It’s been a while since I’ve done a Top 5 Tuesday post — but this week’s topic is too good to pass up! It’s always fun to see what topics the meme’s host comes up with, and I really should make the effort to participate more often. This weekly meme is hosted by Meeghan Reads — check out the next batch of upcoming topics here.
This week’s topic is Top 5 books with found family — which just happens to be a storytelling trope that I love. Found family, to me, is unrelated people coming together and forming a bond that creates a new, meaningful family connection — oftentimes, more supportive and reliable than whatever biological/legal family they came from. Found family stories can be found in many different genres — some of my favorites occur in fantasy, but there are plenty more to choose from.
As always, it’s hard to stick to only five, but I’ve done my best to focus on true favorites:
My favorite found families:
- The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss: The daughters of famous and infamous (fictional) scientists come together and form a sisterhood of their own. (review)
- The Bell in the Fog by Lev AC Rosen: The 2nd book in an excellent detective series, this is my only non-fantasy pick on this week’s list. Set in 1950s San Francisco, a gay detective forced off the police force after being violently outed finds a new family within the LGBTQ+ community… and solves crimes too! (review)
- Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire: The children who find their way to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children have journeyed to strange new lands through magical portals, then found themselves without a place to belong back in the real world. But together, they create a new, supportive family, and find a true home. There are 9 books available so far; #10 will be released in January. (See my review of #9, here)
- The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune: There are no words for the loveliness of this story of outcast children and the adults who protect them and give them a family for the first time in their lives. (review)
- October Daye series by Seanan McGuire: Oops, that’s two out of five by Seanan McGuire! But this series is just a marvelous example of people choosing one another and making an explicit decision to become a family. The found family aspect grows as the series progresses — there are 18 books so far, and more to come! (Here’s my review of the book shown above.)
What are your favorite books with found families?
Bookshelf Fantasies 
I adore found family! 💖
Such a great trope!
House in the Cerulean Sea! Also Green Creek is a great found family series!
Oh, for sure — I kept going back and forth on whether to feature House in the Cerulean Sea or the Green Creek books!!
I must start the October Daye series! I’m glad to know it’s a found family story😁
The found family aspect builds as the series progresses… and it makes it really special, seeing how all these people come together in various ways and establish a home and family.
I think the one that sticks out to me the most (just off the top of my head), is Dee Henderson’s O’Malley series, even though I’m not typically into inspirational fiction. Really there’s only one book in the series that overdoes the religious aspect of things, and I just skipped that part.
I haven’t heard of that series — but I don’t tend to read religious/inspirational fiction in general. Still, I do love a good found family story!
I typically don’t read the genre either, but I ran across one of them at Value Village once, and it caught my interest (without my realizing the genre until after I’d read it), and I really liked it (except for the part that got really religious. But it turned out to be the only one in the series that was like that). I’ve found myself reading almost all of her books since. Including the other series. I still plan to read the rest, but have gotten distracted.
The wayward children and house in the cerulean sea both have great found families! I’m curious about the other seanan mcguire book on the list.
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