Hey there. I’m kind of going through a difficult phase in my life and would really love any kind of book (fiction/non-fiction are both welcome) where the main theme is about a character who never loses hope despite going through long periods of pain/struggle.
I know I could search the subreddit for this genre but I’d really just love to connect with the community 🙂
by RicketyStupidity145
4 Comments
Try A Million Tomorrows by Kris Middaugh. It’s about a terminal cancer patient and a doctor who risks everything to save her. (Non spicy romance with a dash of scifi)
Orbital by Samantha Harvey (very hopeful but there are some tense moments). A meditation on what it means to be human via 24 hours in the life/lives of astronauts on the international space station. It is beautiful.
If you want something totally calm and healing, the monk and robot series by Becky Chambers is perfect. Tea monk travels the roads, giving tea and comfort. Stumbles upon a sentient robot – a “species” that has not been seen by humans in centuries. They travel together. Robot just wants to see what people are up to. TBH all of Becky Chambers books are pretty hopeful but some do have tragedy or triggering events. Robot/monk is the exception, as it’s more a philosophical, travel (?) novel.
And for something completely random, Anne of Green Gables series. The first one skews a bit YA but the entire series is just a collection of fallible humans doing human things. Everyone has some good in them. No one is perfect. Basically great if you like to sitting back with a cup of tea to hear some town gossip, local legends and tall tales.
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
**Something in the Woods Loves You** by Jarod Anderson
**Be Water, My Friend** by Shannon Lee is about the martial arts philosophy of her father Bruce Lee, but it’s also a soothing and optimistic book about perseverance.
**Sweet Bean Paste** by Durian Sukegawa
**All Systems Red** by Martha Wells
I’ve also got a few idiosyncratic recommendations that helped me during really rough times: The Hobbit, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, This is Chance!, Honeybees and Distant Thunder, and The Forest of Wool and Steel. Not quite in line with your request, but I found them all deeply reassuring.