Songs Only You Know

Written by: Sean Madigan Hoen

First line: The aluminum bat leaned against the garage wall, next to a rake and a hoe and four bicycles with flat tired and rusty chains...

Why you should read this book: A brutal memoir of a family torn apart by alcohol, drugs, and mental illness, it's told through the eyes of a young man whose rage and suffering is so deep that not even screaming lyrics for a punk band can take the edge off his pain. Sean tears his way through road trips and relationships, throwing himself into anything he senses might smooth the path, believing that he can protect his family best by shielding them from his own truths. Through some trick of fate, he survived his attempts to obliterate reality and emerged to pen this eloquent novel, which oozes raw emotion and bleeds heartbreak, all the while propelling its author to the next promise, the next possibility, the next hope.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Substance abuse. Death. Morbidity on every page.