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Recommendations based on Caucasiaby Danzy Senna
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The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison
Coming of age story of a young Black girl dealing with prejudice and racism in 1940s Ohio.
In Lorain, Ohio , nine-year-old Claudia MacTeer and her 10-year-old sister Frieda live with their parents, a tenant named Mr. Henry, and Pecola Breedlove, a temporary foster child whose house was ... (Wikipedia)
The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri
A young Indian-American's journey of reconciling two different cultures and his own identity.
The story begins as Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, a young Bengali couple, leave Calcutta , India, and settle in Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts . Ashoke is an engineering student at the ... (Wikipedia)
Bastard Out of Carolina
by Dorothy Allison
A young girl's coming of age amidst poverty, abuse, and a broken family.
The book opens with Bone relating the details of her birth. Bone's 15-year-old mother Anney gives birth to her after being seriously injured in a car accident. Anney, who is comatose during the ... (Wikipedia)
Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston
A woman's journey of self-discovery, liberation and empowerment.
Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person – no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three ... (Goodreads)
Interpreter of Maladies
by Jhumpa Lahiri
Collection of stories exploring the struggles of Indian-American immigrants in the US.
A married couple, Shukumar and Shoba, live as strangers in their house until an electrical outage brings them together when all of sudden "they [are] able to talk to each other again" in the four ... (Wikipedia)
Push
by Sapphire
A harrowing tale of a young girl's journey through poverty, abuse, and illiteracy in Harlem.
Claireece Precious Jones is an obese, illiterate 16-year-old girl who lives in Harlem with her abusive mother Mary. Precious is a few months pregnant with her second child, the product of her father ... (Wikipedia)
Native Son
by Richard Wright
A young African American man's exploration of his identity, facing the harsh realities of systemic racism.
Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black ... (Goodreads)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Díaz
An exploration of love, identity, and the power of fate in a family's struggles and triumphs.
Oscar de León (nicknamed Oscar Wao, a bastardization of Oscar Wilde ) is an overweight Dominican growing up in Paterson, New Jersey. Oscar desperately wants to be successful with women but, from a ... (Wikipedia)
Parable of the Sower
by Octavia E. Butler
A post-apocalyptic story of survival, hope, and the power of community.
This highly acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel of hope and terror from award-winning author Octavia E. Butler "pairs well with, 1984, or, The Handmaid's Tale," (John Green,, New York Times,)–now with a ... (Barnes & Noble)
Homegoing
by Yaa Gyasi
Spanning centuries, the intertwining stories of two African sisters, their descendants, and the legacy of slavery.
Effia is raised by her mother, Baaba, who is cruel to her. Nevertheless she works hard to please her mother. Known as a beauty, Effia is intended to be married to the future chief of her village, but ... (Wikipedia)
The House on Mango Street
by Sandra Cisneros
A young girl navigates life in a poor Latino neighborhood, dreaming of a better future and finding her voice through writing.
The bestselling coming-of-age classic, acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world from the winner of the 2018 ... (Barnes & Noble)
Sister of My Heart
by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
An intertwining story of two young women and the bonds of family and friendship.
Princess in the Palace of Snakes follows two cousins from birth until their wedding day. The sudden death of their fathers on a reckless hunt for rubies sends Anju and Sudha's mothers into premature ... (Wikipedia)
The Reader
by Bernhard Schlink
A man's journey of understanding, uncovering a dark secret from his past.
Hailed for its coiled eroticism and the moral claims it makes upon the reader, this mesmerizing novel is a story of love and secrets, horror and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of ... (Goodreads)
The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
A collection of short stories exploring the struggles of women in a patriarchal society.
Best known for the 1892 title story of this collection, a harrowing tale of a woman's descent into madness, Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote more than 200 other short stories. Seven of her finest are ... (Goodreads)
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
A haunting story of loss and resilience in the aftermath of slavery.
Beloved begins in 1873 in Cincinnati, Ohio , where the protagonist Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman, has been living with her eighteen-year-old daughter Denver at 124 Bluestone Road. The book ... (Wikipedia)
On Beauty
by Zadie Smith
A story of two families, their struggles with identity, race, and class, and the beauty that can be found in unexpected places.
On Beauty centres on the story of two families and their different yet increasingly intertwined lives. The Belsey family consists of university professor Howard, a white Englishman; his ... (Wikipedia)
How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
by Julia Alvarez
Follows the lives of four sisters as they navigate their identities between two cultures.
The novel is written episodically and in reverse-chronological order. It consists of fifteen chapters in three parts: Part I (1989–1972), Part II (1970–1960), and Part III (1960–1956). Part I is ... (Wikipedia)
Purple Hibiscus
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A young girl's struggle to find her place in a family and society torn apart by political turmoil.
A previously published edition of ISBN 9781616202415 can be found, here., Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in a beautiful house, ... (Goodreads)
Kindred
by Octavia E. Butler
A modern woman is thrown back in time, forced to confront the harsh realities of slavery.
Kindred scholars have noted that the novel's chapter headings suggest something "elemental, apocalyptic, archetypal about the events in the narrative," thus giving the impression that the main ... (Wikipedia)
Mama Day
by Gloria Naylor
An exploration of the power of faith and family in a small African-American community.
Mama Day centers around the characters George and Cocoa. Cocoa, whose real name is Ophelia, is a young southern woman living in New York who is still deeply connected to her family and ancestry, even ... (Wikipedia)
Like Water for Chocolate
by Laura Esquivel
Magical tale of forbidden love, crossed by cultural and family traditions.
The book is divided into 12 sections named after the months of the year, starting in January and ending in December. Each section begins with a Mexican recipe . The chapters connect each dish to an ... (Wikipedia)
Breath, Eyes, Memory
by Edwidge Danticat
A young girl's exploration of her family's history and her own identity in Haiti.
At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished village of Croix-des-Rosets to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child ... (Goodreads)
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf
by Ntozake Shange
A powerful collection of stories exploring the struggles and triumphs of African-American women.
In celebration of its highly anticipated Broadway revival, Ntozake Shange’s classic, award-winning play centering the wide-ranging experiences of Black women, now with introductions by two-time ... (Goodreads)
The Secret History
by Donna Tartt
A small group of misfit college students uncover a sinister secret and their lives become entangled with dangerous consequences.
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the ... (Goodreads)
The Known World
by Edward P. Jones
A story of a former slave turned landowner navigating the complex social dynamics of Antebellum America.
One of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, The Known World is a daring and ambitious work by Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones. The Known World tells the story of Henry Townsend, a black ... (Goodreads)
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
by Jonathan Safran Foer
A young boy's quest to find the lock that matches a mysterious key his father left behind.
Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an inventor, amateur entomologist, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, Great Explorer, jeweller, detective, vegan, and ... (Goodreads)
Fences
by August Wilson
A family struggles to reconcile their differences and understand their place in a segregated society.
The focus of Wilson's attention in Fences is Troy, a 53-year-old working class head of household who struggles with providing for his family. The play takes place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ; ... (Wikipedia)
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
by Judy Blume
A young girl's journey of self-discovery, navigating the transition from childhood to adolescence.
Margaret Simon is just eleven going on twelve when her family moves from New York City to Farbrook, New Jersey. Margaret's mother is Christian and her father is Jewish . Margaret has been raised ... (Wikipedia)
Euphoria
by Lily King
Three anthropologists in the 1930s study a tribe in New Guinea, leading to a complex love triangle and ethical dilemmas.
A New York Times Bestseller,Winner of the 2014 Kirkus Prize,Winner of the 2014 New England Book Award for Fiction,A Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award,A Best Book of the Year for:,, ... (Barnes & Noble)
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)
