It’s rough out here. When life feels stagnant, it’s comforting to read about someone else who’s also feeling defeated, facing similar challenges as you are, but they make it through. Sometimes you have no choice but to pair your season of feeling stuck with silence, a good book, and hope.
From waitressing tables to dancing it away to taking the first step towards fulfilling a dream, these books for when you feel stuck will at least offer a friendly feeling of we’re all in this together.
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Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson
“And since the one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing, we turn our mourning into movement.”
The opening paragraph of Small Worlds was so aweing that I immediately stopped reading to text a friend about it. I read Nelson’s debut novel, Open Water, and added him to my list of favorite authors. When I learned about Small Worlds, I knew I needed to get my hands on it. This beautiful novel follows Stephen, who resides in London with Ghanaian parents. He’s forced to choose between attending university as his father wishes or following his passion for music. The story happens over three summers and journeys from London to Ghana and back to London. Readers are taken on an intimate journey of longing, faith, love, forgiveness, and the power of dancing.
Buy it at Bookshop. or Amazon.
Writers & Lovers by Lily King
“There’s a particular feeling in your body when something goes right after a long time of things going wrong. It feels warm and sweet and loose.”
I didn’t really know what to expect from this book when I picked it up, but it ended up being one of my favorite reads of 2025. In Writers and Lovers, Casey Peabody is in her thirties, drowning in debt, grieving her mother’s death, caught in a love triangle, and barely making ends meet as a server and aspiring writer. This humorous, heartfelt, and honest book sings of hope and simply trying to make it as an adult.
Writers & Lovers was my introduction to Lily King, but I look forward to reading more of her work.
Maame by Jessica George
“How do you know if you’re genuinely happy or if you’re just mostly all right, with sprinkles of laughter and occasional shit storms of sadness?”
Maame follows 25-year-old Maddie, who’s burdened with a lot: a mentally draining job, an absent mother who hammers her about getting married, being the sole caretaker of her sick father, and a nonexistent social life. Eventually, we get to see Maddie navigate life outside of her family home for the first time, and things get very interesting.
This story is well-written and emotional, has beautiful character development, and introduces us to a heartwarming friendship that everyone deserves. Maddie really held a special place in my heart — a very likable and smart protagonist who deserved so much goodness.
Luster by Raven Leilani
“The women in my family maybe should not have been mothers. This is not so much a judgement as a fact. They were dying inside their own bodies, and now all these dead components are my inheritance.”
Luster is a ride. I still cannot comprehend what I fully read, but I did enjoy it and was drawn to its unhinged main character, Edie. And if you think your life is bad, you’ve seen nothing yet.
Edie is navigating her twenties and making a lot of questionable decisions. She’s trying to make sense of life while refusing to unhand someone else’s husband and constantly stressing readers out. While reading this, as entertaining and raw as it is, I really wanted to extend grace to Edie. I wanted to see her in all her messiness make it through. And I appreciated the captivating prose from Lelani.
This book contains a few trigger warnings, so please review them before reading.
What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama
“In a world where you don’t know what will happen next, I just do what I can right now.”
In this heartwarming and uplifting novel, five individuals discover the spark they need to chase their dreams and live a more fulfilling life after receiving book recommendations from their local library. Each person is facing their own battle: a retail associate wanting to learn new skills, an accountant who dreams of owning an antique shop, a former editor who was demoted after maternity leave, an aspiring design school graduate who’s unemployed, and a retiree who’s losing his sense of purpose.
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
“The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.”
My reading endeavors don’t usually include books resembling self-help, but this one is different, I promise! The War of Art is a book I find myself picking up whenever I do feel stuck, especially with writing and my goals. Resistance is something we all face — showing up as fear, excuses, doubt, and procrastination — and this book teaches you how to overcome it by getting straight to the point. If I’m feeling lazy (from no other serious outside forces) this book makes me want to get up and handle business. I posted pages of this book to my close friends on Instagram while I was reading it for the first time, and some were insisting that I was bullying them (because it really calls you out), but they were eager to know the name of it.
Although The War of Art is geared more towards writers and creatives, it’s for everyone who is trying to accomplish something.