Sara Zarr is the acclaimed author of four novels for young adults: Story of a Girl, Sweethearts, Once Was Lost, and How to Save a Life. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Image, Hunger Mountain online, Response, and several anthologies.How to Save a Life is about two girls trying to figure out who they are and what family means to them.
At the Guardian Zarr tagged the top 10 family dramas that inspired her story, including:
Housekeeping by Marilynne RobinsonRead about the other titles on the list.
Ruth and Lucille are sisters who grow up without their mother, and are instead cared for by their grandmother and various other female relatives. We see them age from childhood to adulthood, change, suffer, and survive against the backdrop of their small town on a glacial lake. Robinson approaches these people and their strange, fragile lives with tenderness and extraordinarily beautiful writing.
Housekeeping is among Philip Connors's top 10 wilderness books, Kate Walbert's best books, and Aryn Kyle's favorite books.
--Marshal Zeringue
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