through a pandemic where humanity unraveled in the most uncomfortably believable ways; deep into a murder mystery that had me c...
Sections
11
We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter
How to Read a Book by Monica Wood
Joe Nuthin's Guide to Life
The Death of Us
Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — 9 Stars
I love to read thrillers, and frankly, I've read enough of them to think I'm practically a detective. I'm the person who whispers, "It's the best friend," forty pages in and turns out to be right about it. It's not a gift, exactly. It's just what hap...
I love to read thrillers, and frankly, I've read enough of them to think I'm practically a detective. I'm the person who whispers, "It's the best friend," forty pages in and turns out to be right about it. It's not a gift, exactly. It's just what hap...
We Are All Guilty Here: A Novel
How to Read a Book by Monica Wood
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — 10 Stars Every once in a while, a book lands in your hands and you just know. You know it before you finish the first chapter. You know it when you catch yourself reading slower on purpose because you don't want it to end. How to Read a ...
How to Read a Book: A Novel
Similar to How to Read a Book
The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood Another tender, luminous novel from Wood, this story follows an unlikely friendship between an awkward 11-year-old boy and a 104-year-old woman. Through their connection—and the father who steps in after traged...
The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood Another tender, luminous novel from Wood, this story follows an unlikely friendship between an awkward 11-year-old boy and a 104-year-old woman. Through their connection—and the father who steps in after traged...
The One-In-A-Million Boy
Similar to How to Read a Book
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George Set on a floating book barge on the Seine, this novel centers on a “literary apothecary” who prescribes books to heal people’s emotional aches. When he finally confronts his own long-buried heartbreak, a river...
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George Set on a floating book barge on the Seine, this novel centers on a “literary apothecary” who prescribes books to heal people’s emotional aches. When he finally confronts his own long-buried heartbreak, a river...
The Little Paris Bookshop: A Novel
Similar to Howto Read a Book
The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg
This warm, witty novel follows Southern woman Sookie Poole as a long-buried family secret sends her digging into the past—and into the lives of a group of World...
The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion: A Novel
Similar to How to Read a Book
How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley
Highlighted on read-alike lists, this is a lively, witty look at later-in-life reinvention and the joy of shaking off other people’s expectations. Like Wood’s novel, it treats ol...
How to Age Disgracefully: A Novel
How to Read a Book Similar Read
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Stothard
Frederick, a socially awkward, rules-oriented man, finds his predictable existence disrupted when a bureaucratic mix-up gives him access to another man’s life—and f...
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife: A Novel
Similar to How to Read a Book
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd This beloved novel follows a girl who escapes an abusive home and finds refuge with three beekeeping sisters in 1960s South Carolina. It’s rich with themes of chosen family, forgiveness, and the way women’s co...
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd This beloved novel follows a girl who escapes an abusive home and finds refuge with three beekeeping sisters in 1960s South Carolina. It’s rich with themes of chosen family, forgiveness, and the way women’s co...
The Secret Life of Bees
Joe Nuthin's Guide to Life
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — 8 Stars
If you haven't met Joe Nuthin yet, let me introduce you—and fair warning, you're going to love him immediately. Joe is a twenty-three-year-old neurodivergent man who lives by his routines, his rules, and the wisdom-filled notebooks his mother has bee...
If you haven't met Joe Nuthin yet, let me introduce you—and fair warning, you're going to love him immediately. Joe is a twenty-three-year-old neurodivergent man who lives by his routines, his rules, and the wisdom-filled notebooks his mother has bee...
Joe Nuthin's Guide to Life
Similar to Joe Nuthin'
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
Don Tillman, a brilliant but socially awkward genetics professor, decides it’s time to find a wife and designs a detailed questionnaire to weed out “unsuitable” candidates—only to have his c...
The Rosie Project: A Novel
Similar to Joe Nuthin'
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Eleanor lives a rigid, solitary life built on habits and routines, convinced she’s perfectly content—until an awkward act of kindness pulls her into unexpected friendships a...
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine: Reese's Book Club: A Novel
Similar to Joe Nuthin'
The Framed Women of Ardemore House by Brandy Schillace
Autistic American book editor Jo inherits a crumbling English manor and finds herself tangled up in a local murder investigation, using her sharp, detail-oriented mind to u...
The Framed Women of Ardemore House
Similar to Joe Nuthin'
Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
Aza Holmes, a teen living with OCD and anxiety, gets pulled into a mystery involving a missing billionaire while wrestling with intrusive thoughts that threaten to swallow her whole. The ...
Turtles All the Way Down
Similar to Joe Nuthin'
The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson
Norman is a socially anxious twelve-year-old who dreams of becoming a stand-up comic with his best friend Jax—until Jax dies and Norman decides to honor him by entering...
The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman
Similar to Joe Nuthin'
Hope Nicely’s Lessons for Life by Caroline Day
Hope, a young woman with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, joins a writing group to work on her autobiography and, in the process, steps tentatively into new friendships, self-advo...
Hope Nicely's Lessons for Life
Similar to Joe Nuthin'
This Shining Life by Harriet Kline
When Rich, a beloved but eccentric father, dies, his neurodivergent son Ollie and the rest of the family are left to decode the strange “clues” he seemed to leave behind, turning their grief i...
This Shining Life: A Novel
Similar to Joe Nuthin'
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Stothard
Frederick, a socially awkward, rules-oriented man, finds his predictable existence disrupted when a bureaucratic mix-up gives him access to another man’s life—and family—lea...
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife: A Novel
The Death of Us
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — 8 Stars
I figured this one out earlier than Abigail Dean probably intended and still gave it eight stars. That's how excellent the writing is. The Death of Us centers on Isabel and Edward—married, in love, and thirty years old—when a man known as the South L...
I figured this one out earlier than Abigail Dean probably intended and still gave it eight stars. That's how excellent the writing is. The Death of Us centers on Isabel and Edward—married, in love, and thirty years old—when a man known as the South L...
The Death of Us: A Novel
Similar to Speed of Dark
The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum
A slow, tender YA sci-fi about a tough girl, the daughter of an astronaut, and the quiet relationship that grows between them as they listen for signals from space, this one leans hard in...
The Weight of the Stars
Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — 7 Stars
This book was a workout. A fascinating, eye-opening, occasionally overwhelming workout. Thinking in Pictures is Temple Grandin's memoir and deep dive into what it actually feels like to live inside an autistic mind. Grandin, a world-renowned animal s...
This book was a workout. A fascinating, eye-opening, occasionally overwhelming workout. Thinking in Pictures is Temple Grandin's memoir and deep dive into what it actually feels like to live inside an autistic mind. Grandin, a world-renowned animal s...
Thinking in Pictures, Expanded Edition: My Life with Autism
Similar to Thinking in Pictures
The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida
Written by a nonverbal autistic teenager using an alphabet grid, this book answers direct questions about why he does what he...
The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism
Similar to Thinking in Pictures
NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman
If Thinking in Pictures is the inside story, NeuroTribes zooms out to the wide-angle shot, tracing the history of autism diagnosis,...
Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
Similar to Thinking in Pictures
Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison
Robison’s memoir covers his childhood, social struggles, and unexpected career in the music and tech worlds, all before he was diagnosed with Asperger’s...
Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's
Similar to Thinking in Pictures
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
Not about autism, but a foundational disability memoir, Keller’s account of learning to communicate while deafblind mirrors Grandin’s emphasis on alternative ways of perceiving and...
The Story of My Life
Similar to Thinking in Pictures
Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism by Barry M. Prizant
A blend of clinical experience and storytelling, this book focuses on understanding autistic behaviors as meaningful communication instead of “sympt...
Uniquely Human: Updated and Expanded: A Different Way of Seeing Autism
Similar to Thinking in Pictures
The Autistic Brain: Helping Different Kinds of Minds Succeed by Temple Grandin and Richard Panek
Think of this as a follow-up in the same universe: Grandin revisits her earlier ideas with updated neuroscience, brain i...
The Autistic Brain: Helping Different Kinds of Minds Succeed
Similar to Thinking in Pictures
I Will Die on This Hill: Autistic Adults, Autism Parents, and the Children Who Deserve a Better World by Jules Edwards and Meghan Ashburn
Co-written by an autistic advocate and a parent, this book digs into the tension...
I Will Die on This Hill: Autistic Adults, Autism Parents, and the Children Who Deserve a Better World
Similar to Thinking in Pictures
All Cats Are on the Autism Spectrum by Kathy Hoopmann
This short, visual book uses photos of cats and simple text to illustrate common autistic traits in a warm, nonjudgmental way—great as a gentle, charming supplemen...
All Cats Are on the Autism Spectrum: An Affirming Introduction to Autism
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — 10 Stars Stop what you're doing. I mean it. Whatever is on your TBR list right now—shuffle it. Move things around. Make room. Because Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is the kind of book that doesn't just deserve to be read; it deserves to be savored. Ni...
Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close: A Novel
Similar Read
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon Told from the perspective of Christopher, a fifteen-year-old boy who sees the world through a very literal, logical lens, this novel follows his investigation into the “murder” of a nei...
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon Told from the perspective of Christopher, a fifteen-year-old boy who sees the world through a very literal, logical lens, this novel follows his investigation into the “murder” of a nei...
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Similar read
Room by Emma Donoghue Narrated by five-year-old Jack, who has spent his entire life in a single room with his mother, this story slowly reveals the horrifying reality of their situation and the staggering courage it takes to step into the wider world...
Room by Emma Donoghue Narrated by five-year-old Jack, who has spent his entire life in a single room with his mother, this story slowly reveals the horrifying reality of their situation and the staggering courage it takes to step into the wider world...
Room
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness After his mother becomes seriously ill, thirteen-year-old Conor is visited at night by a towering, ancient monster who demands the truth from him in three stories. This one mixes grief, myth, and illustration in a way ...
A Monster Calls: Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss This novel braids together the lives of an elderly man in New York and a teenage girl trying to understand her late father, all orbiting around a mysterious old book that may connect them. It’s full of melancholy,...
The History of Love
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer Foer’s debut follows a young American man (also named Jonathan Safran Foer) who travels to Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather during the Holocaust, accompanied by an eccentric transla...
Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel
Similar Read
The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst After his wife dies in a mysterious fall from a tree, a grieving husband becomes obsessed with teaching their dog to talk, convinced the animal is the only witness to what really happened. It’s strange, tender, ...
The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst After his wife dies in a mysterious fall from a tree, a grieving husband becomes obsessed with teaching their dog to talk, convinced the animal is the only witness to what really happened. It’s strange, tender, ...
The Dogs of Babel
Similar Read
Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner This novel follows two immigrant children in Brooklyn, an aspiring magician and the girl who becomes his assistant, whose lives are separated and then unexpectedly cross again as teens. It’s a story about love, memor...
Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner This novel follows two immigrant children in Brooklyn, an aspiring magician and the girl who becomes his assistant, whose lives are separated and then unexpectedly cross again as teens. It’s a story about love, memor...
Vaclav & Lena
Similar Read
Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett Told by ten-year-old Elvis, who is trying to understand her mother’s sudden death while her family spins out in grief, this novel manages to be both whimsical and gut-punchy at once. Think quirky kid narrator, morbid hum...
Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett Told by ten-year-old Elvis, who is trying to understand her mother’s sudden death while her family spins out in grief, this novel manages to be both whimsical and gut-punchy at once. Think quirky kid narrator, morbid hum...
Rabbit Cake
Speed of Dark
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — 8 Stars Full disclosure: science fiction is not really my genre. If a book description mentions spaceships, intergalactic travel, or anything involving laser weapons, I'm probably already backing slowly toward the literary fiction shelf. S...
The Speed of Dark
Similar to Speek of Dark
House Rules by Jodi Picoult A legal drama about Jacob, an autistic teen obsessed with crime scene analysis who’s accused of murder, this novel digs into family dynamics, prejudice, and how the justice system handles neurodivergent people.
House Rules by Jodi Picoult A legal drama about Jacob, an autistic teen obsessed with crime scene analysis who’s accused of murder, this novel digs into family dynamics, prejudice, and how the justice system handles neurodivergent people.
House Rules: A Novel
Similar to Speed of Dark
The Original Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig
Told from the perspective of Ginny, an autistic fourteen-year-old in foster care, this story follows her fierce, sometimes misunderstood determination to reconnect with her past and...
The Truth According to Ginny Moon
Similar to Speed of Dark
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
While not explicitly labeled as autistic, Eleanor’s rigid routines, social struggles, and internal logic mirror many neurodivergent traits, and the novel gently unpacks tr...
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine: Reese's Book Club: A Novel
Similar to Speed of Dark
All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
This literary novel centers on Sunday, an autistic single mother whose life is upended by manipulative new neighbors, exploring ableism, vulnerability, and the quiet streng...
All the Little Bird-Hearts
Similar to Speed of Dark
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
A luminous blend of sci-fi and fantasy, this book follows a cursed violin teacher, a runaway trans girl, and a starship captain running a donut shop, offering found family, compassion, ...
Light From Uncommon Stars
Similar to Speed of Dark
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
If you want something more traditionally “sci-fi” but still introspective, this novel follows an ambassador in a vast interstellar empire, blending political intrigue with thoughtful ...
A Memory Called Empire
Silmiar to Speed of Dark
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
Cozy, character-first space opera where a mismatched ship’s crew navigates the galaxy and each other, this story is all about empathy, culture, neurodiversity, and foun...
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet a book by Becky Chambers
Turtles All the Way Down
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — 9 Stars John Green has never once let me down, and Turtles All the Way Down is exactly the kind of book that reminds me why I keep coming back to him. The man understands the interior life of a teenager in a way that feels almost unfair—l...
Turtles All the Way Down
Similar book
A gifted teen checks himself into a psychiatric ward after spiraling into depression, and the story follows his darkly funny, painfully honest journey toward stability and self-acceptance
It's Kind of a Funny Story
Similar read
Told in fragmented, surreal scenes that mirror the protagonist’s mind, this novel tracks a boy’s experience with severe mental illness, blending a sea voyage metaphor with his real-life stay in a psychiatric facility.
Challenger Deep
Similar read
Two teens—one living with bipolar disorder, the other grieving her sister—form an intense bond while exploring hidden landmarks in Indiana, even as their internal battles push them toward very different futures.
All the Bright Places
Similar read
Through a series of letters, introverted Charlie chronicles his first year of high school, slowly revealing trauma, depression, and the complicated beauty of friendship, first love, and found family.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower: 20th Anniversary Edition with a New Letter from Charlie
An anxious, introverted teen secretly runs a wildly popular webcomic, but when her online and offline worlds collide, she’s forced to confront her mental health and what it means to be known for who she really is.
Eliza and Her Monsters
similar read
An agoraphobic teen who hasn’t left his house in years becomes the subject of a well-meaning classmate’s “project,” leading to an unexpected friendship that challenges both of their assumptions about mental illness and recovery.
Every Last Word
similar read
Two teens meet in group therapy for OCD and begin a romance that’s equal parts messy and moving, as each confronts how their compulsions impact boundaries, trust, and what healthy love can look like.
OCD Love Story
The Feather Wars
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — 9 Stars I'm going to say something I never expected to say: I read a book about birds this month, and it might be one of the most gripping, infuriating, and ultimately triumphant reads of my entire April. Come with me on this. The Feather...
The Feather Wars: And the Great Crusade to Save America's Birds
Silmilar to Feather Wars
A global, story-driven look at bird migration that blends cutting-edge science with on-the-ground reporting, much like The Feather Wars’ sweeping historical canvas. It highlights the pressures modern birds face and the peopl...
A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds
Similar to Feather Wars
Explores bird intelligence through vivid anecdotes and field research, giving individual species the kind of narrative presence McCommons gives to early conservationists. It’s science-forward but highly readable and deeply en...
The Genius of Birds
Silmilar to Feather Wars
Reconstructs the bizarre true story of a young man who stole rare bird skins from a British museum, then uses it to probe the legacy of Victorian feather lust and specimen collecting. It reads like a true-crime thriller whil...
The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century
Similar to Feather Wars
Part travelogue, part birding memoir, this book follows Dunne across North America in search of iconic bird encounters. It captures the passion of bird lovers and the landscapes they move through, echoing the human-and-bird f...
The Feather Quest: A North American Birder's Year
Similar to Feather Wars
Recreates vanished ecosystems across deep time, including many bird-rich environments, to show how extinction reshapes life. While broader than avian history, it shares The Feather Wars’ concern with what is lost when species...
Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds
Similar to Feather Wars
The classic that exposed how pesticides were devastating bird populations and catalyzed modern environmentalism. It can feel like a later, scientific coda to the political and cultural battles McCommons chronicles around hunt...
Silent Spring
Similar to Feather Wars
A companion in spirit to The Genius of Birds, this book focuses on surprising behaviors—communication, parenting, and play—that show how adaptable and vulnerable birds are. It offers a contemporary behavioral counterpoint to ...
The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think
Slimilar to Feather Wars
A photo-rich, narrative account of wildlife decline in East Africa that mixes art, history, and conservation politics. Though centered on mammals, it shares the elegiac, documentary tone of tracing how fashion, hunting, and ...
Peter Beard. the End of the Game
Similar to Feather Wars
The book recounts the tale of the 1910 wildfire that significantly shaped U.S. conservation policy during Roosevelt's administration. Many of the same Progressive Era political and institutional forces that appear in The Feat...
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America
Similar to Feather Wars
This book provides a historical survey of Americans' understanding and responses to extinction since the early republic. It dovetails neatly with McCommons’ period and themes, broadening the lens from birds to the larger cult...
Nature's Ghosts: Confronting Extinction from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology
Similar to Feather Wars
A blend of natural history, myth, and conservation writing centered on the Klamath Mountains’ ecosystems. Like The Feather Wars, it threads biography, ecology, and politics into a narrative about how people come to value (or...
The Klamath Knot: Explorations of Myth and Evolution
Similar to Feather Wars
Follows three obsessive birders competing to spot the most species in North America in a single year. It’s lighter in tone than McCommons but reveals how the passion that once fueled collecting and killing has evolved into no...
The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession
Nash Falls
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — 9 Stars And we close out April with a bang. A very David Baldacci kind of bang. Nash Falls introduces us to Walter Nash—a polished, successful corporate executive at Sybaritic Investments who has the kind of comfortable, well-ordered life...
Nash Falls
Blindness
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — 9 Stars I mentioned earlier in this post that one of my April reads might require a therapist. This is that book. You've been warned. José Saramago's Blindness begins with a single man going blind in his car at a traffic light—not in dark...
Blindness
Similar to Blindness
The Plague by Albert Camus
A devastating epidemic overtakes a quarantined Algerian city, forcing its residents to confront mortality, meaning, and moral responsibility. If Blindness felt like a gut punch, The Plague is its exist...
The Plague
Similar to Blindness
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
A father and son navigate a destroyed, ash-covered America with nothing but each other and a desperate will to survive. Like Blindness, it strips civilization down to its bones and asks what's left of...
The Road: Pulitzer Prize Winner
Similar to Blindness
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
In a chilling near-future theocracy, women are reduced to their biological utility while the rest of the world looks away. It shares Blindness's unflinching examination of power, compliance...
The Handmaid's Tale: A Novel
Similar to Blindness
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
A flu pandemic collapses civilization overnight, and the story weaves together survivors across time, exploring what art, memory, and human connection mean when the world as we know it end...
Station Eleven: A Novel (National Book Award Finalist)
Similar to Blindness
The Power by Naomi Alderman
Women suddenly develop the physical power to electrocute people, and the global balance of power shifts overnight—with terrifying results. It mirrors Blindness in its sharp, unsettling look at how qui...
The Power
Similar to Blindness
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
On a mysterious island, objects begin to disappear—roses, birds, photographs—and the people forget they ever existed. It's quiet, eerie, and deeply unsettling in the same way Blindness is: a slow ...
The Memory Police: A Novel
Similar to Blindness
The Children of Men by P.D. James
Set in a world where humanity has become infertile and extinction looms, one man is pulled reluctantly into a desperate fight for the future. Like Blindness, it uses an impossible premise to exp...
The Children of Men
Similar to Blindness
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
A bioengineered plague has wiped out nearly all of humanity, and the sole apparent survivor pieces together how the world ended. Atwood's darkly brilliant storytelling will feel immediately fami...
Oryx and Crake