I squeezed in one more, because I am a nerrrrrrd.
Megan Nolan’s Ordinary Human Failings is a really … I keep wanting to say it’s a crunchy book, it’s a chewy book, by which maybe I mean it’s satisfying to take in, and full of texture? It tells the story of a very bad night when a little child goes missing, and suspicion falls on an older girl. She comes from a family that has had a very hard road and has essentially been branded the troublesome people of the neighborhood. It follows the members of the family, as well as an unscrupulous tabloid journalist who sees the story, and exploiting the family, as his big break.
There’s a distinction between a sad book and a bleak book, which is partly a question of balance. What happens — and has happened — in this book is very sad. But there is a sense within it that people’s humanity has some power. Not power to undo what has happened and not power to guarantee anybody a good outcome. But it is partly about what resources people can muster, including emotional resources, and what those things can do for them, even though it is also about the brutality of exploitation and the dysfunction within the family.