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BookTrib is partnering with Bookish to bring you more great content. The Bookish staff has fallen in love with the Pearson family. We laugh with them, we cry (frequently) with them, and now we want to read with them. Here, we’ve carefully paired our favorite This Is Us characters with the perfect book recommendations. Some are poignant, some are lighthearted, and some are simply hilarious.

You can never have too many book recommendations. Tell us in the comments which books you’d pair with This Is Us characters.

For Jack Pearson: Behold the Dreamers

Jack is the pillar of the Pearson family. He is their rock and guiding light. For Jack, we recommend Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers—a moving tale about an immigrant family who moves from Cameroon to Harlem. There are strong parallels between Jack and Jende Jonga, the patriarch willing to do anything to give his wife and son the life they deserve.

For Rebecca Pearson: The Comfort Food Diaries

Every year on the anniversary of Jack’s death, Rebecca makes his favorite lasagna. Rebecca understands that food doesn’t just fill our stomachs, it has the power to nourish our souls and to connect us to the people we love. That’s why we’re recommending Emily Nunn’s The Comfort Food Diaries. Nunn shares the ways that cooking and traveling helped her to survive after losing her brother. She also includes important recipes from her journey that we think Rebecca would love to try her hand at.

For Kevin Pearson: August, Osage County

Kevin left his days as The Manny behind and is pursuing projects that he’s truly passionate about. To help him on his journey, we’d offer this Pulitzer prize-winning play from Tracy Letts. It’s a dramatic and tragic dark comedy about a dysfunctional family. We think it could help Kevin to confront his own complex emotions about his family, while reminding him of the power of a good script.

For Kate Pearson: Noteworthy

As an adult, Kate continues to have a strong connection to the memories and emotions that shaped her teenage years, which is why we think she’d be a fan of young adult novels. We’d recommend she pick up Riley Redgate’s Noteworthy, which explores the lengths one girl goes to find her voice and the lessons she learns along the way.

For Randall Pearson: Furiously Happy

In Furiously Happy, memoirist Jenny Lawson opens up about living with depression and anxiety disorder. But, as the cover suggests, she does so using dark humor and wry observations. Randall has been coping with anxiety since he was young, and we think he’d find Lawson’s book relatable, honest, and hilarious.

For Beth Pearson: You Can’t Touch My Hair

Beth possesses sharp humor, quick wit, and a straightforward attitude. For her, we’d recommend Phoebe Robinson’s You Can’t Touch My Hair. Robinson delivers hilarious and honest essays about pop culture, feminism, and being a black woman in modern America. We think Beth would love Robinson’s tell-it-like-it-is style, and it might even inspire her to write her own zinger-filled memoir.

For William Hill: The BreakBeat Poets

This anthology combines two of William’s favorite things: poetry and music. The poems draw their inspiration from hip-hop music and culture, and the authors (born between 1961 and 1999) come from across America. We think William would love this collection’s wide range of experiences and voices, and he’d certainly be tempted to share it with his son.

For Toby Damon: The Martian

Toby’s jokes have been cracking us up since his first appearance, and we have a good feeling he’d enjoy Mark Watney’s hilarious narration of life alone on Mars. Plus, we know from “The Fifth Wheel” that Toby grew up obsessed with Star Wars—making The Martian his perfect blend of  humor and sci-fi adventure.

For Deja: A Wrinkle In Time

Deja is often so unsure of herself and her place in the world. She kind of reminds us of one of our favorite characters in literature: Meg Murray. After taking Deja to see the new movie, we’d recommend that she dive into A Wrinkle In Time. Who knows, maybe it’ll help inspire her to keep working on her science project and pursue a STEM career.

BookTrib

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