The Best Family Saga Picks From The Read With Jenna Book Club

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Family saga novels follow the lives of interconnected relatives across generations. These stories examine the lasting impact of heritage, secrets, trauma, grief, or migration on a family's legacy over time. The family unit becomes an intersection of the personal and historical, where broader societal and cultural changes collide with individual identity. These narratives seek to understand how identities are inescapably shaped by the people who raise us, grow up alongside us, and are raised by us.

For her book club, Jenna Bush Hager likes to select female-driven stories that challenge and engage readers, like the popular romance novel that's a Read With Jenna Book Club favorite. In particular, relationships between mothers and daughters are often central to the narratives. "Mother-daughter relationships can be complicated and fraught with the effects of moments from the past," she observed in the 2017 memoir "Sisters First" that she co-wrote with sister Barbara Pierce Bush. But besides a personal resonance with these stories, it's also where Bush Hager's aesthetic preferences appear to run. Her picks suggest that she's got a strong affinity for the family saga's cousin, the coming-of-age novel, as well as for historical fiction. So it's no surprise that Bush Hager's book club list contains many expansive narratives about family, which often — though not always — contain a historical fiction element. After all, the very first Read With Jenna pick was a heartbreaking and love-affirming family saga.

Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

Sibling dynamics are on full display in Coco Mellor's gorgeously rendered "Blue Sisters," which earned a user rating of 3.94 stars on Goodreads. When three siblings return home to New York City to grieve and process the loss of their fourth sister, they open Pandora's box of shared history and are confronted with long-kept secrets. In beautiful, clear prose and a rotating point of view, Mellors explores the entwined lives of the estranged sisters, revealing the dynamic and intricate bonds of sisterhood.

"If you have a sister — you NEED to read this book!" wrote one Goodreads reviewer. "As a middle child with two sisters, the author put so many of my feelings and subconscious family dynamics into words." Readers praised the vivid and nuanced characters, whose richness and vulnerable messiness drove the narrative. "I cared for these sisters immediately," observed another Goodreads reviewer. "Through the complicated and layered sister relationships, the heavy and damaged family dynamic is slowly revealed."

The Waters by Bonnie Jo Campbell

Set in a Michigan swamp, "The Waters" by Bonnie Jo Campbell is a multigenerational story that extends outward from its central figure: herbalist and matriarch Hermine "Herself" Zook. Across mother and daughter bonds, this novel blends family lore with a richly depicted sense of place. The book earned a Goodreads rating of 3.48 stars from readers enthused by the eerie blending of fantasy and reality. Some reviewers compared the narrative to the popular 2018 book "Where The Crawdads Sing," noting the similar themes of survivalism and coming-of-age, as well as the parallel swamp settings.

Most of all, readers praised Campbell's complex, compelling characters, who felt realistic and kept them turning the pages. "This story is layered with so many different characters' backstories that once you think you have them figured out, there is another story finding its way to the surface to upend the others," wrote one Goodreads reviewer. "I found myself cheering for this sweet, young girl who longed for connection to her mother and grandmother in a way that stirred my motherly instinct to protect." Bonus: If you love this story, consider diving into the best coming-of-age picks from the Read With Jenna Book Club.

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

In "Black Cake," Charmaine Wilkerson invites readers to question how well they truly know their parents. When estranged siblings Benny and Byron return home to mourn their mother's death, they're confronted with long-held secrets about her past in the Caribbean. The revelations challenge each sibling's sense of self, and explore the idea of emotional inheritance and the legacy of diaspora. While some reviewers felt that the novel's time and point-of-view shifts felt disjointed, most readers loved the novel's meditation on identity and the propulsive mystery, and the book earned a 4.09-star rating on Goodreads.

"This was such a raw story about a mother's sacrifice and her children that never really knew her story," wrote one Goodreads reviewer. Though the book doesn't shy away from violence or darkness, it is deeply grounded in familial love. In particular, readers marveled at the shift back and forth between different generational perspectives. "This mysterious story about lies and family secrets captures the attention of the reader and shows the impact they have on family dynamics, both past and present," observed an Amazon reviewer.

Real Americans by Rachel Khong

Rachel Khong blends the classic multigenerational novel with flavors of science fiction in "Real Americans." Spanning from historical fiction to a speculative future set in 2030, this story explores three different generations of a Chinese-American family in New York, and probes the implications of gene therapy. "The book explores identity, legacy, and what it means to be truly 'American' in a future shaped by genetic choices," wrote one Amazon reviewer. It earned 3.96 stars on Goodreads from readers who praised its compelling plot, haunting ethical questions, and layered depiction of the Chinese diaspora.

As past, present, and future collide, Khong probes themes of identity and sacrifice, which many readers rated as thought-provoking. "The subtle struggling with the themes of who gets to be American, who belongs, what would you [do to] protect your kids from suffering, small hints of ableism threaded throughout — brilliant," wrote one Goodreads reviewer. "Khong had huge questions she was wrestling with and deftly handled them without being heavy handed ... A gorgeous book about family and mistakes."

These Ghosts Are Family by Maisy Card

Intergenerational trauma haunts the lives of a Caribbean-American family in Maisy Card's debut novel, "These Ghosts Are Family." The story spans from immersive depictions of life in Jamaica to plantation horrors to modern tensions as it follows one family and interrogates the tension between individual and familial identity. Intimate tragedies like infidelity stack up against historical traumas like slavery for a novel that neatly balances the personal with the political. The book earned 3.66 stars on Goodreads, with reviewers sharing the delight they felt at discovering the character's surprising interconnectedness, and the juicy, gossipy feel of the reveals.

"The family tree assignment we had to do in elementary/middle school ain't s*** compared to 'These Ghosts Are Family,'" wrote one Goodreads reviewer. "Faking his death was only Abel's way of introducing us to a family lineage that holds secrets, migration, slavery, deception, and revenge. I haven't read something this brilliant in a while." Though the story deals with heavy subject matter, including racism, slavery, and abuse, readers praised the book for being funny and moving.

Methodology

For this list, consideration was given to the Read With Jenna Book Club selections that best exemplified the category of family saga. These are the novels that deal explicitly with family bonds, often spanning across multiple generations, and exploring the genre's defining themes: identity, legacy, and cultural change. Once the best family saga books were identified by content, selections were further narrowed according to reader reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, as well as critical reception. Finally, thought was given to the diversity of form and subject matter, to ensure different types of family stories were well represented by this list.

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