5 Books Like Margo’s Got Money Troubles: Troubles and More Troubles

Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus

If you enjoyed following the travails of a single mother, then this is a good next pick for you.

In Elizabeth Zott, Garmus has created a such commanding character! Elizabeth is a brilliant chemist, but because it’s the late 1950’s, she battles a thick wall of sexism in her quest to work on her research. She finds her soul-mate in Calvin Evans, who’s also a brilliant chemist. But the fates intervene and several years later, Elizabeth finds herself a single mother, trying to make ends meet.

Through an odd circumstance, she suddenly finds herself the host of an afternoon cooking show. She’s a brilliant cook, and she refuses to treat her homemaker audience like idiots. So, she brings her uncompromising spirit and no small amount of chemistry to the show.

The book tackles serious issues such as sexism, sexual assault and family tragedy, but it’s also often laugh out loud funny. The dialogue crackles and the quirky cast of characters include her brilliant daughter, a reverend with doubts, a take-no-prisoners PR hack, a neighbor with marriage issues, the TV producer and and a truly awesome dog.

Read it for book club and use our Lessons in Chemistry discussion guide.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman

Spoiler alert…Eleanor is not fine!

She’s a solitary, intelligent, and mistreated woman who insists she is “completely fine.” Eleanor’s awkward social interactions and misunderstandings result from past trauma and the unkindness of people around her. When she and a new colleague save an elderly man’s life, things begin to change. The challenging but hopeful book explores themes of isolation, intimacy, and trauma while advocating sympathetically for warmth and understanding.

If you loved Margo’s extended support system and her various quirky encounters, then you’ll like Eleanor too.

Read it for book club and use our discussion guide for Eleanor Oliphant.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh

This book touches on Margo’s insistence on doing this her way but also has Jinx vibes with attachment and drug issues. It’s also funny in a way that you wouldn’t expect a depressed, over medicated character to be, and it was one of my very few five-star reads the year I read it.

Our narrator is a young, pretty, a Columbia University grad who lives in a nice apartment, thanks to an inheritance. But her depression has become exhausting and she decides to perform an extreme experiment by drugging herself as much as possible and trying to sleep for the better part of a year.

She finds a zany therapist to refill her supply of sleeping medicine without asking too many questions. Unfortunately, sleeping for a year isn’t as easy as it sounds when eccentric frenemies come knocking on your door.

The sharp blade of satire cuts deep in My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Without providing a “good” example of dealing with a mental health crisis, the novel asks us to examine our own beliefs about healing and supports individual choices over society’s prescribed responses to trauma.

The Rachel Incident, Caroline O’Donoghue

…because having an affair with a married professor is a terrible idea.

Rachel Murray is on the cusp of adulting as she attends university and works in a bookstore. At the store, she becomes besties with James Devlin and they move in together. She also develops a crush one of her professors, and she and James conspire to get the prof into the store for a book signing event.

And to complicate things further, Rachel develops yet another crush on a different James.

The whole story is told from the point of view of the future 32-year old Rachel and she delivers it with a head-shaking kind of insight.