Top Ten Tuesday - Tough Subjects

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's theme is books dealing with tough subjects. 

1. The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick - Although the film made the story look like a romantic comedy, this book is really about Pat trying to survive. It is also about a difficult father and son relationship, a mother's love, grief and much more. Yes, there is some dark humour running throughout but it certainly has no place on last week's light-hearted top ten list. 

2. Stolen by Lucy Christopher - This book is about a British girl who is kidnapped on a layover in Bangkok and ends up in the Australian outback. Again, this is a tale of survival with a dash of Stockholm Syndrome to really confuse everybody. I'm sure this will be one of those books everybody has to read in secondary school- and quite rightly. 

3. Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork - Oh, I have such a soft spot for this book. Marcelo is one of my favourite characters. The main tough subject is Marcelo's autism and how he deals with 'the real world' whilst interning at his father's law firm. He must come to terms with the way people treat each other, injustice, God, and obviously, love. 

4. The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder - Of all the recent YA novels featuring characters with terminal cancer, this was my favourite. Just like the cover of the book, there's a beautiful tint to this story.

5. Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest - A heartbreaking memoir from Emma Forrest about her journey thus far living with her mental illness. It's just blow after blow after blow and it makes you wonder how one person can deal with so much. However, as with SLP, there's some dark humour in there too.  

6. Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides - This tour de force deals with the immigrant experience, relationships, family and war. All of this is told from the point of view of the main character, Cal, who is a hermaphrodite. As well as being a saga spanning generations, this book really makes you think.  

7. Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr - Religion and faith, a missing person, an absent father, an alcoholic mother, and loneliness are just a few of the tough subjects dealt with in this fairly short but expertly crafted story. 

8. The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney - In this novel, Alex is raped at her boarding school and takes her case to the school's underground student court. In the wake of all that has happened in Steubenville (yes, even us UK folk heard about it) this gem of a novel is more relevant than ever.  

9. Some Girls Are / Cracked Up To Be by Courtney Summers - Everything I have read by Courtney Summers has been thought provoking and even a little disturbing at times. Some Girls Are is like Mean Girls from hell and Cracked Up To Be is quite simply one of my favourite contemporary YA's ever. 

10. When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman - Here we have to deal with the man next door, survivor's guilt,  9/11, and sibling relationships all told in Elly's magical voice.