I’d love any found family books where parental/sibling/friend relationships are treated with the same intensity, plot-focus, and protectiveness as romantic ones! Especially those with queer characters.
I don’t know if this would work for you (and I’ll definitely come back to see what other people recommend!), but maybe “Sparrow” by James Hynes. The focus really lies on a platonic (found family) relationship, but it is set in a brothel and as a huge trigger warning, the main character is a preteen, when he is forced to “work” there (though this is conceptualized differently because of it being set in the Roman Empire). Despite this, the book really doesn’t dwell on pain or explicit scenes and focuses much more on the platonic relationships between the MC and the other prostitutes, which managed to give the book a rather warm feeling throughout and there also were interesting segments about gender and sexuality as well (at least three of the main characters are queer). But there still were a few scenes, where I had to pause for a moment before resuming.Pretty sure, this contained my favourite depition of any kind of (friendly) relationship in a book up-to-date.
For something lighter that might work:Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter by Astrid Lindgren (two children love each other so much, they declare themselves brother and sister, despite their families being enemies… if you’re interested, there’s also a great movie adaptation from 1984 and Netflix will release a new series adaptation this year… or already did)
Anyways, thanks for making this post because I’ll definitely come back to it and I hope you find a great read 🙂
1 Comment
I don’t know if this would work for you (and I’ll definitely come back to see what other people recommend!), but maybe “Sparrow” by James Hynes. The focus really lies on a platonic (found family) relationship, but it is set in a brothel and as a huge trigger warning, the main character is a preteen, when he is forced to “work” there (though this is conceptualized differently because of it being set in the Roman Empire). Despite this, the book really doesn’t dwell on pain or explicit scenes and focuses much more on the platonic relationships between the MC and the other prostitutes, which managed to give the book a rather warm feeling throughout and there also were interesting segments about gender and sexuality as well (at least three of the main characters are queer). But there still were a few scenes, where I had to pause for a moment before resuming.Pretty sure, this contained my favourite depition of any kind of (friendly) relationship in a book up-to-date.
For something lighter that might work:Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter by Astrid Lindgren (two children love each other so much, they declare themselves brother and sister, despite their families being enemies… if you’re interested, there’s also a great movie adaptation from 1984 and Netflix will release a new series adaptation this year… or already did)
Anyways, thanks for making this post because I’ll definitely come back to it and I hope you find a great read 🙂