15 Feel-Good Books for When You Need a Pick-Me-Up

Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. When she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates, it’s a break too big to pass up. But what is it they say? Don’t meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone—much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.” But Emma’s not going down without a fight. She will convince him that love stories matter—even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it.

Fredik Backman is always able to turn the most unexpected story into an incredibly touching read, and Anxious People is no different. Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. None of them are who they appear to be, and all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises, these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in motion an unexpected chain of events.

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook, and no plan. Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Chani Horowitz is stuck. Then she’s hired to write a profile of movie star Gabe Parker: her number one celebrity crush and the latest James Bond. The interview turns into a whirlwind weekend that has the tabloids buzzing. 10 years later, after a brutal divorce and a healthy dose of therapy, Gabe’s PR team requests that they reunite for a second interview…and she says yes.

After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat over 30 years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared, and now he must unearth the truth for her before it’s too late. This dual POV story will have you smiling the entire time…and make you never order Octopus again.

It’s a pretty sure bet that with an author as hilarious as Chelsea Handler, you’ll be stifling laughs the entire time you’re reading. Surprisingly vulnerable and always outrageous, Chelsea Handler shares her unforgettable story of becoming the woman she always wanted to be. This book perfectly captures the antic-filled, exhilarating, and joyful life she’s built—a life that makes the rest of us think, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

When workers were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill—specifically, husband and wife, Moshe and Chona Ludlow, who ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, the residents banded together to keep the boy safe. What follows is the truth about the skeleton, the boy, and the town.

On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, and her independence. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning, she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn’t just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush—it’s the vital, charming, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life, is there anything that she would change if she could?

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: to write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years—Margaret Ives, the daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th century. But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story—pieces they can’t swap because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time. The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first-ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success—not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is. But the true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient magic, flaky pastry, or a freshly brewed cup, they may become something deeper than she ever could have dreamed.

Jane Jackson spent her adolescence as the punch line on one of America’s favorite sitcoms. Now she’s trying to be taken seriously as a Hollywood studio executive. Desperate to get her first project green-lit, she claimed that she could get pop star Jack Quinlan to write a song for the movie. Now Jane must turn to the last man she’d ever want to owe: pompous cinematographer and one-time crush Dan Finnegan. Jack is playing a festival in Dan’s hometown, and Dan has an in. A week in close quarters with Dan as she faces down her past is Jane’s idea of hell, but he just might surprise her.

Linus Baker is a case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He’s tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world. Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn and his secrets will come to light. This quirky, addicting story will remind you that family can be discovered anywhere.

Joni Lark has a secret. She’s one of the most coveted songwriters in LA, and yet she can’t write. When she returns to her hometown, she hopes it will spark inspiration. But when Joni gets there, nothing is how she left it. Until she hears a melody in her head with an alluring and addictive voice to go with it—belonging, apparently, to a wry musician with an emptiness of his own. Surely, he’s a figment of Joni’s overworked imagination. Then a very real man shows up, and he has a plan for breaking their inconvenient telepathic connection: finish the song haunting them both and hope they don’t risk their hearts in the process.

Born with mysterious powers she does not know how to control, young Jieun accidentally causes her family to vanish. She vows to live a million lives in search of them. Finally, one night, she brings the Marigold Mind Laundry into existence. Its service: to remove the deepest pain from our hearts. Five wounded souls come to Jieun for help. As Jieun listens to each of their stories, she learns that the will to heal is not a rare gift, but a power we all possess—if only we are open to it.

When Cath loses her mostly absentee mother, she is ambivalent. But when she’s forced to go through her mother’s things one afternoon, Cath is perplexed to find tickets for an upcoming “murder week” in England’s Peak District: a whole town has come together to stage a fake murder mystery to attract tourism. Cath decides to go on the trip herself and begins a journey she never could have anticipated. Teaming up with her two cottage-mates, both ardent mystery lovers, Cath sets about solving the “crime” and begins to unravel shocking truths about her mother along the way.