Books like

Books like So Sad Today: Personal Essays

12 books with a reading profile close to So Sad Today: Personal Essays by Melissa Broder. Inward-looking; an easy read.

1

Le Consentement

by Vanessa Springora

Also inward-looking · memoir, literary

In this memoir, Vanessa Springora details her relationship as a thirteen-year-old girl with the celebrated writer Gabriel Matzneff, who was then fifty.
2

Heart Berries

by Terese Marie Mailhot

Also inward-looking · memoir, literary

Terese Marie Mailhot writes a series of essays documenting her time in a mental health facility following a post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II diagnosis.
3

Autobiography of a Face

by Lucy Grealy

Also inward-looking · memoir, literary

Lucy Grealy describes her childhood diagnosis of Ewing’s sarcoma and the subsequent removal of much of her jawbone.
4

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

by William Styron

Also inward-looking · memoir, literary

In this memoir, William Styron documents his descent into a paralyzing clinical depression that began during a trip to Paris in 1985.
5

The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone

by Olivia Laing

Also inward-looking · memoir, literary

After moving to New York City and experiencing a period of intense isolation, Olivia Laing investigates the social and psychological mechanics of loneliness through the lens of twentieth-century American art.
6

The Liars' Club

by Mary Karr

Also inward-looking · memoir, literary

Published in 1995, Mary Karr’s memoir recreates her volatile childhood in the 1960s within a gritty East Texas oil town.
7

Girl, Interrupted

by Susanna Kaysen

Also inward-looking · memoir, literary

Susanna Kaysen recounts her eighteen-month stay at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility, after a suicide attempt and a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder in 1967.
8

Wintergirls

by Laurie Halse Anderson

Also inward-looking · literary, psychology

Lia Overbrook is an eighteen-year-old girl struggling with anorexia and self-harm following the death of her former best friend, Cassie.
9

The Girls

by Emma Cline

Also inward-looking · literary, psychology

Set in Northern California during the late 1960s, the narrative follows fourteen-year-old Evie Boyd as she becomes mesmerized by a group of older girls led by the magnetic Suzanne.
10

Sing You Home

by Jodi Picoult

Also inward-looking · literary, psychology

Zoe Baxter and her husband, Max, have spent years trying to have a baby, going through hormone treatments, IVF, and miscarriages.
11

Mother Mary Comes to Me

by Arundhati Roy

Also inward-looking · memoir, literary

Arundhati Roy's 'Mother Mary Comes To Me' is a collection of essays and non-fiction pieces rather than a novel, despite the evocative title.
12

Sorrow and Bliss

by Meg Mason

Also inward-looking · literary, psychology

Martha Friel is forty years old, her marriage to Patrick is ending, and she has spent most of her adult life navigating a severe, unnamed psychiatric disorder.

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