6 Books to Read If You Loved “Lady Bird”

Laura hails from the Upper East Side, born into old money and drifting aimlessly through 1980s New York. Then, after a romantic weekend with a stranger, Laura realizes she’s pregnant. Enter: Emma. Told in vignettes ranging from profound to mundane, with utterly New York scenes of blue-blood Manhattan society and subway weeping, this tender debut is a celebration of the odd, unexpected, and wonderful path to discovering where we belong.

Bernadette Fox is many things depending on who you ask: she’s a type-A genius turned housewife, a revolutionary architect, and a disgrace in the eyes of her fellow parents. When her teenage daughter, Bee, plans a family trip to Antarctica, Bernadette goes missing and Bee must search through emails, letters, and official documents to discover who her mother really is—and where she might have gone. This heartwarming, quirky, and humorous novel highlights the ways in which the bond between a mother and daughter can transcend the chaos around them.

Read the full review of WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE.

Most kids swear they’ll never move back in with their parents, preferring instead to dream of running off to Paris to live their dreams. Writer and former Vanity Fair editor George Hodgman did both, although his mother was 91 at the time and the Paris to which he moved was his hometown of Paris, Missouri. During what was to be a quick visit home, Hodgman realized how much his mother was struggling with age and dementia, and the visit soon turned into a permanent stay. A moving portrait of family told with wit and personality, BETTYVILLE is also a lovely portrayal of the changing roles of caregivers and the heart which that change can reveal.

You know things are bad when you wish you could simply focus on your father’s funeral. But for Judd Foxman, gathering with his eccentric family for the first time in years to sit shiva, there’s also the absence of his wife—whose affair was just made painfully public—and reconnecting with his siblings who are each dysfunctional in their own way. Author Jonathan Tropper is a charming writer who somehow manages to highlight the hilarious pandemonium of family while quietly underscoring the unbreakable ties that bind.

Read the full review of THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU.

RIP Queen Carrie Fisher, whose brilliance was revealed in ever-greater quantities towards the end of her life. This autobiographical novel, however, was written only a few years after her scene-stealing role as Princess Leia. POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE doesn’t take place in a galaxy far far away, but stars a Los Angeles actress who opens the satirical novel by writing letters from rehab. The story follows the highs and lows of attempting to readjust to life after addiction, reconnect with her family, and find love and work in a town that demands women fit into a box.

This cinematic novel from Irish writer Maggie O’Farrell also features a young heroine with big plans to leave home and take the world by storm. The setting here is not suburban California, but rather the genteel, English countryside–the home from which Lexie Sinclair is bursting to escape. Interwined with Lexie’s post-escape life in London’s swinging sixities is the story of another young woman, Elina, a modern Londoner drifting through the otherworldly experience of new motherhood. The ways in which these two women’s stories knit together across their half-century difference offers a lyrical, unconventional yet ultimately tender exploration into how love can bind people together.