Family Centered Books
One of my favorite things to read about, especially near the holidays, are families. This list is a collection of books across genres and intended ages featuring family relationships that can maybe help feel the void a lot of us are feeling not being able to see as many family members due to the craziness of this year. I love a found family dynamic in a book so about half of those feature that type of relationship. I also have some honorable mentions at the end of books that have great “family” dynamics that I wanted to include but would’ve made the post too long even for me.
Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger - This is the first book in a middle grade fantasy series. It features a twelve year old named Sophie Foster. She’s whisked away by a mysterious boy while on a class field trip and from there she finds out that she is an elf and she must leave the human world behind or risk putting herself and her family at great risk. Sophie begins to learn all about the “Lost Cities” and the magical beings they contain and starts attending a school full of people like her who have many different abilities. She works to hone her ability to read the minds of others while also discovering that the scope of her ability is much greater than she knew and she’ll have to put everything she has against a mysterious group intent on capturing her.
One of the best aspects of this series is the family Sophie finds when she moves to the Lost Cities to live with her people. She loves her human family and they’re the only family she’s ever known but they’re safer without her there so she makes the sacrifice to leave them and in the process she finds an amazing adoptive family. This series explores the pain of being separated from your family while also discovering the fulfilling joy of finding a new one. The whole series is action packed but also full of heartwarming family moments.
Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake - This is the first book in a young adult fantasy series following three sisters. They are triplets born to the queen of their queendom of Fennbirn and raised separately by different foster families until the time comes where they must compete using their different abilities to see who will rule. It’s a fascinating dynamic between the sisters because they’ve been living away from each other since they were children and they’ve always known that only one of them would live to reign but at the same time they’re not able to ignore the bond they have as triplets. I’m a big fan of this series. I thought it was really cleverly and imaginatively done and I recommend it to fantasy fans as well as those who want to try dipping their toes into a fantasy series but aren’t quite confident enough to dive into an epic high fantasy straight away.
Save the Date by Morgan Matson - Morgan Matson is one of my favorite authors when it comes to contemporary stories (I particularly loved her book The Unexpected Everything). We follow Charlie, the youngest of five children. She is thrilled that her family will all be together again when her sister gets married this weekend. It’s also the last time they’ll all be together before her parents sell their house and everything will change. Obviously the perfect family-filled weekend is not at all what Charlie gets. Instead there is absolute chaos and one problem after another that she has to tackle in order to make sure her sister’s wedding is perfect. This book is so fun. It’s absolutely ridiculous and there are an almost unbelievable number of wild problems, but it’s an incredibly enjoyable read. I loved the big family and the dynamic between sisters. It was also nice to read from the perspective of a younger sister still living at home with her parents while her older siblings are in college/living adult lives with their partners. I’m very close with my sister, but I’m the oldest so I don’t have that same viewpoint as Charlie does which made it more interesting for me.
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell - I’ve read this book a few times and it’s one of my all-time favorites. It’s about a girl named Cath who goes to college at the same school as her twin sister Wren. Cath and Wren are very different people. Cath stays in her room writing fanficton in her free time while avoiding any new experiences and Wren is the life of every party. Cath is thrown off guard when Wren tells her she doesn’t want to room with her their freshman year because she thinks having different roommates is a great way for them to branch out and have new experiences with new people. This leads Cath to be assigned a grumpy upperclassman roommate who always has her boyfriend Levi in tow. Cath is overwhelmed enough by the transition to college and the sister who grows further away from her each day, but she also can’t stop worrying about their dad. Their mother left when the girls were 11 and he’s been raising them alone ever since. He loves them a lot, but he has a knack for getting caught up in work and not sleeping or eating for days and when he does eat it’s mostly from the gas station. This family is very fascinating because they all love each other but they’re not always willing/able to be there for each other in the way that they need to be. Sometimes Cath and Wren are stuck being the parent to their father and their relationship with each other is strained at times but overall it’s very strong. I just felt like I was reading the real struggles of actual people in a way that I found quite refreshing.
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune - I’ve mentioned this book in a previous post. It’s one of my new favorite books of all time. It features a case worker who goes to orphanages with magical children to ensure that they are being properly cared for. In this society those with magic are reviled and mistreated by the ordinary humans and the children in those orphanages aren’t really ever adopted because no one wants them. Our main character, Linus, is sent to a particularly dangerous orphanage that is set apart from the nearest town because the children there are the most dangerous and potentially threatening. Naturally Linus is very apprehensive about what he will find when he arrives. However, the group he meets are entirely different than what he was led to believe. This story is so heartwarming and the family of misfits that Linus finds and gets to spend time with in this book are just so encouraging and uplifting and they are 100% a family even if they aren’t related by blood and I love them all.
Honorable Mentions: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, Renegades by Marissa Meyer, and I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson.
