We’re made up of so many selves.
The girl who cried on her birthday. The one who thought a new haircut would fix everything. The one who fell in love too fast, or waited too long. The one who was quiet when she should’ve said something. And the one who still watches the same comfort show from high school while pretending to be evolved.
Sometimes we outgrow those versions. Sometimes they show up uninvited. Sometimes we just really, really miss them.
This month, we picked five books that feel like mirrors. Some reflect the chaos. Some offer softness. All of them give language to those inner shifts that are hard to name but easy to feel.
Welcome to our September reading list.
These stories hold the in-betweens: the awkward phases, the evolving friendships, the slow changes you don’t notice until they’ve already happened. You don’t need to have it all figured out to see yourself in these pages. In fact, that’s kind of the point.
1. Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors
Okay, warning up front: this book is chaos. In the best way. It’s about a whirlwind relationship between Cleo, a young British artist in NYC, and Frank, an older ad guy with money, opinions, and probably too many secrets.
It’s got that very specific energy of being 24 and thinking you’ve figured it out, only to find yourself crying in the bathroom three months later. Yes, it’s sad but it’s also sharp and beautiful and full of complicated, magnetic characters who feel like people you’ve actually met (and maybe dated).
You know that feeling when something ends and you realize it mattered anyway? That’s this book.
Read it if:
- You’ve cried in someone’s bathroom and pretended you were just “fixing your makeup”
- You’re in your “how did I end up here” era
- You’ve ever confused chemistry with compatibility (don’t worry, we all have)
How to read it:
📍Late at night, red wine or sparkling water in a glass that feels too fancy for a Tuesday
🎧 With a playlist of 2000s heartbreak anthems
🕯 Light something warm and nostalgic — vanilla, fig, maybe even that candle from last winter
2. Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
This book is basically two emotionally burnt-out women writing emails that sound like philosophy papers while trying to feel something again.
It’s about friendship, sex, late-stage capitalism, religion, climate dread, and adult loneliness. But mostly it’s about trying to make sense of your life when you’re too self-aware to just enjoy it.
The dialogue is peak Rooney (which means no quotation marks, but somehow it works), and the characters spend a lot of time being emotionally unavailable and intellectually intense — in a way that will make you feel both validated and personally attacked.
Read it if:
- You’ve ever ghosted a text because you couldn’t emotionally commit to a response
- You feel like you and your best friend are secretly still writing a novel together via voice notes
- You want a book that feels like a long, quiet exhale
How to read it:
📍Somewhere outside, preferably with a breeze
☕ Iced coffee even if it’s cold out
📸 Pause to screenshot a line that makes you feel weirdly seen
3. Know My Name by Chanel Miller
This one is devastating and clear and somehow also funny in places that feel earned.
You probably know Chanel as the woman in the Brock Turner case. This is her story, but on her terms — the real, whole version. It’s about trauma, sure, but it’s also about art, resilience, family, and reclaiming your own name when the world tries to define you by someone else’s crime.
She’s sharp and deeply self-aware and somehow manages to write a memoir that is both brutal and kind at the same time. It’s not a quick read. It’s one that lingers.
You’ll finish it feeling like you just witnessed someone come home to themselves — and maybe you’ll feel a little closer to doing the same.
Read it if:
- You’re in the middle of finding your voice, and it’s taking longer than you thought
- You’ve ever wanted to tell your story without making it easy to hear
- You’re craving a book that’s honest without being hopeless
How to read it:
📍In a space where you can cry a little and not apologize
📓 Keep a pen nearby just in case something clicks
🧴 Afterwards: warm shower, soft clothes, slow music
4. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
If you’ve ever tried to cook your way through grief, this book will get you.
Michelle writes about losing her mom to cancer, growing up Korean American, learning how to belong, and how food sometimes says the things we can’t. It’s tender and sharp and filled with all the textures of remembering someone — the sweet parts, the painful parts, the stuff you’ll never be able to ask again.
It’s not loud. It just quietly hits every nerve.
You’ll want to call your mom. Or make soup. Or both
Read it if:
- You’ve grieved something and didn’t know how to explain it
- Food reminds you of people you don’t get to talk to anymore
- You like books that wrap you up gently before wrecking you a little
How to read it:
📍At the kitchen table, or in bed with snacks
🍜 Make your favorite comfort meal, even if it’s instant noodles
📸 Text someone you miss, even if it’s just a photo of your dinner
5. Bunny by Mona Awad
This one is… weird. Like, capital W weird.
It starts off as your typical lonely MFA student story — Samantha, outsider, bitter, lowkey brilliant — but then it spirals into this surreal, horror-adjacent, pink-tinged fever dream involving a cult-like group of women who call each other “Bunny” and maybe do murder rituals? Maybe.
It’s dark, funny, kind of gross, kind of sexy, and entirely unhinged in a way that works.
If you’ve ever felt like the weird girl who wanted to be accepted but also maybe destroy everything — this book will get under your skin in the most satisfying way.
Read it if:
- You’ve ever smiled through something you absolutely hated
- You’ve been both the outsider and the one doing the excluding
- You like books that feel like dreams you probably shouldn’t interpret
How to read it:
📍Alone, with a slightly unsettling playlist in the background
🎀 Bonus points if you’re wearing something cute and vaguely haunted
📓 Scribble thoughts in the margins. Don’t read them later.
So… why this list?
Because September has that “in-between” feeling.
It’s the month where you clear out your inbox but also daydream about moving to a new city. Where you hold onto summer but secretly crave structure. Where you remember who you were last year — and maybe wonder if you’ve changed much at all.
These books speak to the quiet parts of those shifts. They don’t ask you to be healed or sure of anything.
They meet you right in the middle — in the figuring-it-out stage, in the almost-there stage, in the soft, unpolished space we usually keep to ourselves.
They feel like versions of us. That’s why we chose them.
Want to read with us?
📚 You can read one, read all five, or just follow along and see what lines stay with you.
📸 Tag your reading stack or rituals with #CandidClubReads
💬 Let us know in the comments which version of you each book brings up — we’d genuinely love to hear.
And hey — whatever version of you shows up this month, she’s welcome here. Always.
Candid Club 
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