Deborah Jackson Taffa’s tremendous Whiskey Tender is so many things, all at once: a singular coming-of-age story, a complex family narrative, a quest for belonging, a history of violent federal policies. With reflective clarity and a gift for language, Taffa, a citizen of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo, crafts a soaring dialogue on survival and identity, in the process reclaiming a story of the self that so many share. Oglala Lakota and Mohawk actor Charley Flyte breathes soft-spoken resonance into each of Taffa’s heartrending recollections, mirroring the story’s defiant tenderness. The result is something brilliantly, boldly alive. —Alanna M.

I'd venture to say that the brilliance of David Henry Hwang's Obie-winning, Pulitzer-nominated play Yellow Face is elevated without visual accompaniment. In this acerbically funny “unreliable memoir,” we hear but don't see the character of the playwright wrestle his way through the shifting motivations of an entertainment landscape that seems to constantly rewrite the expectations of Asians in American culture. The inspired cast, including Daniel Dae Kim and Jason Biggs, delivers an immersive space for personal reckoning, leaving the listener to grapple with their own internal assumptions about race and the complexities of living in America in a body you can't change. —Emily C.

Considering wellness lit has long vowed to offer protection from sociopaths, Patric Gagne’s reflection on what she calls her “emotional learning disability” comes as a welcome perspective. What struck me about this unique memoir is that the author, grappling with an absence of empathy, experienced quite a bit of recognizable discomfort: from self-soothing compulsions to the early childhood revelation of being different. As someone who has long struggled with my own mood disorder, I so related to Gagne’s frustrated attempts to understand why she experiences her emotions uniquely, only to be met with stigma. For anyone who’s ever embarked upon their own mental health journey, you might locate a piece of yourself within this narrative. —Haley H.

Grief memoirs represent the genre in its most human form. After all, love and loss are the two inevitabilities we universally share as mortal beings. Alexandra Fuller’s tender, nuanced Fi gets to the heart of that reality as she reflects on the agony of her son’s death. Unequivocally honest, evocative, and elegiac, she shares her journey as she attempts to find peace in the wake of the unthinkable, learning to coexist with grief while living on for those left behind. Fuller narrates her own story, and what a gift that is. Throughout, she balances heartbreak with wit, tracing every moment in the nonlinear path toward healing in her expressive British-Zimbabwean lilt. —AM

Podcaster and social media star Drew Afualo has made a name for herself as an unapologetic voice for women, confronting misogyny with a head-on, no-holds-barred approach. With an acerbic wit and ferocious, full-bodied laugh, her roasts of hateful rhetoric have rallied millions of fans around the globe. In Loud, Afualo chronicles her confidence journey, inviting listeners to set out on their own quest for unflinching self-possession. Whether meditating on her Samoan identity or the choice to be child-free, she’s as real, relatable, and affirming as ever. As for her narration, it’s everything you’d expect: down-to-earth, funny, and full of heart. —AM