(Please suggest something new, these books have already been read :))
the perks of being a wallflower – Stephen Chbosky
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid
A Certain Hunger – Summers
My year of rest and relaxation – Ottessa Moshfegh
So sad today – Melissa Broder
The New Me – Halle Butler
Milk Fed – Melissa Broder
Rest and be thankful – Emma Glass
The girls – Emma Cline
Let’s go play at the adams – Mendal W. Johnson
Big Swiss – Jen Beagin
Her name in the sky – Kelly Quindlen
Daughter of the moon goddess – Sue Lynn Tan
The Memory Police – Yoko Ogawa
Cursed Bunny – Bora Chung
Convenience store woman – Sayaka Murata
The Road – Cormac McCarthy
The Mermaid the witch and the sea – Tokuda Hall
Turtles all the way down – John Green
Klara and the sun – Kazuo Ishiguro
I’m thinking of ending things – Lain Reid
I’m glad my mom died – Jennette McCurdy
Things have gotten worse since we last spoke and other misfortunes – Eric LaRocca
Yerba Buena – Nina Lacour
Kitchen – Banana Yoshimoto
A good girls guide to murder – Holly Jackson
Last night and the Telegraph club – Malinda Lo
Pure Color – Sheila Heti
Writers and lovers – Lily King
Animal – Lisa Taddeo
Ariel – Sylvia Plath
She Drives me crazy – Quindlen
Mooncakes – Xu Walker Gil
Written in the stars – Alexandria Bellefleur
One of us is lying – Karenm McManus
My dark Vanessa – Kate Elizabeth Russell
Queen of Coin and Whispers – Helen Corcoran
The dark tide – Alicia Jasinska
Huntress – Malinda Lo
Sweet and bitter magic – Tooley
Gearbreakers – Mikuta
The deathless girls – Kiran Millwood
Cinderella is dead – Bayron
The dead and the dark – Courtney Gould
Malice – Heather Walter
The faithless – C.L Clark
The unbroken – C. L Clark
The oleander sword – Tasha Suri
The Jasmine Throne – Tasha Suri
Girls of storm and shadow – Natasha Ngan
Girls of paper and fire – Natasha Ngan
Iron heart – Varela
Crier’s War – Varela
The Hollow Heart – Marie Rutkoski
The midnight lie – Rutkoski
A day of fallen night – Samantha Shannon
The priory of the orange tree – Samantha Shannon
All American Boys – Reynolds
This is where it ends – Marieke Nijkamp
Please look after mother – Kyung-sook Shin
Paradise Rot – Jenny Hval
Her body and other parties – Machado
The silent patient – Alex Michaelides
Black swans – Eve Babitz
The henna wars – Adiba Jaigirdar
No longer human – Osamu Dazai
This is how you lose the time war – Amal
The Midnight Library – Matt Haig
The Virgin Suicides – Jeffery Eugenides
Before the coffee gets cold – Toshirazu Rawaguchi
Hani and Ishu’s guide to fake dating – Adiba Jaigirdar
She gets the girl – Lippincott
One last stop – Casey McQuiston
Girl in pieces – Kathleen Glasgow
Suicide notes – Ford
Sharp objects – Gillian Flynn
Crying in H mart – Michelle Zauner
Real World – Natsuo Kirino
Death in her hands – Ottessa Moshfegh
The great gataby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
In the miso soup – Ryu Murakami
The pieces – Melissa Broden
Girl, interrupted – Susanna Kaysen
Tender is the flesh – Agustina Bazterrica
Jillian – Halle Butler
Lapvona – Ottessa Moshfegh
The bell jar – Sylvia Plath
Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
The Catcher and the Rye
Speak – Anderson
Eileen – Ottessa Moshfegh
Come Closer – Sara Gran
Tell Me I’m Worthless – Alison Rumfitt
Bunny – Mona Awad
Homesick for another world – Ottessa Moshfegh
Diary of an oxygen thief – anonymous
Nobody, somebody, anybody – Kelly McClorey
Nightbitch – Rachel Yoder
Acts of service – Lillian Fishman
Woman, Eating – Claire Kohda
by 2shy2fafo
23 Comments
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Mooncakes – Xu Walker Gil
+ Animal (novel) or Ghost Lover (stories) by Lisa Taddeo; No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood; Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill; Chronology of Water (memoir) by Lidia Yukanovich; Dyscalculia by Camonghne Felix
**It’s Kind of a Funny Story!** My fav book as a depressed teen – so relatable.
For something happier/cozier, **The House in the Cerulean Sea**.
For general YA, **Darius the Great is Not Okay** is great!
I’ve recommended it before but Smash: A Story of A Drunken Girlhood by Zailckas.
Others are The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and Love is a Mixed Tape by Rob Sheffield.
Never Let Me Go, The Secret History, more Haruki Murakami, maybe Paint it Black by Janet Fitch, Checkout 19
Go Ask Alice
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
I would suggest looking into Janet Fitch- White Oleander and Paint it Black.
I read these books like 17 years ago. I can’t remember all the main parts, but they made an impression on younger me.
Also- John Irving, I particularly love the World According to Garp and Cider House Rules
Don’t you forget about me
Fried green tomatoes
How to kill men and get away with it
Poppy war
All Jane Austen
Kristen the daughter of Lawrence
Terry Pratchett books
Idk if you are into mangas? They have been my salvation.
Tbh I am Russian and had to read a lot of Russian classics during school. If you want some real bleak stuff you could try it 😀 but be ready for some deep drama and patriarchy. And really long sentences.
Book thief
Did you like daughter of the moon goddess?
If so check out A Magic Steeped in Poison and The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea
Couple others you might like based on this list:
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco
We like a lot of the same books! What did you think of Evelyn Hugo? TJR has another amazing book, Daisy Jones and the Six that I highly highly recommend. The rest of her books aren’t worth it.
Books like sharp objects and gone girl – slow burning fire by Paula Hawkins, luckiest girl alive, the nothing man by Catherine Ryan Howard.
Feel good books – I love Marian Keyes and started reading her books as a teen – sushi for beginners and last chance saloon. But my absolute favourite is Rachels holiday – she’s a depressed in denial addict whose “holiday” is rehab.
I’m currently on a Stephen king binge – Misery is overall the best book I’ve read this year. Just finished the green mile, which I loved and next is pet sematary.
When I was a depressed teen I loved:
Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Winter of Fire or Tanith or Rocco by Sherryl Jordan
Bound Feet and Western Dress by Pang-Mei Natasha Chang
Convenience Store Woman or any other stories where misfits are the protagonist. I love this one because as a teen, I always felt like an outsider and I wish I would have had more stories about well-written misfits who are happy with their misfittin’.
Starting Strength – Mark Rippetoe
• Looking for Alaska – John Green
• Pretty Things – Sarra Manning
• Candy – Kevin Brooks
• A List of Cages – Robin Roe
• My Dark Vanessa – Kate Elizabeth Russell
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mike Haddon
• Identical – Ellen Hopkins (all her books are great but this was my favorite)
• Stargirl – Jerry Spinelli
• The Giver – Lois Lowry
• The Glass Castle – Jeanette Walls
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
Happiness by Will Ferguson. It’s not actually about happiness, the plot is the world’s most depressed man editing self help books. Incredibly depressing and hilarious
So I haven’t read anything on your list but I can try to suggest some books I’ve read. I’ve had depression almost my whole life.
A mango shaped space
The Divergent trilogy
The Glass Castle
Hadley and Grace
Book Thief
Anne of Green Gables
Alicia: My story(holocaust survivor memoir)
I haven’t read it yet but I hear the Giver is really good
I liked the twilight series
{{Emergency Contact by Mary H K Choi}}
It’s a love or hate type of book, but I think you’ll love it.
Alone by Megan freeman. It’s a novel in verse and it’s a really beautiful story about human ingenuity, cleverness, and hope under REALLY bad circumstances.
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
*needlework* – deirdre sullivan
*the seas* – samantha hunt
*lullabies for little criminals* – heather o’neill
*the girl with borrowed wings* – rinsai rossetti (this one may be a good fit bc it’s a nice mix of sad girl and fantasy romance vibes. plus it’s got some darkness, but is overall hopeful)
*sadie* – courtney summers
*play it as it lays* – joan didion
*a thousand nights* – e.k. johnston
*among other things, I’ve taken up smoking* – aoibheann sweeney
*girlchild* – tupelo hassman
*a tale for the time being* – ruth ozeki
also, agreed with others about *white oleander*. that was my first thought when reading this list