ALABAMA - Friend Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Fannie Flagg ALASKA - The Snow Child, Eowyn Ivey ARIZONA - Almanac of the Dead, Leslie Marmon Silko ARKANSAS - True Grit, Charles Portis CALIFORNIA - The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan COLORADO - Sabrina & Corina, Kali Fajardo-Anstine CONNECTICUT - On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong DELAWARE - The Book of Unknown Americans, Cristina Henríquez FLORIDA - Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston GEORGIA - The Color Purple, Alice Walker HAWAII - Sharks in the Time of Saviors, Kawai Strong Washburn IDAHO - Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson ILLINOIS - House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros INDIANA - We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler IOWA - A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley KANSAS - The Last Rancher, Robert Robein KENTUCKY - The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, Kim Michele Richardson LOUISIANA - The Moviegoer, Walker Percy MAINE - Night of the Living Rez, Morgan Talty MARYLAND - Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Anne Tyler MASSACHUSETTS - Little Women, Louisa May Alcott MICHIGAN - Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides MINNESOTA - The Sentence, Louise Erdrich MISSISSIPPI - Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward MISSOURI - Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn MONTANA - The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Emily Danforth NEBRASKA - My Ántonia, Willa Cather NEVADA - Crank, Ellen Hopkins NEW HAMPSHIRE - Mad Honey, Jennifer Finney Boyland & Jodi Picoult NEW JERSEY - Dear Edward, Ann Napolitano NEW MEXICO - Bless Me Ultima, Rudolfo Anaya NEW YORK - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith NORTH CAROLINA - House With Good Bones, T Kingfisher NORTH DOKOTA - The Round House, Louise Erdrich OHIO - Beloved, Toni Morrison OKLAHOMA - Shark Heart, Emily Habeck OREGON - The Bones Beneath My Skin, TJ Klune PENNSYLVANIA - Fun Home, Allison Bechdel PUERTO RICO - The House on the Lagoon, Rosario Ferré RHODE ISLAND - The Wedding People, Allison Espach SOUTH CAROLINA - Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix SOUTH DOKOTA - Winter Counts, David Heska Wanbli Weiden TENNESSEE - A Death in the Family, James Agee TEXAS - Atmosphere, Taylor Jenkins Reid UTAH - Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey VERMONT - The Secret History, Donna Tartt VIRGINIA - Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver WASHINGTON - Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie WEST VIRGINIA - Compound Fracture, Andrew Joseph White WISCONSIN - A Sand Country Almanac, Aldo Leopold WYOMING - Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx

i am open to changing anything already listed, and want to make it clear this list is not in a yayyy america way but an attempt to try to read voices from all over the country i live in and learn more about my neighbors and their surroundings and struggles, and celebrate those voices instead of celebrating the system we continue to fight against. if that makes sense!!

Some ideas… Nebraska - The Magician’s Assistant, The Lincoln Highway, Eleanor & Park New Hampshire - Mad Honey New Jersey - The Radium Girls, Dear Edward New York - Natural Beauty, Immaculate Conception, Martyr!, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, The God of the Woods, The Seven Year Slip, Hum, Cleopatra and Frankenstein, Felix Ever After, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, Brooklyn, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The City We Became, A Certain Hunger, The Plot, They Both Die at the End, The Change, The Goldfinch North Carolina - Legendborn, Book Lovers, A House with Good Bones North Dakota - The Round House, The Only Good Indians Ohio - True Biz, Beloved Oklahoma - Shark Heart, Ready Player One Oregon - The Bones Beneath My Skin, We Used to Live Here Pennsylvania - Fun Home, Beautyland, Jackal, Long Bright River, The School for Good Mothers, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, The Dutch House Rhode Island - The Wedding People, Keeper of Enchanted Rooms South Dakota - Winter Counts Vermont - The Secret History, Notes on an Execution, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, The Starless Sea, A Trace of Something Stranger, Ink Blood Sister Scribe West Virginia - The Lost Story, Compound Fracture

ADORE this list - about to absolutely be slamming the tbr button!!!

I should have known there wouldn't be a Nebraska one 🥲 As a Nebraska native I'm now determined to find a good book for this list!

Came here to recommend demon copperhead but you’ve already got it 😌 So how about Apple: Skin to Core by Eric Gansworth for New York State?

A suggestion for Utah: Black Widows by Cait Quinn!

You could add "All that's left in the world" by Erik J Brown, it's about two boys who fall in love after the apocalypse and travel through the US to find other survivors.