Books like Days of Awe by Achy Obejas

A Little Life follows four college friends in New York as they confront trauma, love and the enduring scars of their pasts, weaving themes of friendship, family, and identity into a profound coming‑of‑age story.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks follows the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer whose cancer cells were taken in 1951 without her consent and later became the first immortal human cell line, HeLa, driving major scientific breakthroughs while raising questions of ethics, race, and medical exploitation.

A collection of linked short stories that follows a platoon of American soldiers and their experiences, thoughts, and burdens during the Vietnam War.

Neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi’s poignant memoir chronicles his battle with stage IV metastatic lung cancer and his reflections on life, medicine, and mortality.

Seventeen‑year‑old Sahar, an Iranian American, secretly loves her best friend Nasrin amid the dangers of coming out in Iran. When a marriage is arranged, Sahar faces a heart‑wracking decision between love and identity.

A sweeping family drama set on a Midwestern dairy farm, A Map of the World explores how one accidental death roils a household, forcing its members to confront past mistakes, guilt, and the boundaries of community acceptance.

Ruth Dahl struggles to survive in the poverty-stricken small town of Honey Creek, battling family conflict, domestic violence, and her own ambitions, while investigating the truth behind her turbulent home life.

Delia Byrd returns to Cayro, Georgia, to reclaim a former life and her two daughters after leaving a rock‑and‑roll existence in California.

Set in late‑1950s Detroit, the novel follows a tight‑knit group of Black women—mothers, daughters, friends and lovers—who flock to the Ford Motor plant, exploring their intertwined relationships and personal ambitions.

A Greek immigrant's journey from humble beginnings to wealth, and the complex challenges his family faces—divorce, addiction, sexuality, and intergenerational conflict—unfold in a multigenerational saga set in America.

In his new novel, Hijuelos tells the story of Lydia Espana, a beautiful and formerly prosperous emigre from pre-Castro Cuba, who becomes a cleaning lady in New York. Once the spoiled, pampered daughter of a small-town mayor and adored by men - a 'queen of the Conga line' - she is forced because of a youthful sexual indiscretion to leave home and, in 1947, finds herself suddenly living the life of the working poor. In time she falls in love with Raul, a humble waiter. One night in a Manhattan ballroom, in the middle of a bolero, Raul proposes marriage, for Lydia is his "empress of the most beautiful and splendid season, which is love.". A life of promise is disrupted when Raul falls ill and Lydia, finding employment as a domestic, becomes the head of the family. Striving to educate her two children, Rico and Alicia, in the style of the upper class, she must endure a lesson in humility, cleaning the homes of New Yorkers much better off than herself. Among her employers is Mr. Osprey, a reserved and kindly lawyer, who eventually takes an interest in her family's well-being and, during the turmoil of the 1960s, intervenes at a critical juncture in the life of her teenage son, Rico. Throughout this novel Lydia remains a sensual and powerful woman who meets the trials of a lonely life with humor and a gleam of triumph in her eye - a sense that she is someone special - an empress of fortitude, of dignity.

In 25 years of love, heartbreak, and art, writer Ben navigates a complex gay love triangle that spans New York, Portland, and Idaho.

A recently divorced Latinx woman in her forties reevaluates life when her gangster cousin is released from prison, sparking an unexpected, sexual bond that uncovers hidden family secrets.

A collection of poems and short stories that interweave themes of death, identity, and the lived experience of Mexican Americans in Oxnard, California.

Regina Gottlieb enters a prestigious university with a cautionary warning, only to find herself drawn into the complex, alluring world of professor Nicholas Brodeur and his charismatic, volatile wife.

Julia Alvarez’s debut nonfiction collection, “Something to Declare,” presents personal essays that explore her bicultural upbringing and her journey as a writer, rooted in her family's exile to New York after a failed Dominican coup known as the Trujillo regime.

Crybaby Butch follows a middle‑class, thirty‑something literacy teacher and her older, working‑class student as they navigate a complicated, court‑jester‑style bond that bridges generations, class, and gender expectations.

When a runaway waitress leaves her lover and her Dalmatian dog to hit the highway, she journals her road trip in heartfelt letters while composing poetry that explores love, heartache, and madness.

A hilarious tale of a dybbuk in the modern world, where history is revisited and the descendants of ancient demons must be hunted.

Memory Mambo follows 25‑year‑old Cuban‑born lesbian Juani Casas as she runs her family laundromat in Chicago, juggling love, work, family and the strange rhythms of North American life while seeking a safe place she can call home.

Thirteen‑year‑old Staggerlee carries the scars of her grandparents’ death in an anti‑civil‑rights bombing and the complexities of an interracial family. In summer, a visit from her cousin Trout opens a door to new possibilities as she grapples with feelings for her friend Hazel.