Sometimes – or often – the stories that could have happened in real life are the ones that make the most profound impact on us. Realistic fiction, both contemporary and historical, has always been my favourite genre. As a teenager, I’d consumed every tragic, heart-wrenching, deeply emotional – yes, I read mainly the classics – I could find. And I lived through all the stories of unrequited love, scars left by war, unfulfilled dreams – now these would probably be called tropes, but back then, they were the generally accepted themes for a book to be considered a piece of “true literature”.
Anyway, I grew up, and I’ve lived through many a tragic story scenario in reality and not only on the pages of a book. Even so, I still love reading realistic fiction and indulge in doing it whenever I see what promises to be a good book. Besides, having lived for a while – not too long but quite enough to accumulate some experience – I know for sure that the most unimaginable situations (and many tropes) can easily happen to any of us.
So, here are four books I truly loved and will definitely reread to live through the extraordinary experience of submerging into the diversity of human life plotlines they offer.
“The Dinner Club” by Helen Aitchison
“The Dinner Club” by Helen Aitchison is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. This book has a soul, and this soul saturates the pages with true, deep emotions you can’t just shake off when you finish reading. Not that you’d want to. On the contrary, you’d want to continue to bathe in the beauty and heart-caressing wisdom of this story forever.
Derek, Florence, Violet, Eddie, and Cara. I feel like I have gotten to know them, not just read about them. The author has introduced readers to – not created – people – rather than characters – who now hold a special place in my heart.
“If only we saw what was in the hearts and minds of people, rather than just their outer shells, the suits of pretence, the costumes of make-believe. People desperate to stay afloat.”
“Alice and Her Grand Bell” by Will Tinkham
This book is a piece of literature that deserves to be included in American literature university programmes. I wanted to say “school programmes”, but since there are sensitive themes and plotlines, it is probably more suitable for a more mature audience.
What makes this book more than a collection of stories about separate people is the over-arching feeling it gives you while reading. Reading the seemingly unconnected stories set in different timelines, I had a feeling that I am delving into the history of America. The author has managed to draw a wide canvas of American life through the stories of ordinary people.
In 1990, Brock is eighteen and knows little about life. But he is about to learn and learn quickly. Before the first Gulf War, the possibility of the draft’s return hangs like a sword of Damocles over American families.
In 1865, a different war changes the life of Grace’s mother forever. Not on the battlefield, but at the hand of a bastard who forces the woman to flee her home and start a dangerous journey in search of a new place she and her two daughters could call home.
“A Canoer of Shorelines” by Anne M. Smith-Nochasak
This is the kind of book that makes the reader think. Not only about the story it tells on its pages but also about your own experiences. “She will not lament what the years have taken, but embrace what they still hold.”
Both Julie Martin and Rachel Hardy aren’t whole. And they both believe that an old farm Meadowbrook Acres will make them such.
For Rachel, the farm is her legacy, the place where she grew up, listening to the family legends about Grandma Mary, who cut her teeth on Spanish doubloons. Meadowbrook Acres pulls her in and pushes her away, for many years in equal measure until the struggle becomes too tough and Rachel leaves everything and everyone behind. She disappears – or maybe it only seems that way – and it opens a window of opportunity for Julie.
Julie doesn’t disappear from her family and friends’ radar, but she is lost. The life of the teacher in the Reserves that she’s chosen for herself brought bitter disappointments. “Happiness is not made. It is recognized and embraced.” Julie needs time – and Meadowbrook Acres? – to recognise her happiness. But can she ever embrace it?
“Your Pick” by V.S. Kemanis
A good story either breaks the reader’s heart or makes it sing. An excellent story has the power to do both.
Demonstrating a profound knowledge of human nature – and various professions – the author doesn’t spare details to make us completely invested in every story.
Each story from this collection is like a micro-universe, multi-layered and deep, hiding the lives ‘before’ and ‘after’, at the same time submerging the reader into the present with vivid descriptions and details that make each character real. Every story, selected from the highly acclaimed and literary award-winning story collections, reveals a moment in time for a person, a family, or a team of colleagues with a somewhat painful clarity. And because of this uncompromising exposure, we become participants – rather than readers – in each character’s life journey.
Please read the full reviews of these and other realistic fiction books here:
Eve's Book Diary 
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