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Recommendations based on The Breakby Katherena Vermette
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
Three Day Road
by Joseph Boyden
Two Cree snipers fight in WWI, one returns home addicted to morphine, the other lost to the war.
It is 1919, and Niska, the last Oji-Cree woman to live off the land, has received word that one of the two boys she saw off to the Great War has returned. Xavier Bird, her sole living relation, is ... (Goodreads)
Indian Horse
by Richard Wagamese
A story of survival, resilience, and redemption as an Indigenous Canadian boy finds his own path in life.
In 1961, the Indian Horse family—an Ojibway family consisting of eight-year-old Saul, his grandmother Naomi, and his Christian parents John and Mary—live in the wilderness of Northern Ontario , ... (Wikipedia)
The Best Kind of People
by Zoe Whittall
A respected teacher is accused of sexual misconduct, and his family must confront the accusations and their own secrets.
What if someone you trusted was accused of the unthinkable? George Woodbury, an affable teacher and beloved husband and father, is arrested for sexual impropriety at a prestigious prep school. His ... (Goodreads)
Do Not Say We Have Nothing
by Madeleine Thien
A family saga spanning generations of musicians in China, exploring the impact of political upheaval on their lives and art.
The novel begins with a girl named Marie living with her mother in Vancouver , Canada. The year is 1991, and the addition to their household of a Chinese refugee fleeing the post-Tiananmen Square ... (Wikipedia)
The Orenda
by Joseph Boyden
An exploration of the spiritual bonds between a small Huron tribe and their European invaders.
In the remote winter landscape a brutal massacre and the kidnapping of a young Iroquois girl violently re-ignites a deep rift between two tribes. The girl’s captor, Bird, is one of the Huron Nation’s ... (Goodreads)
Through Black Spruce
by Joseph Boyden
A journey of reconciliation, to uncover the truth and find peace.
A haunting novel about identity, love, and loss by the author of, Three Day Road, Will Bird is a legendary Cree bush pilot, now lying in a coma in a hospital in his hometown of Moose Factory, ... (Goodreads)
Moon of the Crusted Snow
by Waubgeshig Rice
A remote Anishinaabe community faces an unexpected crisis as the power grid fails and the outside world becomes unreachable.
A daring post-apocalyptic thriller from a powerful rising literary voice With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic ... (Goodreads)
Lullabies for Little Criminals
by Heather O'Neill
A young girl's struggles to survive and find a place in a broken world.
The novel revolves around the twelve-year-old protagonist named Baby and follows her for two years. Baby lives with her father Jules, who has a worsening heroin addiction. The two move frequently, to ... (Wikipedia)
The Illegal
by Lawrence Hill
Keita Ali, a marathon runner and refugee, becomes an illegal immigrant in a country where refugees are not welcome. He fights for his freedom and his life.
Keita Ali is on the run. Desperate to flee Zantoroland, a mountainous island that produces the fastest marathoners in the world, Keita Ali signs on with notorious marathon agent Anton Hamm, who ... (Goodreads)
The Underground Railroad
by Colson Whitehead
An escaped slave's daring escape to freedom, fighting against the brutality of slavery.
The story is told in the third person, focusing mainly on Cora. Scattered single chapters also focus on Cora's mother Mabel, the slavecatcher Ridgeway, a reluctant slave sympathizer named Ethel, and ... (Wikipedia)
Fifteen Dogs
by André Alexis
A group of dogs gain human intelligence and experience the highs and lows of life.
Over drinks at Toronto's Wheat Sheaf Tavern, Hermes and Apollo get into a debate about whether animals could live happily if they had the same cognitive and speech abilities as humans. , They decide ... (Wikipedia)
Hag-Seed
by Margaret Atwood
A modern retelling of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" with a cast of unique characters.
Hag-Seed follows the life of Felix, once experimental Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg theatre festival, now an exiled man who speaks to his daughter's ghost. Felix's fall from the theatrical ... (Wikipedia)
White Teeth
by Zadie Smith
A multi-generational saga exploring identity, race, and culture in modern-day London.
On New Year's Day 1975, Archie Jones, a 47-year-old Englishman whose disturbed Italian wife has just walked out on him, is attempting to take his own life by gassing himself in his car when a chance ... (Wikipedia)
A Complicated Kindness
by Miriam Toews
A teenage girl navigates life in a strict Mennonite community while dealing with family dysfunction and questioning her faith.
The novel is set in a small religious Mennonite town called East Village, generally considered to be a fictionalized version of Toews' hometown of Steinbach , Manitoba . The narrator is Nomi Nickel, ... (Wikipedia)
Station Eleven
by Emily St. John Mandel
Post-apocalyptic exploration of a world drastically changed after a pandemic.
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse,, Station Eleven, tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of ... (Barnes & Noble)
Half Blood Blues
by Esi Edugyan
Tale of a jazz band's tumultuous journey through the shadows of Nazi Germany.
The aftermath of the fall of Paris, 1940. Hieronymus Falk, a rising star on the cabaret scene, is arrested in a cafe and never heard from again. He is twenty years old. A German citizen. And he is ... (Goodreads)
The Book of Negroes
by Lawrence Hill
A gripping tale of resilience and courage, tracing the life of a woman kidnapped in Africa and sold into slavery in North America.
The Book of Negroes (based on the novel Someone Knows My Name) will be BET's first miniseries. The star-studded production includes lead actress Aunjanue Ellis (Ray, The Help), Oscar winner Cuba ... (Goodreads)
Undermajordomo Minor
by Patrick deWitt
A young man's strange and humorous adventures in a distant land.
Friendless and loveless, young and aimless, Lucien (Lucy) Minor is the resident odd duck in his bucolic hamlet of Bury, a weakling and compulsive liar in a town famous for producing brutish giants. ... (Barnes & Noble)
Annabel
by Kathleen Winter
Born as a hermaphrodite in 1968, Wayne decides to become Annabel and struggles with identity and acceptance in a small Canadian town.
A baby is born in 1968, in far-from-everywhere Croydon Harbour, Labrador , Canada. He is intersex – a word unfamiliar to the midwife present at his birth, and to his stoic father and his fanciful ... (Wikipedia)
The Enchanted
by Rene Denfeld
Adventure into a magical forest reveals secrets and a path to redemption.
“ The Enchanted wrapped its beautiful and terrible fingers around me from the first page and refused to let go after the last. A wondrous book that finds transcendence in the most unlikely of places. ... (Barnes & Noble)
Beartown
by Fredrik Backman
A small-town hockey team and its community grapple with the consequences of a traumatic event.
Peter Andersson, in his forties, is the general manager of the ice hockey club in Beartown, a small town located somewhere in Sweden. Peter grew up in Beartown and was a junior hockey star. He went ... (Wikipedia)
Slammerkin
by Emma Donoghue
The turbulent life of a young woman in 18th century England, exploring the consequences of poverty and gender inequality.
Mary Saunders is a highly intelligent girl living in poverty in 1760 London. She is repelled when her mother Susan encourages her to become a seamstress, wanting nothing to do with the "wretched ... (Wikipedia)
All My Puny Sorrows
by Miriam Toews
A heart-wrenching story of two sisters as one battles depression and the other struggles to keep her alive.
The novel recounts the tumultuous relationship of the Von Riesen sisters, Elfrieda and Yolandi, the only children of an intellectual, free-spirited family from a conservative Mennonite community. ... (Wikipedia)
Barkskins
by Annie Proulx
Epic multigenerational story of two Frenchmen who arrive in New France in 1693 and their descendants, intertwined with the destruction of the forests.
The eponymous "barkskins" are indentured servants, transported from Paris slums to the wilds of New France in 1693, "... to clear the land, to subdue this evil wilderness," (p. 17) according to their ... (Wikipedia)
A Fine Balance
by Rohinton Mistry
A gripping story of four unlikely lives intertwined in the tumult of India's caste system.
The book exposes the changes in Indian society from independence in 1947 to the Emergency called by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi . Mistry was generally critical of Indira Gandhi in the book. ... (Wikipedia)
The Brothers K
by David James Duncan
Story of the Kavna family and their struggles with faith, morality, and the changing times.
Papa Chance is a former MLB pitcher who has settled down with his wife in the mill town of Camas, Washington . They have six children. Everett Chance, the eldest, is a natural politician and powerful ... (Wikipedia)
Waking Gods
by Sylvain Neuvel
Giant alien robots return to Earth, threatening humanity's existence. A team of scientists and military personnel race to uncover their origins and purpose.
As a child, Rose Franklin made an astonishing discovery: a giant metallic hand, buried deep within the earth. As an adult, she’s dedicated her brilliant scientific career to solving the mystery that ... (Goodreads)
The Idiot
by Elif Batuman
A young woman's journey of self-discovery, learning to navigate the complexities of life.
Selin Karadağ is a freshman studying linguistics at Harvard University . She meets an older Hungarian mathematics student, Ivan, in a Russian language class and the two begin corresponding over ... (Wikipedia)
The Women in the Castle
by Jessica Shattuck
Three women unite in a quest to survive in war-torn Germany and seek justice for their pasts.
The story begins at the site of a Bavarian castle in 1938, with detailed descriptions of the society of the pre-war days in Germany among a certain class of landed aristocrats. Countess Marianne von ... (Wikipedia)
The Marrow Thieves
by Cherie Dimaline
A dystopian future where Indigenous people have the power to dream, and the government is trying to steal it.
In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America's ... (Goodreads)
