Books where everyone has parents

One of those ‘you don’t realise how tricky this is until you stop and think about it’ requests.

Reading is my favourite activity, always has been and I read on average about 50-60 books a year across a range of genres.

This week my mum was diagnosed with cancer. I am not coping brilliantly. While we wait for a full prognosis I was hoping to be able to escape into books for the odd hour here and there like I usually do when things get rough but looking at my TBR I realised, why is it so hard to find a book where the loss/serious illness of one or both parents isn’t a part of the story? I completely understand it as a vehicle for character development, a plot device to emotionally pack a punch etc but right now realistically I just don’t think I can face it. I get that the criteria for being the chosen one in fantasy often necessitates a tragic backstory and/or being an orphan and that a good horror can hardly get off the ground without a relative dying in order to leave you a haunted property but even romcoms are looking like dangerous territory at the moment. The majority of books by Emily Henry, Christina Lauren, Ali Hazelwood, BK Borison et al can’t seem to find two single people with four healthy parents to centre a story around…

So I’m looking for your best recommendations for books across any genre where our protagonist(s) has healthy living parents. I’m perfectly happy for those parents never to be mentioned. I’m equally happy for them to feature heavily. They don’t even have to be present, deadbeat parents are welcome. Fantasy, SciFi, romance, contemporary fiction, horror, lay it on me, I’ll read it all!

TIA xx

(Ps. I’ve already read Legends and Lattes and The Hating Game)