Cancer Memoirs: A List

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As a cancer patient who loves to read, I wasn’t sure how I would feel reading memoirs from other cancer patients. Would it be too hard? Would it be inspiring or just heartbreaking? My favourite kind of memoirs are the ones that I not only am able to relate to in some way, but also see things from a different perspective as well. That is the thing about cancer, even though there are is a lot to relate to, there are so many difference between cancers, let alone between the people who end up with cancer.

Back when I was fairly fresh from diagnosis, a book loving friend of mine since childhood recommended I pick up the book Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad. At the time, I hadn’t heard of it, as it had just come out and it hadn’t quite exploded across the community as it was about to. After I finished it, I knew I needed more. In the year or so since then, I have been reading even more from all kinds of writers who wrote about their lives with cancer.

Here is a compiled list of all the cancer memoirs I have read so far, all of which I highly recommend, in no particular order. Then I have a list of the ones on my to-read list, which I haven’t had the chance to read yet but plan to eventually. I know there are also celebrity memoirs who have had cancer, but unless they are a celebrity I want to read about, I haven’t really come across any that interested me. And usually those are more autobiographies rather than a ‘cancer memoir’.

I have chosen to add which cancer diagnosis the author was given as a possible trigger warning for each book listed below, given that it’s not a spoiler cause it is a cancer memoir after all.

After the list of ones I have read, I have also added a list of ‘to-read’, that I haven’t gotten to. I will update this list as I read more, and find more. But given that 39% of the population will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, you can imagine how many memoirs there are on the subject. I hope to be able to compile a list of ones that stand out in some way.

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

by Suleika Jaouad

Click Here to Purchase: Kindle or Paperback

Cancer Diagnosis: Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML)

Arguably the most popular cancer memoir of our time, Suleika Jaouad is a treasure in the online cancer community. Her book is a first recommendation to anyone diagnosed within the last couple years, and with good reason. She shares her story of falling sick while having just left to live abroad, and her need to go back to the US and her life through treatment and her amazing journey after cancer. Jaouad shares so many relatable moments that I found myself laughing, crying and highlighting every insight she had on my kindle. To pick one quote of hers to share is hard, and it is full of so much heart and honesty. I recommend this book to everyone, not just fellow cancer patients. Also check out her Isolation Journals, to which I am a member on Substack. It is a beautiful community she has created and I love to do her writing prompts when I am feeling it.

When Breath Becomes Air

by Paul Kalanithi

Click Here to Purchase: Kindle or Paperback

Cancer Diagnosis: Metastatic Lung Cancer

This book is short but packs a punch I wasn’t ready for but glad I dove in regardless. Paul Kalanithi shares his journey as a doctor himself, who is diagnosed with lung cancer. His ability to explain things in such a poignant yet poetic way really helped me accept death. I believe that we all seem to live like we are immortal until we are faced with our mortality, for cancer patients this comes with diagnosis. And we can choose to fear death, or we can make sense of it. Kalanithi helped me personally make peace with the inevitable. I cried from start to finish with this book, so bring the Kleenex.

The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying

by Nina Riggs

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Cancer Diagnosis: Metastatic Breast Cancer

I don’t know what I expected before reading this, as I don’t believe I went in with expectations. But this book had me laughing and crying and smiling. So much emotion! I didn’t expect to laugh as much as I did. As an English teacher, I was fascinated by her relation to Emerson, and can’t help but see writing as something that clearly runs the blood line, or passed down generations in some way. Her writing is beautiful and poetic. It had me tying in her thoughts to things from Emerson’s work I have read previously. I found myself going back to Emerson’s work to connect it to moments she discussed in her own experiences. Nina was so relatable, you just wish you could’ve been her friend.

The Unwinding of a Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After

by Julie Yip-Williams

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Cancer Diagnosis: Colon Cancer

This book is much more than the story of a cancer patient. Julie’s life was nothing short of a miracle, seriously. The title of this book is on point. And I felt myself really drawn to her whole story, and I think this is key in cancer memoirs, the connection back to cancer not being everything. Julie’s writing helped bring me back to remembering that you are more than your cancer. There was life before cancer. And even during treatment and through cancer, there is life and love and more. I really appreciated those bits of life she wrote about that connected back to this being a cancer memoir, but showed that she truly lived in her life that was cut short. Also, one hell of an opening to a book.

No Cure For Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear)

by Kate Bowler

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Cancer Diagnosis: Colon Cancer

I am not going to lie, I was worried this book would be heavy on the religious aspects, given that it’s written by a professor of the history of Christianity and all. And as you’ll see from the next book on this list, she doesn’t shy away from it, but I found this book to be less religious than the first book she put out. Both are memoir-esque, but also commentary on just life with cancer. I highlighted so many parts of this book and found myself discussing the truths she wrote with other cancer patients as I read it. I believe many people would benefit from reading this one, not just cancer patients but caregivers, doctors, nurses, anyone who knows someone with cancer (so everyone I guess?).

Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved)

by Kate Bowler

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Cancer Diagnosis: Colon Cancer

I read this one after reading the above book, not realizing she wrote this one first. Not that there is an order that it needs to be written in. I am actually glad I read this one second, because if I read this one first I may not have read the other one. This one, though insightful and interesting, was just more connected to the religious side of the author, and being not religious myself, I found it harder to connect to and at times a bit boring to get through when it came to the more religious parts. I think others will find it meaningful and insightful for their own lives, if they are religious, but for me it fell short because of it. But at the same time, it was not preachy and I still enjoyed reading her perspective.

In Between Days: A Memoir About Living With Cancer

by Teva Harrison

Click Here to Purchase: Kindle or Paperback

Cancer Diagnosis: Metastatic Breast Cancer

This is a quick read, that I forgot was a graphic novel type memoir. It was a nice change from the heavy memoirs with a little more fun, if that is the right word for it, mixed in with it all. It has some great insight into the world of a cancer patient, without being too daunting of a read. I found Teva’s perspective relatable, at times, but also insightful in understanding the world of a woman with breast cancer. Her art is wonderful as well.

My Cancer Year: A Survivorship Memoir

by Curtis Pesmen

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Cancer Diagnosis: Colon Cancer

When you look through the amount of cancer memoirs out there, you will see it is overwhelmingly women who write of their experiences with cancer. I was curious to read the perspective from a man. Though it was less relatable to me because of it, I do think it would be a good memoir for men with cancer to read, especially any dealing with colon cancer themselves. He has some great insight, and a good laugh here or there too.

Cancer, I’ll Give You One Year

by Jennifer Spiegel

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Cancer Diagnosis: Breast Cancer

I am not going to lie, I saw this cover and judged it immediately, which you really should never do. I thought it would be some cheesy family friendly book of some kind. I don’t know why, but the cover gave me those vibes. But Jennifer had me cracking up repeatedly reading this memoir. And her talk of being a writer and going through cancer was really relatable. I love that it was just ‘this is my story’ and not ‘I did it this way and this is how you should be doing it’. It was straightforward and as she says in the title, ‘a non-informative guide’ is exactly it. I think I also appreciated the lack of pretension in her writing, it felt very real-time, in the moment.

The Cookie Cure: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of Cookies and Cancer

By Susan Stachler with Laura Stachler

Click Here to Purchase: Kindle or Paperback

Cancer Diagnosis: Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

This was an interesting one, as it is the story of the start of a mother-daughter cookie business that came about during the daughter’s cancer treatment. It was told mostly through the writing of the daughter, Susan, but each chapter was a letter written by the mother, Laura, to her deceased sister. Laura’s sister was named Susan, and died from cancer in her twenties. Her husband also had cancer. And then her daughter, whom she named after her sister, had cancer as well. It was an interesting way to write, but I think it may have been more interesting to read their stories separately. The mother’s story as a caregiver for three loved ones, would have been heartbreaking in its own way. But I feel like the daughter held back in her own story, or so it seemed, as she wrote a few times about putting aside her own feelings to do things for her mother that she did not want to. I can’t imagine having to do that, while dealing with cancer yourself. It made me wonder if she held back in her writing for fear of saying how she felt about those moments, truly. But overall it was a nice story.

Wait Time: A Memoir of Cancer

by Kenneth Sherman

Click Here to Purchase: Kindle or Paperback

Cancer Diagnosis: Kidney Cancer

As with the memoir a few back, The Cancer Year, I read this one to see the perspective of a man going through treatment, as I always appreciate a different perspective. Kenneth is also from Toronto and was treated at Princess Margaret Hospital, which is where I had one appointment before being send to Kingston for my stem cell transplant. There were a few things in the book I didn’t appreciate, like the use of a word that should not be used by a white man, and discussion of an ultrasound technician who he seems to be offended by for not wanting to participate in small talk with him . It definitely gave me bad vibes to start the book, but I stuck it through. It took me longer than others to get through as it just wasn’t my cup of tea so to speak. But I could see its appeal to others, perhaps. Especially men, as I mentioned before, there is not as many memoirs out there by men about their experience with cancer. And the author goes into topics others might shy away from.

To-Read List

The following are books I have not read myself yet, but have still compiled a list for. As I read, I will move them to the above list and write about them. But they are here on the list in the meantime. You can click on the book cover to take you to the Goodreads page and read reviews by people who have read them to help you decide if you want to read them yourselves.

I will continue to add books to this list as I find them. I have omitted books that I have found that have extremist views or extreme toxic positivity/religious aspects to them (praying cancer away type stuff) because I will never read those myself and cannot recommend them personally. Some of these may be a tad religious but I tend to steer clear of anything that is based solely around how they used religion to deal with cancer. I apologize to anyone looking for that, this is not the place. Some of the following books could inevitably fall under that category and I won’t know until I read it myself. If you read any of these and have any thoughts on them, please comment on this post for others to see.

In The Body of The World

by Eve Ensler