Books like Because I remember terror, Father, I remember you by Sue William Silverman

Jeannette Walls' memoir chronicles her turbulent childhood in a dysfunctional, itinerant family, detailing poverty, alcoholism, and homelessness across the United States as she seeks stability and personal growth.

Maya Angelou's autobiography, 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings', tells the story of her life and the challenges she faced growing up in Arkansas, including racism, abuse, and the loss of her father. The book is a powerful and moving portrayal of the African American experience during the 1930s and 1940s.

Eighteen‑year‑old Susanna Kaysen is admitted to McLean Hospital in 1967, where she documents life in the psychiatric ward, exploring mental illness, recovery, and the cultural landscape of the late 1960s.

A memoir of a woman who overcomes a strict survivalist Mormon upbringing in rural Idaho to pursue higher education, ultimately earning a PhD in history at Cambridge.

Augusten Burroughs recounts his turbulent adolescence spent in a decaying Victorian home run by a psychiatrist, where ordinary rites of childhood give way to a surreal blend of family eccentricity, escape from school, and the early years of a future author.

xxxv, 338 pages ; 21 cm

James McBride’s memoir chronicles his upbringing among twelve siblings in Brooklyn’s Red Hook, revealing his mother’s hidden Jewish heritage and their shared journey of race, identity, and faith.

In the Gulf‑swamp town of Leechfield, Texas, a group of oil workers called the Liars’ Club spin tall tales, while a young woman confronts her family’s hidden past, unmasking lies that threaten her sanity.

William Styron’s memoir recounts his 1985 struggle with severe depression, hospitalization, and recovery, offering an honest portrait of living with mental illness.

An intimate biography by Joan Crawford’s adopted daughter, detailing the actress’s troubled relationships, alcoholism, and the harsh reality hidden behind Hollywood fame.

Cry Silent Tears tells the true story of Joe Peters, a survivor of extreme abuse who endured a brutal childhood, endured years of physical, sexual, and emotional trauma, and ultimately sought help, support, and freedom.

Kenneth Doyle recounts the harrowing abuse he and his brother Patrick endured growing up among nine siblings in a dysfunctional Tullamore household, detailing starvation, beatings and forced criminal activity at the hands of their mother.

David Carr, a New York Times reporter and columnist, chronicles his own descent into cocaine addiction, weaving personal memoir with over 50 videotaped interviews to reveal a harrowing past he had long denied.

From Kay Redfield Jamison - an international authority on manic-depressive illness, and one of the few women who are full professors of medicine at American universities - a remarkable personal testimony: the revelation of her own struggle since adolescence with manic-depression, and how it has shaped her life. Vividly, directly, with candor, wit, and simplicity, she takes us into the fascinating and dangerous territory of this form of madness - a world in which one pole can be the alluring dark land ruled by what Byron called the "melancholy star of the imagination," and the other a desert of depression and, all too frequently, death. A moving and exhilarating memoir by a woman whose furious determination to learn the enemy, to use her gifts of intellect to make a difference, led her to become, by the time she was forty, a world authority on manic-depression, and whose work has helped save countless lives.

A harrowing memoir of a daughter’s struggle against a controlling father and a dysfunctional family, revealing the lasting impact of psychological and physical abuse.

Linda Katherine Cutting’s memoir, Memory Slips, chronicles her abuse‑ridden childhood, the healing role of music, and the resurfacing of repressed memories that shattered her musical world.

A former child star recounts rising to fame as Cassandra Ingalls in "Little House on the Prairie" under a fiercely competitive mother, and later confronting how that same stage‑mother’s pressures pushed her older sister into a tragic crisis.

Helen Hoke’s collection of horror short stories for children, featuring a cat as the narrator and unreliable narrators, making for a thrilling and spine-chilling read.

A candid memoir of a woman’s journey from childhood sexual abuse to recovery, exploring her belief that sex equals love and her path to reclaiming self-worth.

"For three decades, Laurie Kahn has treated clients who were abused as children. People who were injured by someone whom they believed to be trustworthy, someone who professed to love them. Their abusers - a father, stepfather, priest, coach, babysitter, aunt, neighbor - often were people who inhabited their daily lives. Love is why they come to therapy. Love is what they want, and love is what they say is not going well for them. Kahn, too, had to learn to navigate a wilderness in order to find the "good" kind of love after a rocky childhood. In Baffled by Love, she includes strands from her own story, along with those of her clients, creating a narrative full of resonance, meaning, and shared humanity" -- provided by publisher.

This is the first-hand account from one of the survivors of the Haut de La Garenne children's home in Jersey which hit international headlines when children's remains were found there in February 2008.