Ilana Masad

A study finds that we are happier the more we talk with different categories of people — colleagues, family, strangers — and the more evenly our conversations are spread out among those groups.

Gabino Iglesias' barrio noir may not be a cheerful book, but it still allows glimpses of love, moments of connection, and glimmers of beauty to exist.

Though winding at times, Sam Knight's book is thought-provoking and deeply researched, presenting the oddity of realized premonitions while allowing readers to come to their own conclusions.

Sarah Weinman's book excels as an in-depth exploration of how outside influence and support can affect the criminal justice system — and as the narrative of a con artist who hurt a lot of people.

Bustle editor Rachel Krantz's memoir is a sincere and curious reckoning with the cultural messaging we all receive about gendered expectations and power dynamics in romantic and sexual relationships.

Faith Jones, a successful lawyer, is the granddaughter of David Berg, founder of The Family. She tells of how she was raised in the cult from infancy until managing to leave it in her early 20s.

Claire Fuller's beautifully written new novel follows 51-year-old twins who never left home, forced finally to cope with the outside world and some unpleasant family secrets after their mother dies.

Essay after essay, it becomes clear that writer Lauren Hough is drawing parallels between the Family and good ol' fashioned American Exceptionalism in all its various facets.

Sanjena Sathian's novel follows a Georgia teenager, son of Indian immigrants, as he struggles with balancing his own ambitions and those of his parents, and finding his own way to be brown in America.

Though author Melissa Febos' essays dip into her adult life, they keep trying to find the child and teenager that she was — how she learned to be, feel, believe, and react.