A list of books for adults about dysfunctional families and/or Thanksgiving to provide a distraction from your own this holiday.
For a printable copy of this list, click here: Dysfunctional Families/Thanksgiving
Stay with Me
Ayobami Adebayo
Yejide and Akin fell in love and married while at university. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide agreed polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage-- after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying
Read More View in CatalogMostly Dead Things
Kristen Arnett
What does it take to come back to life? For Jessa-Lynn Morton, the question is not an abstract one. In the wake of her father’s suicide, Jessa has stepped up to manage his failing taxidermy business while the rest of the Morton family crumbles. Her
Read More View in CatalogHow to Set a Fire and Why
Jesse Ball
A teenage girl. A shattering loss. An obsession with a secret arson club. This is the story of a girl who has nothing and will burn anything. Lucia’s father is dead, her mother is in a mental hospital, and she’s living in a garage-turned-bedroom
Read More View in CatalogThanksgiving Night
Richard Bausch
Will Butterfield can't believe it. His 75–year–old mother, Holly, is drunk and threatening to jump off the roof. Again. Holly and Fiona, another elderly relative, won't stop tormenting Will and his wife Elizabeth with their bizarre (tho
Read More View in CatalogFun Home
Alison Bechdel
A memoir done in the form of a graphic novel by a cult favorite comic artist offers a darkly funny family portrait that details her relationship with her father--a funeral home director, high school English teacher, and closeted homosexual.
View in CatalogThe Ghost at the Table
Suzanne Berne
Strikingly different since childhood and leading dissimilar lives now, sisters Frances and Cynthia have managed to remain "devoted"—as long as they stay on opposite coasts. When Frances arranges to host Thanksgiving at her idyllic New Eng
Read More View in CatalogMy Sister, the Serial Killer
Oyinkan Braithwaite
Korede’s sister Ayoola is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola’s third boyfriend in a row is dead, stabbed through the heart with Ayoola’s knife. Korede’s practicality is the sisters’ savi
Read More View in CatalogSmall Fry
Lisa Brennan-Jobs
Born on a farm and named in a field by her parents—artist Chrisann Brennan and Steve Jobs—Lisa Brennan-Jobs’s childhood unfolded in a rapidly changing Silicon Valley. When she was young, Lisa’s father was a mythical figure who was largely abs
Read More View in CatalogRunning with Scissors
Augusten Burroughs
Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead-ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain. Suddenly, at age twelve, Augusten Burroughs fou
Read More View in CatalogThe Wangs Vs. The World
Jade Chang
For fans of Crazy Rich Asians: Meet the Wangs, the unforgettable immigrant family whose spectacular fall from glorious riches to (still name-brand) rags brings them together in a way money never could. Charles Wang, a brash, lovable businessman who b
Read More View in CatalogThe Antiques
Kris D'Agostino
A family reunites after the death of its patriarch just as a hurricane tears through town in this “sparklingly funny novel about love, power, money, and adult siblings finding the beating heart of what matters most: one another” (People). On the
Read More View in CatalogThe Nest
Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
A warm, funny and acutely perceptive debut novel about four adult siblings and the fate of the shared inheritance that has shaped their choices and their lives. Every family has its problems. But even among the most troubled, the Plumb family stands
Read More View in CatalogThe Virgin Suicides
Jeffrey Eugenides
First published in 1993, The Virgin Suicides announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters—beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighborhood boys—commit suicide one b
Read More View in CatalogThe Noel Diary
Richard Paul Evans
Follows the experiences of a man who, in the wake of estrangements and losses, is given a chance to rewrite and rediscover his true past.
View in CatalogGoldberg Variations
Susan Isaacs
From New York Times bestselling author Susan Issacs, a “deliciously wicked” (Publishers Weekly) story of three cousins and a fortune. Imagine King Lear as a comedy… At seventy-nine, Gloria Garrison must plan for the future of Glory, Inc., the b
Read More View in CatalogThe Family Upstairs
Lisa Jewell
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone comes another page-turning look inside one family’s past as buried secrets threaten to come to light. Be careful who you let in. Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones re
Read More View in CatalogThe House We Grew Up In
Lisa Jewell
When their picture-perfect Cotswold village family life with a perpetually young father and hippy mother is shattered by a tragic Easter weekend, four siblings pursue separate adult lives before a reunion reveals astonishing truths. By the author of
Read More View in CatalogThe Liars' Club
Mary Karr
The New York Times bestselling, hilarious tale of a hardscrabble Texas childhood that Oprah.com calls the best memoir of a generation “Wickedly funny and always movingly illuminating, thanks to kick-ass storytelling and a poet’s ear.” —Oprah.
Read More View in CatalogBash Bash Revolution
Douglas Lain
Seventeen-year-old Matthew Munson is ranked thirteenth in the state in Bash Bash Revolution, an outdated Nintendo game from 2002 that, in 2016, is still getting tournament play. He’s a high school dropout who still lives at home with his mom, doing
Read More View in CatalogRandom Family
Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
This New York Times bestseller intimately depicts urban life in a gripping book that slips behind cold statistics and sensationalism to reveal the true sagas lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour. In her extraordinary bestseller, Adrian Nic
Read More View in CatalogThe Fifth Child
Doris Lessing
Doris Lessing's contemporary gothic horror story—centered on the birth of a baby who seems less than human—probes society's unwillingness to recognize its own brutality.Harriet and David Lovatt, parents of four children, have created an
Read More View in CatalogEverything I Never Told You
Celeste Ng
Lydia is the favourite child of Marilyn and James Lee; a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue - in Marilyn
Read More View in CatalogCommonwealth
Ann Patchett
The acclaimed, bestselling author—winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize—tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families’ lives. One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Be
Read More View in CatalogHeart of Palm
Laura Lee Smith
“A spirited Southern family saga” from the acclaimed author of The Ice House: “Fans of Fannie Flagg will enjoy this novel” (The Plain Dealer). Once enlivened by the trade in Palm Sunday palms and moonshine, Utina, Florida, hasn’t seen econo
Read More View in CatalogOn Beauty
Zadie Smith
Winner of the 2006 Orange Prize for fiction, another bestselling masterwork from the celebrated author of Swing Time and White Teeth "In this sharp, engaging satire, beauty's only skin-deep, but funny cuts to the bone." —Kirkus Revie
Read More View in CatalogThe Vacationers
Emma Straub
Celebrating their 35th anniversary and their daughter's high-school graduation during a two-week vacation in Mallorca, Franny and Jim Post confront old secrets, hurts and rivalries that reveal sides of themselves they would conceal. By the autho
Read More View in CatalogAll Adults Here
Emma Straub
A warm, funny, and keenly perceptive novel about the life cycle of one family--as the kids become parents, grandchildren become teenagers, and a matriarch confronts the legacy of her mistakes. From the New York Times bestselling author of Modern Love
Read More View in CatalogMy Name is Lucy Barton
Elizabeth Strout
Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her and a simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the most tender relationship of all--the one b
Read More View in CatalogThis Is Where I Leave You
Jonathan Tropper
Judd Foxman is thrown together with his dysfunctional family when his father dies, while at the same time coping with his wife's infidelity and the end of his marriage.
View in CatalogThe Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
The extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, “nothing short of spectacular” (Entertainment Weekly) memoir from one of the world’s most gifted storytellers. The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a
Read More View in CatalogEducated
Tara Westover
Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills" bag.
Read More View in CatalogSleeping Arrangements
Madeleine Wickham
Chloe needs a holiday. She's sick of making wedding dresses, her partner Philip has troubles at work, and the whole family wants a break. Her wealthy friend Gerard has offered the loan of his luxury villa in Spain--perfect. Hugh is not a happy m
Read More View in CatalogThe Family Fang
Kevin Wilson
Mr. and Mrs. Fang called it art. Their children called it mischief. Performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang dedicated themselves to making great art. But when an artist’s work lies in subverting normality, it can be difficult to raise well-adjus
Read More View in CatalogMislaid
Nell Zink
A sharply observed, mordantly funny, and startlingly original novel from an exciting, unconventional new voice—the author of the acclaimed The Wallcreeper—about the making and unmaking of the American family that lays bare all of our assumptions
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