Top 16 Books About Redemption Updated 04 /2024

Redemption is one of the best things to see and one of the best things to feel. There's no doubt that we, as people, are going to make mistakes. And there are going to be times in our lives when we feel completely suffocated by heartbreak and grief. But when we overcome the odds, we enjoy the adversity because it makes us happy.

We've put together a list of heart-wrenching and painfully relatable novels about redemption that readers from GoodReads to BookBub are raving about. If you're looking for a good book to read, check out this list. It includes books that tell the stories of people who have been through a lot.

The Story Teller by Jodi Picoult

Sage Singer, 25, is the main character in Jodi Picoult's twenty-second book, The Storyteller. When Sage isn't baking, she likes to read books about grief. Sage lives in New Hampshire and is a very good baker. She lost her mother in a car accident when she was behind the wheel a few years before the story. After her mother died, Sage was left with a big scar on her cheek and a gaping hole in her heart. She feels like she was directly responsible.

Sage has been working night shifts at the Our Daily Bread Bakery ever since. She has been living a lonely life and being sad (which she believes she deserves). She doesn't talk to her sisters because she's afraid they'll blame her for their mother's death; she has a complicated relationship with a married funeral director; and, even though she comes from a very Jewish family, Sage says she doesn't believe in God. When Sage thinks about flashbacks, loneliness, grief, and her mother's death, she finds them all too much.

Things change when she meets Josef Weber, an older man who recently lost his wife and is known as a "model citizen" in the community. She met him through her grief support group. The two form a new friendship and start talking to each other. Josef tells Sage one of his most hidden and shameful secrets, which could change the way people in Westerbrook, New Hampshire see him. He also asks Sage for an unthinkable favor. In the event she accepts, she will likely face moral and even possible legal trouble. Sage has to decide how to put her morals first as the story goes on, and whether or not she should.

Jodi Picoult is a big fan of writing, having written 26 books as of 2020. She got an A.B. in English from Princeton and a degree in education from Harvard. Her book, Storyteller, which has been called "searingly honest," promises to be complicated and heartbreaking.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

When Hannah Kent wrote her first novel, Burial Rites, in 2013, she told the story of Iceland's last public execution in an edgy way. In 1829, an Icelandic servant named Agnes Magnusdottir was found guilty of killing her boss and another man, then setting their bodies on fire. During the time that Denmark was in charge of Iceland, Agnes is sent to work on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Hannah Kent's story takes off in the months before Agnes died, which is when her story starts.

When Kent retells the past of Agnes, he makes it up. In the gripping story, the family that owns the farm is disgusted by the idea of living with a convicted murderer, so they try to stay away from her. Agnes can only find comfort and compassion from a local priest named Tóti, who has chosen to be her spiritual guardian and try to clean up her tarnished soul. Throughout the story, the family holding Agnes learns that there is another side to the one everyone has heard.

The sensational and haunting book gives a new, positive, and long-lasting view of the tragic and evocative Icelandic legend. Burial Trials is a great book for people who like historical fiction, folklore, and people who have been reprimanded. It's also scary and interesting.

The Seventh Most Important Thing by Shelley Pearsall

Shelley Pearsall, who used to be a teacher and a historian, has written a great historical novel called The Seventh Most Important Twist in 2016.

Arthur T. Owens, a teenager, is going through a lot of emotions and trauma because his father recently died. Arthur, 13, gets angry and throws a brick at the Trash Man as he picks up the trash. The brick hits the Trash Man's arm, but not his head. The judge still has the threat of juvenile detention over the young boy's head. That is, until the Trash Man who was assaulted himself comes up with an idea: 120 hours of community service, working for him and with him by his side.

It's a list of the things Arthur needs to get rid of: glass bottles, foil, cardboard, wood, lightbulbs and coffee cans. The Trash Man tells Arthur what he needs to get rid of. First, Arthur doesn't like the idea of going through other people's trash, but he and the Trash Man start to become friends. He then learns that the man, who goes by Mr.Hampton, is collecting the "garbage" and turning it into beautiful, unique art. Slowly, Arthur learns to deal with his grief and develop a love for making art. He also starts to work on improving his character.

In The Seventh Most Important Thing, Shelley Pearsall talks about how she met the artist James Hampton, a janitor in Washington, D.C., who used broken glass and wire to make art in his garage. The book has been praised by teachers and librarians all over the world.

The Kirkus Review called The Seventh Most Important Thing "luminescent, just like the art it celebrates." It's a raw and wonderful book, and it's a good choice for people who want a good story with parts of self-reflection and discovery, grief, and survival in the middle.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didon

The pain of losing a friend or family member is always unbearable. Joan Didon has been through this before. In her memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan talks about how she felt after the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne. A heart attack killed John in 2003. The two had been married since 1946.

Joan talks about her husband's death and the events that happened before and after it with a new perspective. She thinks about the thoughts and emotions she had during that time and how her life functioned differently afterward. Joan reveals the constant strain of that time in her life by letting go of her husband's life. Days before he died, their daughter, Quintana, was taken to the hospital with pneumonia. In fact, when Quintana found out about her father's death, she ran to get on a plane to her childhood home of Malibu. When she got off, she fell and hit her head, and she was hospitalized for days.

At the start, Joan shows very little raw or unveiled emotion or eloquent diction when she talks about her grief. In fact, as the book goes on, her mind starts to whirl with questions about the medical details of her husband's death, the pain of realizing that John could have been expecting the sudden end to his life, and new waves of guilt. In the few times when the stress of her daughter's health issues aren't stifling her grief process, the enormity of the recollected events start to take a toll on her.

A thin, anthropological idea that Joan has is that if someone hopes for a better outcome hard enough, or performs the right rituals, seemingly impossible and soul-crushing events can be avoided. The title of the memoir is based on this idea.

The Year of Magical Thinking is real, hard, and vulnerable. It's a great book for people who want their souls to be touched.

 I'll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson

Jandy Nelson's second book, I'll Give You the Sun, won both the Pritz and Stonewall Honor Books. It's about twins Noah and Jude Sweetwine. In recent years, the two almost-teenage siblings have become very different from each other for more than one reason. They both have a competitive nature because they both want their mother, Dianne, to love them. They also want to go to a very prestigious art high school. Their personalities are very different, too. Jude is a red-lipstick lover who likes cliff-diving and boys, and Noah is an expressive artist who is gay and hides his sexuality from his parents and teachers.

In the past, Noah and Jude didn't talk to each other for a long time. They now have to face the lies, secrets, guilt and grief that led them to where they are now. The twins have already been suffocated by heavy circumstances, so they must learn to forgive, no matter how painful, in order to change their world and their relationship. Along the way, they have to ask very hard questions of themselves and each other.

I'll Give You the Sun is a brilliant, harrowing, and deeply moving story about betrayal, forgiveness, and acceptance. It's a great addition to the work of the acclaimed author of The Sky Is Everywhere, and it's a great book for anyone looking for a well-crafted story about betrayal, forgiveness, and acceptance.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini, a well-known Afghan-born author, wrote The Kite Runner in 2003 as a response to the ongoing immigration crisis. The story is about a young, rich boy named Amir and the son of his father's servant, Hassan. They become friends. There are a lot of crazy things happening in Afghanistan, but these two people find some peace by flying kites together peacefully. This is even though there have been a lot of things going on in Afghanistan.

The two form a bond that is hard to believe. That is, until Amir's father starts to show love to Hassan while still criticizing his son's actions and love for writing (which he claims is a talent only useful to women). In addition, the world they live in starts to fall apart around them with full force. Now, Amir has to go through a very difficult path of redemption, betrayal, friendship, sacrifice, and fatherly love to get back to where he was before he was hurt.

 

In addition to writing The Kite Runner, he has done a lot of good for the immigration and Afghan crises in more ways than one. He is a Goodwill Ambassador for the UNHCR and the UN Refugee Agency, and he wants to help them out. He is also the founder of the Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a non-profit that helps people in Afghanistan who need help.

Intense and short, The Kite Runner is a good book for people who want a heart-wrenching story but also a good story.

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