Guest Post by Randy Susan Meyers
When, at barely 21, I had my first daughter, I craved women’s rights, an end to the Vietnam War, full civil rights for all, and sleep—probably most of all, sleep.
Above my baby’s changing table, rather than a winsome Winnie The Pooh illustration, hung a poster boasting “Sisterhood is Blooming” in vivid red and pink above an abstract flower against a stark black background. And so, it is no shock to that now-grown baby that my newest novel, The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone, features Annabel fighting for justice while her daughter, Ivy, craves normalcy—until idealism collides with reality, bringing tragic consequences. Seven Children, Five Mothers, One Idyllic Commune: What can go wrong?
Whether about slavery, suffrage, or climate change, a great social justice novel must sweep a reader into magical storytelling, where one gives up all suspension of disbelief and cares for characters and their outcomes as much as while reading Gone Girl.
Like all extraordinary novels, the books below invoke empathy—the secret ingredient we might most need now. Here are ten page-turning, memorable social justice books I relished.
Bury What We Cannot Take: Kirstin Chen
Memorable: The world under Chairman Mao is seen through a child’s eyes, giving an intimate yet broad picture of the effects of displacement and living under a heavy political thumb.
Relished: This character, who still lives in my heart, illustrated the lengths one would go to survive, bringing me a slice of strength and suffering of which I was ignorant.
Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Honor by Thrity Umrigar
Memorable: The crushing horror of cultural/religious hatred and sexual violence turned lethal merged with two connected and individual stories of women caught between cultures stunned me.
Relished: The deep, immersive experience of living inside a reluctant honorable hero of honor, learning the courage we don’t know we have and the villainy we wish didn’t exist—but must face—will stay with me.
Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Terra Nova by Henriette Lazaridis
Memorable: I learned a course’s worth of women fighting for suffrage in England—the women were tortured—without ever feeling lectured or ‘taught’ concurrent with a gripping story about exploring the Antarctic—and marriage. And sex. And love. And photography. This is a phenomenal braiding of storylines.
Relished: Ice, cold, snow, Arctic, Antarctic: I’m obsessed with these settings and the facts in which Lazaridis seems so schooled. And did I mention women fighting (with their very lives) for their rights?
Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson
Memorable: Standing with this character of extraordinary strength and agency as she survived a slavery jail—an institution of which I was previously and shamefully unaware—stapled me to the couch.
Relished: Johnson brought me so closely inside the characters that I traveled deep into this unknown world with a laser POV that left me breathless and shaken.
Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Girl in Ice by Erica Ferencik
Memorable: This entirely new and frightening spin on a woman exploring the Arctic Circle while trying to save a child is swirled with observations on the horror climate change is wreaking.
Relished: The intricate and close-up descriptions of surviving the landscape—and the unlikely survivors, came with the bonus of a landing-truthful inclusion of the dangers of self-medicating (substance abuse) and surviving suicide by a loved one.
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Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Memorable: An unabashed look inside the squirmiest secret side of racism and white privilege, along with the pure pleasure of reading a writer writing about writing in an extraordinarily close and intimate voice in this brittle, brilliant send-up of publishing
Relished: The use of a compelling character who is decidedly not likable—but whom you need to follow through every scene. Too often, publishing pushes writers to create affable characters rather than ones that stun us.
Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Big Girl by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan
Memorable: This potent story reveals the growling hold of food desires and addiction with a punch. It starts with an 8-year-old girl at a Weight Watchers meeting in Harlem and takes us through years inside the generational pass-down of body shame issues.
Relished: A revelatory look at Black girls treated as grown far too early, seen through into stark relief on their inner lives, reminded me of the white privilege with which I walk the earth.
Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Try to Remember by Iris Gomez
Memorable: A brilliantly touching story of ‘the helper’—the teenage daughter of immigrants, including a delusional father with untreated mental health issues—who must navigate her family’s needs, a family she loves and is imprisoned by.
Relished: The compassion of this teenage narrator trying to manage what most adults wouldn’t attempt is a triumph of writing from the soul.
Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark
Memorable: How rare is a presentation of two older characters with neither sentiment nor pity nor the far too usual: getting older is nothing but tragedy! Oh, how we need more deep portraits of aging, such as Fellowship Point. Swirled in with the brilliant writing are portrayals of greed vs. responsible stewardship of the land we own.
Relished: The strength of life-long friendship between women who walked disparate paths—a precious commodity not told often enough.
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Loose in the Bright Fantastic by EB Moore
Memorable: In this blazing star of a main character, we see society’s and family’s struggle with caring for those with dementia told with humanizing care and wit instead of the too-oft used in fiction ponderous elders-are-always-sad tone.
Relished: Moore brings a side-order of luminous poetic writing steeped in clarity and humor.
Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
The above ten novels resonate with connective tissue. Just as Yellow Wife delivers a deep and often painful portrayal of the past, Honor by Thrity Umrigar turns our attention to the present, showing us how deeply entrenched cultural conflicts continue shaping women’s lives today. Bury What We Cannot Take is another example of personal stories that reflect larger historical oppressions. All three novels illustrate how individuals, particularly women and children, navigate the dangers and limitations of cruel systems with tragic personal costs.
Big Girl also tackles survival, though the adversities are different. The central character must survive the emotional turmoil of body shame and cultural pressures, beginning at a shockingly young age.
In Fellowship Point and Girl in Ice, land ownership and the stewardship of nature are central to personal and moral dilemmas, linking personal legacy to environmental responsibility.
The settings aren’t passive backdrops—but actively influence characters’ choices and values, representing connections of conservation and survival.
Terra Nova covers the life-threatening exploration of the Antarctic and weaves in the suffrage movement, with women fighting for their rights in ways that also put their lives at risk.
Try to Remember and Loose in the Bright Fantastic examines the burdens and emotional toll mental health challenges can place on family members, the delicate balance of caring for loved ones and maintaining one’s sense of identity and agency—and both show how the larger community’s responses can hurt or help.
All the characters above grapple with environments that seek to diminish them, yet they find ways to assert their power, illustrating both the danger and, ultimately, power of fighting for social justice measures.
The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone by Randy Susan Meyers
Annabel Cooper’s journey from 1960s civil rights activism to communal life in rural Vermont shapes her daughter Ivy’s longing for a more traditional family. But as their idyllic haven faces an unexpected crisis, Ivy discovers the fragile boundaries of love, family, and the cost of idealism.
Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
About Randy Susan Meyers
Randy Susan Meyers, an international bestselling author of six novels, was praised for her “clear and distinctive voice that captivates readers and leaves them yearning for more” by the Massachusetts Council of the Book. Her work, often exploring domestic drama alongside societal issues, has been featured in The New York Times, People, The Boston Globe, the LA Times, and The Miami Herald, among others.
She was an Indie Next Pick and earned a spot in Kirkus’s “10 Best Books of the Year.” Her novels have been translated into over 35 languages.
Meyers’s experiences working with troubled youth, nonprofits, the City of Boston, and criminal justice organizations—and perhaps most of all, bartending in a small Boston bar—have shaped her insights into family, men’s secrets, and sexual politics. A Brooklyn-Boston hybrid, she believes happiness lies in family, friends, books, and the occasional NY bagel. She lives in Boston with her husband. For more, visit randysusanmeyers.com.
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