These Are the Best Books We’ve Read So Far This Year, According to the SheKnows Team

‘Grief Is for People’

Sometimes in 2019, Sloane Crosley’s apartment was broken into, causing her to lose not only some of her most valued possessions but her sense of safety and security. A month later, her closest friend, Russell, dies by suicide. The two losses become emotionally intertwined and memories blur into one another, making it hard to recover from either.

Crosley’s devastating yet often witty memoir explores friendship, possession and how we managed to hold space for the past without being held back by it.  

“This is the kind of book I wish I had years ago but I’m still so glad to be able to read it now. I had read some of Crosley’s more humorous writing — I Was Told There Would Be Cake is another must-read, in my opinion — so reading her perfectly nail heavier topics like loss and grief with some of her signature wit was unexpectedly comforting. My heart ached the whole time I was reading this and I haven’t stopped thinking about the line, ‘Time does not heal any wounds… time only pushes wounds aside’ ever since.”

— Alice Kelly, Entertainment Editor

‘True Biz’

Sara Nović’s True Biz is a tender, vibrant novel set in a school for Deaf students. The book is primarily focused on transfer student Charlie, who has never met another Deaf person before, Austin, whose world is turned upside down when his little sister is born hearing, and February, the hearing headmistress and the child of Deaf adults, who is fighting to keep her school and her marriage intact.

Their lives are forever changed when they face a series of personal and political crises. The book, which was Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick in 2022, has everything from first loves to social injustice and is eye-opening for both those immersed in Deaf culture and those who should be. 

“The phrase ‘true biz’ in American Sign Language (ASL) often translates to ‘seriously,’ and I will unabashedly take the low hanging fruit when I say that True Biz by Sara Nović is a must read — true biz. For people who are new to Deaf culture and history, it must be eye-opening, and for people immersed in Deaf culture and ASL (guilty!), it’s a representative read that was somehow comforting even when it became anything but.”

— Rebecca Rakowitz, Parenting Writer

‘Big Swiss’

Jen Beagin has readers laughing out loud in her hit, Big Swiss. Greta lives with her friend, Sabine, in a farmhouse in Hudson, New York and spends her days transcribing recordings of therapy sessions for a sex coach named Om. 

She becomes infatuated with one of Om’s new clients, a sexually stifled married woman who she calls Big Swiss. One day, she recognizes Big Swiss’ voice while out in town and strikes up a friendship with her. Though the guilt of knowing Big Swiss’ most intimate exchanges should be too much to bear, her attraction to her overrides it. 

“Ridiculously funny, surprisingly profound, and utterly weird, Big Swiss feels like an intense therapy session and a fever dream rolled into one. After finishing the book, I spent a week running around my apartment, quoting, ‘It’s gong, honey, not dong,’ to my mostly unamused roommates. I loved it and have been non-stop recommending it to anyone in search of a good laugh, a good cry, or both.”

— Amelia Kuhn, Editorial Intern

‘The Ferryman’

Justin Cronin’s The Ferryman is set in a utopia-like paradise island named Prospera where the wealthy, privileged citizens live in bliss and never die while being tended to by a servants from neighboring island, on which citizens lived in cramped conditions and are rumored to be plotting a revolt.

When the time comes, citizens of Prospera are taken to a third island, Nursery, to have their memories wiped so they can be reborn. Ferryman Proctor Bennett never questions his role in the retirement process until he gets a cryptic note that confirms what he secretly always suspected. 

“There’s just something about those books (and movies) where everything seems fine, seems perfect… except that something is very, very not. You’re haunted by questions the whole time you’re reading this — why don’t the citizens dream? What exactly happens at the Nursery? And what brought these people to Prospera in the first place? Cronin fills you in slowly as you go, deepening the mystery and sense of creeping unease with every page. I was shocked by the answers to all those questions and the ending wasn’t what I expected either. Cronin’s always been great at can’t-put-it-down thrillers set in unsettling worlds (I loved The Passage, his first trilogy), and this goosebump-inducing standalone is no different.”

— Maggie Ryan, Health Editor

‘I’ll Stop The World’

In Lauren Thoman’s I’ll Stop The World, high school student Justin Warren is stuck in a dead-end town. His life has been defined by the rippling effects of his grandparents’ mysterious death 38 years ago. In a cosmic twist of fate, Justin is thrust back to 1985 where he meets and befriends Rose Yin, a sweet but lost teen living in a different timeline than him. The duo have a week to get Justin back to his future and solve a murder that hasn’t happened yet.

“After reading a series of novels with underwhelming endings, I’ll Stop the World by Lauren Thoman finally got it right. Without giving too much away, I kept saying ‘Oh my god’ in each of the last chapters. So worth the wait!”

— Giovana Gelhoren, Entertainment Writer

‘Franny and Zooey’

J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey has been loved for generations and it is easy to see why. The book focuses on the two youngest members of the Glass family, who are frequent subject in Salinger’s writing.

In two parts, the book brilliantly captures the strains of entering early adulthood. Franny, while on spending the weekend with her boyfriend, Lane, is grappling with egotism and wondering if Lane is truly the right match for her after all. 

Zooey, a misanthropic former child prodigy, intervenes in Franny’s spiritual crisis to offer brotherly advice all while the eccentric lives of the Glass family comes into color in this novel.

“I remembered this book as difficult and inaccessible from high school— but returning to it this summer, I found it to be an exciting, fast paced story of a grieving family. The dialogue moves so quickly it almost feels like a play, and its characters, all too witty for words, slowly develop into real people as the novel unfolds to introduce the entire family. The Glass family reminds me of my own, but I suspect everybody sees themselves in this book.”

— Jack Kramer, Editorial Intern

‘To Be Loved’

In To Be Loved, Dr. Frank G. Anderson does what few therapist dare to — exposes his own trauma stemmed from child abuse he suffered at the hands of his father. Before he became a therapist himself, misguided therapy he underwent as a child forced him to become something he wasn’t and made him just mask the scars of his childhood rather than face it. 

In To Be Loved, Anderson learns his own resilience, forgiveness and tools to facing trauma that all readers can benefit from. 

“It’s a beautiful, raw memoir that my therapist actually recommended me to read. It discusses how he felt like an outsider for most of his life and how the trauma he went through affected every part of his life. It also takes readers through different parts of his life and how he constantly strived to make the ‘perfect life’ but found it so empty and changed his life to be one that’s authentically for him. It touches on forgiveness, healing, and love. I plan on getting one line tattooed on me: ‘Trauma blocks love, but love heals trauma.'”

— Delilah Gray, Trending News Editor