Top Ten Tuesday: Books Dealing With Tough Subjects

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme started and run by the awesome Broke and Bookish blog. This week's lists are the top ten books I've read that deal with tough subjects.

Warning, there may be slight spoilers!

1. A Lesson Before Dying. I loved this book, but there were times it was very difficult to read. It was not only about racism, overt and institutional, but also the internalization of said racism - the way the oppressor can get the oppressed to do half the work for them by instilling self-doubt and even self-hate. 

2. The Earthquake Bird - The main character in this is so unsure of herself - of what she's done, what she might have done, how she even really feels. It's a story about a woman who feels lost and is foundering utterly

3. Monstrous Regiment - There's going to be a bit of Pratchett on this list. I could have probably made a top ten just out if his work. This one deals with sexism in a sometimes hilarious, sometimes somber way, with a fantastic side order of the meaning of war, the problems with blind zealousness and the deep impact of war on those left home.

 4. A comic that grabs you by the feels and doesn't let do. Its so impactful because of the little things.

5. Night Watch - Faith. Honor. Duty. Doing what one must vs. doing what one wants. What is justice? What is "right"? there was a lot tied up in this book, which I found both fascinating and moving.

6.The Eye, the Ear and The Arm - The tension between modern life and history, between honoring the past and growing from it, is a running subtext throughout this book.

7. In My Hands - A Holocaust memoir. I think that's all that needs saying.

8. Small Gods - Faith, zealotry and honor are at the heart of this story about a fallen god given one final shot at pushing itself back to power.

9. Old man's war - You could make the argument that this doesn't deal with any REALLY tough issues, but I thought it did - with the idea of identity and what makes a person themselves, with issues of youth vs experience (and the attempts to meld the two)

10. The Invention of Hugo Cabret - Not in Hugo's story so much, but for a side character, in whom we get to see the impact of business, capitalism, money on creativity. On the way that humans claim to love art, but are often more than happy to destroy art and abandon the artist without a second thought. It was heartbreaking.