Reading List · Lisanne Swart
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By Lisanne Swart · 6 authors · Illness Memoir · Updated July 2026
Suleika Jaouad was diagnosed with leukemia at 22, and Between Two Kingdoms refuses the tidy survivor's-arc structure most illness memoirs reach for, insisting instead that recovery is ongoing, disorienting, and doesn't resolve into a lesson just because the treatment worked. The book's second half, about the strange work of rebuilding a life after near-death, is often more unsettling than the illness itself. The writers below share her commitment to honesty over easy redemption when writing about illness, survival, and what comes after.
Readers who enjoy Suleika Jaouad often turn to Paul Kalanithi for a physician's parallel account of confronting terminal illness, Nina Riggs for a poet's account of facing mortality with similar unresolved honesty, Jennette McCurdy for a different kind of survival memoir sharing the same refusal of easy redemption, Christopher Hitchens for a writer's unflinching account of his own cancer, Atul Gawande for a physician's rigorous examination of how medicine handles mortality, and Kate Bowler for illness memoir wrestling directly with faith and the demand for meaning.
Similar Voice & Approach
Paul Kalanithi
Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, shares Jaouad's refusal to soften illness into easy comfort, though his account ends with his death rather than the long, disorienting aftermath of survival that occupies much of Jaouad's own book.
Read Kalanithi for a physician's parallel confrontation with mortality, clinically precise and unsparing. When Breath Becomes Air is essential.
→ Read more about Paul KalanithiNina Riggs
Riggs, diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, shares Jaouad's unresolved honesty about facing mortality, bringing a poet's attention to ordinary domestic detail rather than reaching for the neat, redemptive narrative arc illness memoirs often default to.
Read Riggs for a similarly unresolved, poetically attentive account of facing terminal illness. The Bright Hour is essential.
Jennette McCurdy
McCurdy shares Jaouad's refusal to perform recovery as a finished, tidy arc, describing the actual, unglamorous process of working through trauma and disordered eating rather than a redemptive gloss, even when the material is dark enough that readers might expect one.
Read McCurdy for a different kind of survival memoir sharing Jaouad's commitment to honesty over easy redemption. I'm Glad My Mom Died is essential.
→ Read more about Jennette McCurdyChristopher Hitchens
Hitchens's Mortality, written during his final illness, shares Jaouad's refusal to soften her own confrontation with disease, applying his characteristically sharp, unsparing intellect to his diagnosis rather than reaching for comforting narrative.
Read Hitchens for a writer's equally unflinching, intellectually rigorous account of his own terminal illness. Mortality is short and essential.
Atul Gawande
Gawande shares Jaouad's interest in what modern medicine gets wrong about facing illness and mortality, examining in Being Mortal how the medical system often fails patients in the space between treatment and genuine acceptance, a gap Jaouad herself writes about from the patient's side.
Read Gawande for the physician's-eye view of the medical system's failures around mortality that Jaouad experiences from the patient's side. Being Mortal is essential.
Kate Bowler
Bowler, diagnosed with stage IV cancer, shares Jaouad's frustration with the cultural pressure to find a redemptive lesson in illness, wrestling directly and often angrily with the "everything happens for a reason" narrative that both writers ultimately reject as false comfort.
Read Bowler for a direct confrontation with the demand for meaning that Jaouad herself resists throughout her own memoir. Everything Happens for a Reason is essential.
More from the shelf
Frequently asked questions about authors like Suleika Jaouad
Who should I read if I like Suleika Jaouad?
Readers who enjoy Suleika Jaouad often turn to Paul Kalanithi for a physician's parallel account of confronting terminal illness, Nina Riggs for a poet's account of facing mortality with similar unresolved honesty, Jennette McCurdy for a different kind of survival memoir sharing the same refusal of easy redemption, Christopher Hitchens for a writer's unflinching account of his own cancer, Atul Gawande for a physician's rigorous examination of how medicine handles mortality, and Kate Bowler for illness memoir wrestling directly with faith and the demand for meaning.
Is Paul Kalanithi similar to Suleika Jaouad?
Both share a refusal to soften illness into easy comfort or a tidy redemptive arc. Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air ends with his death from terminal cancer, while Jaouad's Between Two Kingdoms extends the conversation into the long, disorienting aftermath of survival, a territory Kalanithi's memoir does not reach.
What should I read after Between Two Kingdoms?
Nina Riggs's The Bright Hour offers a similarly unresolved, poetically attentive account of facing terminal illness. Kate Bowler's Everything Happens for a Reason directly confronts the cultural pressure to find meaning in illness that Jaouad also resists. For a physician's perspective on mortality, Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air is essential.
Is Jennette McCurdy's memoir similar to Suleika Jaouad's?
Both share a refusal to perform recovery as a finished, tidy arc, describing the actual, unglamorous process of working through trauma rather than a redemptive gloss. McCurdy's I'm Glad My Mom Died addresses child stardom and disordered eating, while Jaouad's Between Two Kingdoms addresses leukemia and its long aftermath, but both resist easy narrative comfort.
