5 Painfully Honest Novels You’ll Feel in Your Soul

May 25 2023
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Some novels are so accurate and intentional about a character’s feelings that you can’t help but think they must be derived from the author’s real life. It’s simply too painfully real not to be. And that’s the beauty of fiction, isn’t it? It’s about exploring the often-unpleasant human experience in many ways, even if imagined. We, as readers, must hope to be able to process that character’s pain and grow as a result of their fictional journey.

To commemorate those books whose plots are so authentic that they produce a genuine reaction, we’ve compiled a list of novels that capture societal life in all its naked glory. Get ready to get real.

The Half Moon
by Mary Beth Keane

Talk about painfully real—how about a marriage in crisis? Such is the reality for Malcolm Gephardt and his now ex-wife Jess. Malcolm is forty-five and on the brink of a midlife crisis. He tends bar at the Half Moon, an establishment he recently purchased despite protests from Jess. For Jess, a devoted lawyer, the financial decision by Malcolm was the last straw. And after years of unsuccessful fertility treatments, she’s ready for a change. Malcolm is convinced she’ll be back until he realizes she’s taken up with another lawyer, who just so happens to have three kids. He’s devastated and begins to spiral. To make matters worse, a week of blizzards has just hit the New York City suburbs leaving everyone stranded, including the couple who must now face their decisions and the prospect of a second chance. A detailed look at how people change in relationships and the distinct pains of marriage, THE HALF MOON is all too real.

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The Half Moon
Mary Beth Keane

From the bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes, a masterful novel about a couple in a small town who must navigate the complexities of marriage, family, and longing.

Malcolm Gephardt, handsome and gregarious longtime bartender at the Half Moon, has always dreamed of owning a bar. When his boss finally retires, Malcolm stretches to buy the place. He sees unquantifiable magic and potential in the Half Moon and hopes to transform it into a bigger success, but struggles to stay afloat.

His smart and confident wife, Jess, has devoted herself to her law career. After years of trying for a baby, she is facing the idea that motherhood may not be in the cards for her. Like Malcolm, she feels her youth beginning to slip away and wonders how to reshape her future.

Award-winning author Mary Beth Keane’s new novel takes place over the course of one week when Malcolm learns shocking news about Jess, a patron of the bar goes missing, and a blizzard hits the town of Gillam, trapping everyone in place. With a deft eye and generous spirit, Keane explores the disappointments and unexpected consolations of midlife, the many forms forgiveness can take, the complicated intimacy of small-town living, and what it means to be a family.

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Everything's Fine
by Cecilia Rabess

Everything about Cecilia Rabess’s EVERYTHING’S FINE is grounded in reality. Readers are introduced to the main characters on the day Barack Obama is elected president. Jess, a liberal Black woman, and Josh, a white Republican, don’t exactly see eye to eye, especially concerning politics. And, much to Jess’s chagrin, when she is hired as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs, she learns that Josh will be her coworker. There, a surprising friendship blossoms (despite Josh’s ever-present ability to push Jess’s buttons). As their relationship begins to heat up, Jess is forced to address the motivations behind their attraction, especially as cultural and political landscapes shift during the 2016 presidential election. As Zakiya Dalila Harris, New York Times bestselling author of THE OTHER BLACK GIRL notes, “Cecilia Rabess has crafted an extraordinarily brave debut that's painfully real—but plain funny as hell, too.”

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Everything's Fine
Cecilia Rabess

“Extraordinarily brave...plain funny as hell, too.” —Zakiya Dalila Harris, New York Times bestselling author of The Other Black Girl

“A subtle, ironic, wise, state-of-the-nation novel, sharp enough to draw blood, hidden inside a moving, intimate, sincere and very real love story--or vice versa.” —Nick Hornby

When Jess lands a job as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, she’s less than thrilled to learn she’ll be on the same team as Josh, her preppy, white, conservative sparring partner from college. Josh loves playing the devil’s advocate and is just…the worst.

But when Jess finds herself the sole Black woman on the floor, overlooked and underestimated, it’s Josh who shows up for her in surprising—if imperfect—ways. Before long, an unlikely friendship—one tinged with undeniable chemistry—forms between the two. A friendship that gradually, and then suddenly, turns into an electrifying romance that shocks them both.

Despite their differences, the force of their attraction propels the relationship forwards, and Jess begins to question whether it’s more important to be happy than right. But then it’s 2016, and the cultural and political landscape shifts underneath them. And Jess, who is just beginning to discover who she is and who she has the right to be, is forced to ask herself what she’s willing to compromise for love and whether, in fact, everything’s fine.

A stunning debut that introduces Cecilia Rabess as a blazing new talent, Everything’s Fine is a painfully funny, poignant, heartfelt novel that doesn’t just ask will they, but…should they?

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Old Flame
by Molly Prentiss

Molly Prentiss’s latest novel, OLD FLAME, explores what it means to be a woman in modern society. Emily is an aspiring novelist making ends meet by writing copy for a New York women’s catalog. With an artistic boyfriend and a close work friend, her life seems to be going well enough . . . until it slowly begins to unravel. A work affair leads to her dismissal. Her once spicy relationship has all but cooled, and her work friend has disappeared, leaving Emily completely lost. When invited to a wedding in Italy, she jumps at the opportunity to escape the chaos. However, she is only to be met with more turmoil—this time in the form of life-altering events that force her to confront her various roles in life: daughter, friend, partner, artist, and would-be mother. A vivid account of life as a woman, this book is emotional and brutally honest.

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Old Flame
Molly Prentiss

The author of the “ethereal and brutally realistic” (The New York Times) Tuesday Nights in 1980 returns with a highly anticipated new novel exploring what it means to be a woman in her many forms—daughter, friend, partner, lover, and mother.

Emily writes for women’s catalogs for a living, but she’d rather be writing books. She has a handsome photographer boyfriend, but she actively wonders how and when they will eventually hurt each other. Her best work friend Megan is her lifeline, until Megan is abruptly laid off. When her world is further upended by an unplanned pregnancy, Emily is forced to make tough decisions that will change her life forever.

What will she sacrifice from her old life to make room for a new one? What fires will she be forced to extinguish, and which will keep burning? Old Flame is a story about the essential—and often existential—choices that define a woman’s life at every level, from which dress to wear to when to have a child to how to be in the world.

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By Alice Martin | March 24, 2023

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So Long, See You Tomorrow
by William Maxwell

The passage of time is a concept that is all too familiar and painful for every living creature—especially those with cognition like us. The baggage from the past that each of us carries is explored in a myriad of ways in William Maxwell’s classic novel SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW. The story is centered around a 1921 murder that occurred in rural Illinois, in which a farmer, Lloyd Wilson, is killed by his neighbor and former friend, Clarence Smith. Fifty years later, the narrator attempts to unravel what led to this crime, specifically focusing on the events through the eyes of his friend Cletus, son of the murdering Clarence. In doing so, the narrator imagines the kind of life and relationships Cletus had, and how his father’s personality and deviousness contributed to the eventual slaying of Lloyd Wilson. The events are undoubtedly unusual, but what makes this novel so authentic is the way in which we all agonize over time lost, how we misconstrue the past for our own benefit, and how the pain of our memories can often remain open wounds.

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So Long, See You Tomorrow
William Maxwell

Fifty years after a murder on a rural Illinois farm, a man tries to reconstruct the events and is inevitably drawn back to his childhood friend, whose father was the murderer. Out of memory and imagination, the surmises of children and the destructive passions of their parents, William Maxwell creates a luminous American classic of youth and loss.

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