Recommended Readings 2024

This year, the list is separated into fiction and non-fiction sections.

For the last 8-10 years, I have tried to read books by Women of Colour. I love fiction and non-fiction books and adore young adult books.

Whenever possible, I also consciously buy books directly from the authors or my local bookstores.

This list includes essential healing books and, of course, a few nonfiction books, especially by Asian authors.

I will update this list once a year.

Happy reading.

Non - Fiction

  • Break the Cycle: A Guide to Healing Intergenerational Trauma by  Dr. Mariel Buqué

    Break the Cycle: A Guide to Healing Intergenerational Trauma by Dr. Mariel Buqué

    From Dr. Mariel Buqué, a leading trauma psychologist, comes this groundbreaking guide to transforming intergenerational pain into intergenerational abundance. With Break the Cycle, she delivers the definitive guide to healing inherited trauma. Weaving together scientific research with practical exercises and stories from the therapy room, Dr. Buqué teaches readers how trauma is transmitted from one generation to the next and how they can break the cycle through tangible therapeutic practices, learning to pass down strength instead of pain to future generations.

    When a physical wound is left unhealed, it continues to cause pain and can infect the whole body. When emotions are left unhealed, they similarly cause harm that spreads to other parts of our lives, hurting our family, friends, community members, and others. Eventually, this hurt can injure an entire lineage, metastasizing across years and generations. This is intergenerational trauma.

  • Overcoming: A Workbook by Michelle Obama

    Overcoming: A Workbook by Michelle Obama

    Bringing former First Lady Michelle Obama’s timeless advice to readers in a fresh, interactive, and instructional new format, Overcoming: A Workbook presents creative activities, reflective writing prompts, habit tracking tools, and more to provide the ultimate guide to unlocking your small power, sharing your whole self, showing up in relationships, and of course, “going high.” With her signature candor and warmth, Obama draws on her experiences to offer readers the tools and principles she has leaned on to overcome difficulties in all areas of life.

    This beautiful and interactive workbook is Obama’s call to pay attention to how you’re feeling, notice what’s being signaled by both your body and your mind, as well as her reminder to us all that it’s okay to pace yourself, get a little rest, and speak of your struggles out loud. It’s okay to prioritize your wellness, to make a habit of rest and repair.

  • On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good by Elise Loehnen

    On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good by Elise Loehnen

    Why do women equate self-denial with being good?

    In On Our Best Behavior, Loehnen reveals how we’ve been programmed to obey the rules represented by these sins and how doing so qualifies us as “good.” This probing analysis of contemporary culture and thoroughly researched history explains how women have internalized the patriarchy, and how they unwittingly reinforce it. By sharing her own story and the spiritual wisdom of other traditions, Loehnen shows how we can break free and discover the integrity and wholeness we seek.

  • Wise Women: Myths and Stories for Midlife and Beyond by Sharon Blackie

    Wise Women: Myths and Stories for Midlife and Beyond by Sharon Blackie

    Unparalleled inspiration from fierce grandmothers, misunderstood witches, glamorous fairy godmothers, and hairy-chinned hags

    From early childhood, we learn about the world and its possibilities through myths and fairy tales. The heroines, though, tend to be young princesses or fair maidens, and the evildoers older women: wicked witches or unforgiving matriarchs. Yet a wealth of lesser-known European stories feature mature wise women with personality and power. Compiling many years of research, Sharon Blackie has reclaimed these tales, presenting them in evocative prose that will resonate with women of all ages.

  • Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict by Tsultrim Allione

    Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict by Tsultrim Allione

    Tsultrim Allione brings an eleventh-century Tibetan woman's practice to the West for the first time with FEEDING YOUR DEMONS, an accessible and effective approach for dealing with negative emotions, fears, illness, and self-defeating patterns.

    Allione-one of only a few female Buddhist leaders in this country and comparable in American religious life to Pema Chodron-bridges this ancient Eastern practice with today's Western psyche. She explains that if we fight our demons, they only grow stronger. But if we feed them, nurture them, we can free ourselves from the battle. Through the clearly articulated practice outlined in FEEDING YOUR DEMONS, we can learn to overcome any obstacle and achieve freedom and inner peace.

Fiction

  • The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by Victoria E. Schwab

    The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by Victoria E. Schwab

    France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

    Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

    But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

  • The Last Dragon of the East by Katrina Kwan

    The Last Dragon of the East by Katrina Kwan

    Inspired by Chinese myths of ancient dragon gods and threads of fate, Katrina Kwan’s dazzling fantasy debut is a propulsive adventure perfect for fans of Sue Lynn Tan and Hannah Whitten.

    At the spry young age of twenty-five, Sai has led a quiet life, keeping the family teahouse up and running—even if that means ignoring the past-due notices—and taking care of his ailing mother. But he has a not-so-secret gift that he’s parlayed into a side career: he was born with the ability to see the red threads of fate between soulmates, which lends itself nicely to matchmaking. Sai has thus far been content not to follow his own thread, the only one he’s ever seen that’s gray and fraying.

  • Home in a Lunchbox by Cherry Mo

    Home in a Lunchbox by Cherry Mo

    Cherry Mo's stunning debut is about a young girl who immigrates to America and finds home in an unexpected place.

    When Jun moves from Hong Kong to America, the only words she knows are hello, thank you, I don’t know, and toilet. Her new school feels foreign and terrifying.

    But when she opens her lunchbox to find her favorite meals—like bao, dumplings, and bok choy—she realizes home isn’t so far away after all.

    Through lush art and spare dialogue, Cherry Mo’s breathtakingly beautiful debut picture book reminds readers that friendship and belonging can be found in every bite.

  • Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

    Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

    Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team.

    Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug.

    Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to track down the source. But the search for truth is more complicated than Daunis imagined, exposing secrets and old scars. At the same time, she grows concerned with an investigation that seems more focused on punishing the offenders than protecting the victims.

  • Crescent City Series by Sarah J. Maas

    Crescent City Series by Sarah J. Maas

    Bryce Quinlan had the perfect life-working hard all day and partying all night-until a demon murdered her closest friends, leaving her bereft, wounded, and alone. When the accused is behind bars but the crimes start up again, Bryce finds herself at the heart of the investigation. She'll do whatever it takes to avenge their deaths.

    Hunt Athalar is a notorious Fallen angel, now enslaved to the Archangels he once attempted to overthrow. His brutal skills and incredible strength have been set to one purpose-to assassinate his boss's enemies, no questions asked. But with a demon wreaking havoc in the city, he's offered an irresistible deal: help Bryce find the murderer, and his freedom will be within reach.

    As Bryce and Hunt dig deep into Crescent City's underbelly, they're plunged into the fight of a lifetime, making them question everything they thought they knew.