The Paper Palace tells the story of Elle Bishop, a 40-year-old woman raised by eccentric, divorced parents in the 1960s and 1970s. Following her parents' divorce, a slew of step-parents, step-siblings, and step-grandparents entered and exited her life, causing a slew of childhood trauma.

Her mother's family vacation home - a rundown house and collection of cabins known as 'The Paper Palace' on the banks of a pond on Cape Cod - was the one constant in her life. Elle's family vacationed there every summer, and it was there that she met her best friend Jonas. Although they are destined to be together, a traumatic childhood experience and a secret keep them apart for decades. Until the night of the party, that is.

Miranda Cowley Heller creates a world you never want to leave and characters you care about in The Paper Palace. It's a coming-of-age story, an epic love story, and a story about the impact of childhood trauma and the power secrets have over us.

This book deals with sexual assault and may be upsetting to some readers.

Author: Miranda Cowley Heller

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Paper-Palace-Miranda-Cowley-Heller/dp/0593329821/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0

Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere delves into what happens when two women from very different backgrounds are thrust into each other's lives. The novel is set in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a picture-perfect, insular community, and follows the Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives.

Elena Richardson, the matriarch, is used to following the rules and keeping secrets. She has an ideal marriage, home, and children. And everything is in its proper place. That is, until Mia Warren, a freelance artist and single mother, and her adolescent daughter Pearl relocate to Shaker Heights and take over the Richardsons' rental. While the rest of the Richardson family is drawn to Mia and Pearl, Elena becomes determined to uncover Mia's past secrets, but in doing so, she causes chaos in her own life.

Little Fires Everywhere is a brilliant novel about identity, the weight of secrets, the pull of motherhood, and how striving for perfection can lead to the destruction of everything. It is among the best books every woman should read in their 40s.

Author: Celeste Ng

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Little-Fires-Everywhere-Celeste-Ng/dp/0735224293/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0

Lou and Josh have been in a relationship for 14 years. They have two children, a mortgage, careers, and a lot of memory. But Lou isn't sure if her marriage is even worth saving.

She sets herself a challenge after a particularly painful Christmas break. Lou will put their relationship to the test once a month for the entire year. These tests, ranging from daily sex to brutal honesty, will help Lou decide whether she should stay with the man she's built a life with or bravely venture out into the unknown.

Among the best books every woman should read in their 40s, I Give My Marriage a Year paints a vivid, often hilarious portrait of a modern Australian marriage. Lou and Josh are a couple on the verge, and their efforts to save their relationship will resonate with anyone who has ever wondered, "Is this enough?" Wainwright gets the tone right, and there are some funny moments mixed in with the marital stories... By the end, you'll be thinking about your own relationship and wondering if it's time to set your own deadline.

The third novel by Holly Wainwright is a brutally honest look at marriage, infidelity, and the ties that bind you.

Author: Holly Wainwright

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/I-Give-My-Marriage-Year/dp/1760789003

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason is a dazzling, distinctive novel from a boldly talented writer. It is spiky, sharp, intriguingly dark and tender, full of pathos, fury, and wit. Fans of Sally Rooney, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, and Fleabag will enjoy this.

The protagonist of this novel is Martha. She is aware that something is wrong with her, but she is unsure what it is. Patrick, her husband, believes she is fine. He claims that everyone has something to mind; the key is to keep going.

Before they married, Martha stated that she did not want to have children. He stated that he didn't mind either way because he has loved her since he was fourteen and that making her happy is all that matters, despite the fact that he does not appear to be capable of doing so.

It doesn't really matter by the time Martha discovers what's wrong. It is too late for her to obtain the one and only thing she has ever desired. Or perhaps it will turn out that you can stop loving someone and start over if you can find something else to want.

Meg Mason's novel is a dark, funny, and moving coming-of-age story for anyone who has ever felt different.

Author: Meg Mason

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Sorrow-Bliss-Shortlisted-Womens-Fiction/dp/1474622992/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

Year of Yes follow the story of Shonda Rhimes- an introvert, a mum of three, and one of the most successful women in Hollywood. She is the creator and producer of some of today's most innovative and daring television shows. Her iconic characters are outspoken and live boldly. So, who would have guessed Shonda Rhimes is an introvert? That she hired a publicist in order to avoid making public appearances? That she had panic attacks before press interviews?

With three children at home and three hit television shows, Shonda could easily claim she was simply too busy. But, in reality, she was terrified. Then, during Thanksgiving dinner, her sister said something that was both a wake-up call and a rallying cry: "You never say yes to anything." Shonda knew she had to accept the challenge: she would say YES to everything that scared her for a year.

Shonda's life before her Year of Yes is explored in this poignant, intimate, and hilarious memoir, from her nerdy, book-loving childhood to her devotion to creating television characters who reflected the world she saw around her. The book follows Shonda's life after her Year of Yes began, when she forced herself out of the house and onto the stage, learning to explore, empower, applaud, and love her truest self.

Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes is a profound, impassioned, and laugh-out-loud funny memoir about how saying YES changed - and saved - her life. It is regarded as one of the best books every woman should read in their 40s.

Author: Shonda Rhimes

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Year-Yes-Dance-Stand-Person/dp/1476777098/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0

Nora Ephron shares her ups and downs in I Feel Bad About My Neck, a candid, hilarious look at women getting older and dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and life itself, with her disarming, intimate, completely accessible voice and dry sense of humor.

The book teaches you something the author wishes she had known sooner, such as:

• Don't cover a couch with anything other than beige.
• Don't buy anything made entirely of wool, even if it appears to be very soft and non-itchy when you try it on in the store.
• It's impossible to be friends with people who call after 11 p.m.
• Anything you think is wrong with your body when you're thirty-five will make you nostalgic when you're forty-five.
• Even if you are painfully thin at the age of fifty-five, you will develop a saggy roll just above your waist.
• This saggy roll just above your waist will be especially visible from the back and will force you to reconsider half of your wardrobe, particularly your white shirts.
• Make a list of everything.
• Maintain a journal.
• Take more photos.
• If the shoe does not fit in the shoe store, it will never fit.
• When your children are teenagers, having a dog ensures that someone in the house is happy to see you.
• Go see a lawyer and file the divorce papers as soon as you decide to divorce.
  
  

Ephron tells the story of her life as an obsessed cook, passionate city dweller, and hapless parent. But, for the most part, she speaks candidly and amusingly about life as a woman of a certain age. I Feel Bad About My Neck is a scrumptious, irresistible treat of a book, full of truths and laugh-out-loud moments that will appeal to readers of all ages. It is utterly courageous, uproariously funny, and unexpectedly moving in its truth-telling.

Author: Nora Ephron

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Feel-Bad-About-My-Neck/dp/0307276821/ref=sr_1_1

When a friend says they're not sure if they want to have children, respond jokingly (sort of): "Have you read We Need to Talk About Kevin?" When Lionel Shriver's book first came out, it went viral in 2003. Women would ride their bikes through the streets of New York with it in their baskets, passing it on to their friends. It encapsulated an entire generation living in the aftermath of Columbine and other mass school shootings, questioning the role of nature versus nurture in those tragedies.

The plot revolves around Eva, an American woman who never wanted to be a mother. After her son Kevin is born, she struggles to bond with him and wonders if something is wrong with him. Years later, after Kevin commits a heinous crime, Eva is left to pick up the pieces and ponder how Kevin came to be such a monster.

Kevin Khatchadourian, Eva Khatchadourian's son, murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a popular algebra teacher two years ago. Eva now tells the story of how Kevin came to be Kevin in a series of letters to her absent husband.

She admits to a deep, long-standing ambivalence about motherhood in general and Kevin in particular, fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become. How much of it is her fault? When did everything go so wrong—or was it ever 'right' at all?

Lionel Shriver tells a compelling, absorbing, and resonant story while framing the horrifying tableau of adolescent carnage as a metaphor for a larger tragedy—the tragedy of a country where everything works, no one goes hungry, and nothing can be bought except a sense of purpose.

Author: Lionel Shriver

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/We-Need-Talk-About-Kevin/dp/0062119044/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

Debora Harding was 14 years old when she was kidnapped at knifepoint, thrown into a van, assaulted, held for ransom, and abandoned. But what if this wasn't the most traumatic and defining event in her life?

Dancing with the Octopus is unlike any other memoir you've ever read. It's the story of a true crime, but it's so much more. It's a memoir about family and the harm that those who are supposed to love you the most can cause. It's about a daughter and her emotionally unavailable father. It's a story about coming of age. It's a moving story about forgiveness, restorative justice, and figuring out why people do bad things. It's also extremely well written.

Debora Harding deftly shifts between the past and present to unravel her story in a daring project. Dancing with the Octopus exposes the social and political forces that act on us after the experience of serious crime, from the immediate aftermath to the possibility of restorative justice twenty years later. This darkly humorous and ground-breaking story of reckoning and recovery is a vivid, sly, and intimate portrait of one family's disintegration.

Author: Deborah Harding

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Octopus-Telling-True-Crime/dp/1788165179/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

A moving and insightful story about a woman diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, now a major motion picture starring Academy Award nominee Julianne Moore and Kristen Stewart. Still Alice is among the best books every woman should read in their 40s.

Alice Howland is pleased with the life she has created. She is a cognitive psychology professor at Harvard and a renowned linguist at the age of fifty, with a successful husband and three grown children. When she begins to become forgetful and disoriented, she dismisses it for as long as she can until a tragic diagnosis permanently alters her life - and her relationship with her family and the world around her.

Alice, unable to care for herself, struggles to find meaning and purpose as her sense of self fades. But Alice is a remarkable woman, and her family learns more about her and about themselves in their quest to keep the Alice they know. She is living in the moment, living for each day, her memory hanging by a frayed thread. But she remains Alice.

Author: Lisa Genova

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Still-Alice-Lisa-Genova/dp/1501107739/ref=tmm_mmp_swatch_0

A portrait of a marriage and a life - in good and bad times - from one of America's most iconic writers that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband, wife, or child. A stunning work of honesty and passion. John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, became ill a few days before Christmas in 2003. They first thought it was the flu, then pneumonia, and finally septic shock.

She was placed in an induced coma and on life support. The Dunnes were sitting down to dinner the night before New Year's Eve after visiting the hospital when John suffered a massive and fatal coronary. This close, symbiotic partnership of 40 years ended in an instant. Their daughter survived four weeks later. Two months later, she collapsed at LAX airport and required six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma.

The end result is an exploration of a deeply personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage and a life in good and bad times.

The Year of Magical Thinking is Didion's attempt to make sense of "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness... about marriage and children and memory... about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself". It is one of the best books every woman should read in their 40s.

Author: Joan Didion

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Year-Magical-Thinking-Vintage-International-ebook/dp/B000OI0FS0/ref=sr_1_1