I’m looking for character focused books about ‘complicated’ people. Would love any recommendations that explore themes of trauma, addiction, mental illness, poverty etc.
Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom- handles trauma, ptsd, addiction, sa recovery, unlearning harmful beliefs, etc and does it, in my opinion, really well
Ok-Hippo7675 on
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi – deals with trauma, identity, fractured selves and dissociative identity disorder through the lens of Nigerian/Igbo folklore. It’s a stunning book with a super complex MC. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything else quite like it.
mendizabal1 on
C. E. Morgan, The sport of kings
smokeyman992 on
Fredrik Backman is your guy, either {{Anxious People}} or {{Beartown}}
SmoothFlatworm5365 on
I liked the Deptford Trilogy. It’s incredibly character-focused, though with different characters for each book.
For mental illness, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.
WiggleeFeet on
Less Than by AD Long – trauma, addiction, mental illness and homelessness
Certain-Soup-3565 on
A little life but be sure to read the trigger warnings
Vanillacokestudio on
Cleopatra and Frankenstein if you like your characters pretentious and messy
AvocadoToastation on
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. It deals with the AIDS crisis in Chicago in the early 1980s and then the way its effects and trauma still echo for the characters in 2015. Incredible book.
iiiamash01i0 on
All by Wally Lamb:
She’s Come Undone, The Hour I First Believed, and I Know This Much is True.
10 Comments
Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom- handles trauma, ptsd, addiction, sa recovery, unlearning harmful beliefs, etc and does it, in my opinion, really well
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi – deals with trauma, identity, fractured selves and dissociative identity disorder through the lens of Nigerian/Igbo folklore. It’s a stunning book with a super complex MC. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything else quite like it.
C. E. Morgan, The sport of kings
Fredrik Backman is your guy, either {{Anxious People}} or {{Beartown}}
I liked the Deptford Trilogy. It’s incredibly character-focused, though with different characters for each book.
For mental illness, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.
Less Than by AD Long – trauma, addiction, mental illness and homelessness
A little life but be sure to read the trigger warnings
Cleopatra and Frankenstein if you like your characters pretentious and messy
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. It deals with the AIDS crisis in Chicago in the early 1980s and then the way its effects and trauma still echo for the characters in 2015. Incredible book.
All by Wally Lamb:
She’s Come Undone, The Hour I First Believed, and I Know This Much is True.