December Rec Roundtable: Found Family

[helloladies]

It's December: the end of the year and the time of 1000 recommendation lists. We thought we'd get in on the action with some sweet themed recs before a certain holiday arrives and everyone who reads this blog is unavailable as they've been trapped under a pile of books they've been saving up "for the holiday break".

Theme for December 1: Favorite Found Family Story

Diana

The TV series Leverage is hands down one of my favorite found family stories of all time. It’s about a group of people—who happen to be thieves—learning to trust and depend on each other. While I adore the heist/con aspects to the show, the relationships between the crew is one of the highlights of the show and gives me all the warm feelings.

Jenny

It will be hard for me not to say Natalie Parker's Seafire for half of these prompts, but the thing I loved best about it (probably) is the found family—or rather, the made family, because the protagonists of Seafire have done it absolutely on purpose. After losing their families to the warlord Aric Athair, Caledonia, and Pisces become pirates, saving girls and fighting Athair’s men everywhere they go.

Jodie

Iron Cast by Destiny Soria is also a story about thieves depending on each other. Ada and Corinne, two magical con-artists, are like sisters, and work for a 1920s gang that functions as their surrogate family. However, as with any biological family, just because the girls love their family doesn't mean everything is smooth sailing. This book is full of feelings, and magic, and girls being supportive of each other, so it's my go to rec even three years after I first read it.

KJ

I will probably not be the only person to mention Wayfarers by Becky Chambers, but I can't let this category pass without bringing this series up. Although I love all three books that have been published so far, probably the one that gives me the strongest found family warm fuzzies is A Close and Common Orbit, in which an AI finds the community of friends she never thought she'd have.

Renay

I tried to think of a book for this but my brain kept going, "Mass Effect, it's Mass Effect, don't try any funny business, it's Mass Effect." Fine. My brain wins. It's Mass Effect—the original trilogy specifically, because although Andromeda does something similar there's not enough angst between team members for it to have the Intense Vibe I want from my found family stories. I put Mass Effect off for years because a) shooter, b) shooting guns from a semi-first person perspective, c) aiming, d) DID I MENTION SHOOTING GUNS, but it turns out there are extremely easy play modes and I love them. They're my favorite thing and I think all games like this should have them. Mass Effect has the ragtag group of individuals that the character you play as, Shepard, collects on his adventures through the Milky Way. Shepard charms all of them and they all become besties, there's fights and disagreements, people come and go, but everyone is still a team and it's great! Although if you play Shepard as a jerk, I don't know—maybe they don't become besties? I have never even considered making Shepard anything less than a perfect cinnamon roll. Anyway, if you love FOUND FAMILY IN SPACE, highly recommend. Just ignore the ending of the trilogy. That's what fanfic is for.

Susan

Sweetness and Lightning is definitely one of my favourites for this. The anime follows a widowed father as he, his daughter, and the daughter of a local restaurant owner learn to cook together! It's really sweet for how supportive everyone is of each other, and the way everyone's worlds slowly get bigger and include more people, and the characters get more confident! It's really sweet, I adored it.

Comments

[susanhatedliterature.net]

Leverage is one of those shows that I'll always watch if I come across it. But for some strange reason it always seems to be the episode about the potato... I might still watch it, but at the same time I'd like to see ones I haven't already watched.

And yes to the Wayfarers books. Awesome