RA RA READ: Read it and Weep: A Child Called It Read-Alikes

I last published this list in 2017 and it turns out that the demand for these types of misery memoirs can actually die off - apparently four years of a political and social hellscape finished off with a pandemic actually dampen the interest in this genre. Some titles still circulate, but I've weeded a lot of them and have dialed back on purchases of this type of fiction and nonfiction.

Misery memoirs. They're a thing. I personally am not a fan and have never read A Child Called It, but I do get a LOT of teens and young adults asking for them and it never goes away. I had someone ask for Living Dead Girl in June, which was how I discovered our copy was long missing and I just saw a link to Abby the Librarian's read-alikes list, which is still relevant! I went back and forth on whether or not to include blurbs and decided not. Because I didn't have time and this isn't really my genre. The common theme in all of these, fiction and nonfiction, is some kind of harrowing event or childhood, mental struggles, and eventual triumph and hope.

Young Adult Nonfiction (mostly all memoirs)

• Three little words; Three more words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
• The dead inside by Cyndy Etler
• The year we disappeared by Cylin Busby 
• Deep water by Katherine Nichols (true crime)
• One Cut by Eve Porinchak (true crime)
• Elena Vanishing by Elena Dunkle 
• Invisible Girl by Mariel Hemingway 
• Smile for the camera by Kelle James 
• All better now by Emily Smith 

Adult Nonfiction 

• Sickened by Julie Gregory 
• Glass castle by Jeannette Walls 

Young Adult Fiction

• Ellen Hopkins (novels in verse)
• Elizabeth Scott

• Living dead girl
• Love you, hate you, miss you
• Grace 
• Carol Lynch Williams
• Glimpse (novel in verse)
• Chosen one
• Laurie Halse Anderson
• Speak
• Wintergirls 
• By the time you read this, I’ll be dead by Julie Ann Peters
• Boot camp by Todd Strasser
• Split by Swati Avasthi
• Cut by Patricia McCormick 
• Because I am furniture by Thalia Chaltas (novel in verse)
• Scars by C. A. Rainfield