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If your fondest holiday memories also involve hiding in the bathroom (or closet, or floorboard, or passenger seat of your cool older cousin’s car) to get a moment’s peace from your [insert adjective] family, you’re probably already sold on a distraction. Books can’t yell at you! Or guilt you! Or punish you! Unless they dig into your deepest emotions, reveal truths you’ve never wanted to face, and make you rethink your entire purpose both within your family of origin and the world at large.
Here are ten books likely to distract you from your hyper-specific family dramas and/or destroy you and your sense of self completely.
Happy holidays!
Forget I Told You This
Hilary Zaid
University of Nebraska Press
Hilary Zaid’s second novel is about a queer single mom who wants access to a secretive and exclusive artist residency, only to realize her imagined mecca is hardly what it seems. It’s speculative! It’s Californian! It’s techy! There’s enough going on plot- and suspense-wise to keep you engaged even if you really don’t want to think about your present (or past, or future) family at all. Because what’s worse than overbearing parents? The all-knowing surveillance state! For fans of Her and San Junipero.
Deliver Me
Elle Nash
Unnamed Press
Unlikeable, unsettling characters dominate Nash’s body horror narrative of motherhood and desire in the Missouri Ozarks. Deliver Me doesn’t dance around the grotesque, especially when it comes to food and bugs and sex. This book can be difficult to read, but that’s the point—maybe your family isn’t so bad, after all? (Sorry, they probably are.) If you want a nihilistic read that asks how far you’re willing to go to understand art (and other people), Nash’s slim narrative couldn’t be a better fit. Perfect for fans of Lisa Taddeo’s Animal and Bestiary by K-Ming Chang.
Poor Deer
(out January 2024, available for preorder)
Claire Oshetsky
Harper Collins
Poor Deer is an adult literary novel for weirdos. When is a childhood tragedy just a tragedy? When does it become someone’s fault, especially if the someone is a child? This book doesn’t ask if children are capable of harm; Oshetsky knows they are, rather if adults can love children who might just be monsters. Or—to the mothers in the narrative, just as possible—the child might be entirely innocent. The brunt of all this anguish might be a sort of victim, too. Or they’re entirely to blame. Oshetsky’s world is smart, thoughtful, sharp, and altogether disturbing—can you love a child you might just be afraid of? And can children love adults who insist on innocence in spite of reality? If you found the horror/family movies Mother! or Hereditary meaningful, you’ll love this one.
Broughtupsy
(out January 2024, available for preorder)
Christina Cooke
Catapult
Do you want a lush, rich, beautifully written story about immigration and family and loss that will destroy you? Do you want to read the kind of book where the descriptions slow you down, when the writing insists that you stay in the moment—whether it’s excitement, pain, or pleasure—and that is so lovely, it almost guilts you for putting it down? This debut novel delivers an atmospheric story about sisters grieving a brother, but it’s also about the protagonist returning to the different homes of her life (Canada, Jamaica, Texas) and experiencing both harm and healing as a lesbian. If your favorite movie is Moonlight and/or you’re a Justin Torres stan, Broughtupsy will wound and delight.
The Waves Take You Home
(out March 2024, available for preorder)
María Alejandra Barrios Vélez
Lake Union Publishing
This debut novel is immersive, deeply descriptive, and entirely transportive. This is the most tender, touching book on the list—if you want hope and self-empowerment in the face of familial pressure to revive a crumbling family restaurant (including from the ghost of your late grandmother), this one will feel like a gasp followed by a hug. It’s an ode to choosing yourself, honoring who came before you, and glorious, healing food. For fans of Vida and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Mother Doll
(out March 2024, available for preorder)
Katya Apekina
Abrams Books
Is your family’s pain ancestral? The dry, cynical, sometimes bitter bite of family love goes back generations and generations—you don’t even begin to know who did what or where, and the root of all this aching is a mystery to you? Add in millennial malaise in Los Angeles, a stranger who either has a psychic ability to connect to your long-dead great-grandparent or is having a psychotic break, and a pregnancy you’re ambivalent about, and you’ve got Apekina’s delightful second novel, Mother Doll. This is an intergenerational family novel that manages to be mesmerizing in every storyline. A compelling combination of Russian Doll and Search Party.
Oye
(out May 2024, available for preorder)
Melissa Mogollon
Penguin Random House
Everyone in this family is a born comedian. Everyone is the main character. We get this big cast of characters through a one-sided phone call between two sisters, giving the narrative a punchy humor. Oye takes place in South Florida and starts with concerns about a hurricane and at least one elder who refuses to heed warnings and evacuate. If that sounds chaotic, remember that’s just the opening conceit—there’s a lot more chaos, charm, and surprise in store. This one is perfect for when you need to remember people love each other and families can be good, actually. Formally inventive with an endearing youthful voice, this one is as unique and delightful as Colombian hot chocolate (yes, there’s cheese).
Perfume & Pain
(out May 2024, available for preorder)
Anna Dorn
Simon & Schuster
Astrid, the self-hating midlist writer at the heart of this smart and funny ode to lesbian pulp, would be mortified to exist within a listicle about dysfunctional families. How cringe!!!! And yet Perfume & Pain is about nothing if not (sorry!!) queer chosen family; romantic, platonic, artistic, and otherwise. For people equally intellectually engaged by Carol and the Real Housewives franchise, as well as The Girlies who want a pink book for social media.
Cinema Love
(out May 2024, available for preorder)
Jiaming Tag
Penguin Random House
Cinema Love is about a mysterious movie theater in rural China, where hooky war movies play and gay men covertly hook up in the audience. It’s also about Bao Mei, the woman who runs the box office, and the complicated path these characters take to New York, where we meet (some) of them again in old age. Cinema Love is an engrossing ode to queer family, chosen and otherwise. Perfect for fans of Brandon Taylor’s Filthy Animals and the short story “Best Friendster Date Ever” by Alexander Chee.
Trouble the Living
Francesca McDonnell Capossela
Lake Union Publishing
This dual timeline debut novel takes place in Northern Ireland at the end of the Troubles (the ‘90s) and two decades later in Southern California. Overwhelmed with guilt and anxiety about a devastating decision she can’t take back, Bríd heads to the US and becomes the cautious, overbearing mother of Bernie, her emotionally sensitive queer daughter. The strained pair end up in Northern Ireland together, and the parallel narratives meet in a really unique and compelling way. This one has the power to heal a terrible relationship with your mother, or at least warm you to the well-intentioned but traumatized relative you want to hug but are afraid to startle. Derry Girls meets Michelle Gallen.
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