Arcadia Public Library

"For years, Holly Whitaker wore her workaholic-party-girl persona as a badge of honor, while privately feeling increasingly miserable. She believed that if she could just eat cleaner, save more money, and be more perfect, her life would finally snap into place. Yet all of her attempts to fix herself just added up to more chaos and the chaos added up to more pain and so she added more wine. When she finally had enough and started looking around for...

"Drinking is everywhere in our culture-whether it's wine-o-clock or impromptini, alcohol often is a fundamental part of socializing and destressing. And it can seem black or white: you drink or you don't. If you fall into the latter camp, people automatically assume one of a few things: you're pregnant, you're taking antibiotics, or you're in recovery. There's not a lot of grey area. But a lot of women aren't given the tools to really take a step...

"A gripping debut domestic suspense novel, Nora Murphy's thrilling The Favor explores with compassion and depth what can happen when women pushed to the limit take matters into their own hands. Staying is dangerous. Leaving could be worse. Leah and McKenna have never met, though they have parallel lives. They don't-ever-find themselves in the same train carriage or meet accidentally at the gym or the coffee shop. They don't-ever-discuss their problems...

"The Good House tells the story of Hildy Good, who lives in a small town on Boston's North Shore. Hildy is a successful real-estate broker, good neighbor, mother, and grandmother. She's also a raging alcoholic. Hildy's family held an intervention for her about a year before this story takes place--"if they invite you over for dinner, and it's not a major holiday," she advises "run for your life"--and now she feels lonely and unjustly persecuted. She...

"It's the summer of 1996 and school's out forever for Andy, her boyfriend Marcus, her best friend Peter, and Em. When Andy's alcoholic mother predicts the apocalypse, the four teenagers decide to see out the end of the world at a deserted manor house, the site of a historic unsolved mystery. There they meet David - charming and unreliable, he seems to have appeared out of nowhere. David presents an irresistible lure for both Andy and Peter and complicates...

"I swim for every chance to get wasted--after every meet, every weekend, every travel trip. This is what I look forward to and what I tell no one: the burn of it down my throat, to my soul curled up in my lungs, the sharpest pain all over it--it seizes and stretches, becoming alive again, and is the only thing that makes sense." At fifteen, Casey Legler is already one of the fastest swimmers in the world. She is also an alcoholic, isolated from her...

A New York Times essayist shares her journey from a self-destructive college student to a devoted family woman and teacher while illuminating the importance of trusting in a higher power and being truthful about life's challenges.

"In Commute, we follow author and illustrator Erin Williams on her daily commute to and from work, punctuated by recollections of sexual encounters as well as memories of her battle with alcoholism, addiction, and recovery. As she moves through the world navigating banal, familiar, and sometimes uncomfortable interactions with the familiar-faced strangers she sees daily, Williams weaves together a riveting collection of flashbacks. Her recollections...

"Celebrated cartoonist Julia Wertz chronicles her haphazard attempts at sobriety and the relentlessly challenging, surprisingly funny, and occasionally absurd cycle of addiction and recovery"--