I enjoy romantic comedies as much as the next person, but I tend to drift towards novels with darker topics. These are the books that focus on uncomfortable situations: rape, incest, mental illness, suicide, etc. But they are also the kind of topics we need to be discussing.

Some authors handle difficult topics better than others. Here is a list of books I have found that, while they are depressing, they start the conversation on the harder stuff.

1. "Love Letters to the Dead" by Ava Dellaira.

Topic: Grief.

Told in the form of letters to Kurt Cobain and other dead celebrities, Love Letters to the Dead follows high school freshman Laurel, who is still reeling from the loss of her beautiful and lively older sister May. Through her letters that she never turns in to her English teacher, she struggles to find her own place in the high school hierarchy while coming to terms with the secret she’s been keeping about May’s death: it was her fault.

2. "The First Time She Drowned" by Kerry Kletter.

Topic: Mental illness, unhealthy parent-child relationships.

The First Time She Drowned follows Cassie, an 18-year-old girl who has spent the past two years of her life in a mental hospital because of her unstable, cold-hearted, narcissistic mother. At the beginning of the novel, she has checked herself out of the hospital and goes to college, only to have her mother turn her life upside down again. There are certain points in the novel where you question Cassie’s sanity, but as she builds healthier relationships with other people, you start to figure out who is really the crazy one. Sometimes, parents really do mess their kids up.

3. "I Was Here" by Gayle Forman.

Topic: Suicide.

What do you do when your best friend takes her own life? That is what Cody asks herself when her best friend Meg commits suicide her freshman year of college. She goes to Meg’s school to collect her things for Meg’s grieving parents, and uncovers her friend had been keeping awful secrets from her. Through all this, Cody has to come to terms with the truths about Meg and how to deal with the grief.

4. "The Impossible Knife of Memory" by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Topic: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Better known for her novel Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson’s other novel, The Impossible Knife of Memory, focuses on Hayley, a teenaged girl whose father, Andy, is a veteran with PTSD. She hides her father’s illness from everyone, deciding they are better off without outside help. This plan is doomed to fail, especially since Hayley not only has friends for the first time in her new town, but a potential boyfriend as well.

Since Laurie Halse Anderson lived through this herself, she paints a realistic portrait of how mental illness, particularly PTSD, does not only effect the individual, but also everyone close to him or her.

5. "A World Without You" by Beth Revis.

Topic: Mental illness.

Bo is a time-traveler—at least he thinks he is. When his girlfriend Sofia commits suicide, he’s convinced she’s not actually dead, but trapped somewhere in the past. Beth Revis has a way of writing that makes you wonder if Bo really is a time-traveler and everyone simply thinks he’s crazy. Regardless, A World Without You explores the idea of reality and how you can’t change the past, but you can change your future.

6. "Forbidden" by Tabitha Suzuma.

Topic: Incest.

Lochan and Maya are brother and sister and best friends, who must take on the parenting role for their three younger siblings after their mother disappears. They lean on each other for support and survival—which leads to a completely controversial, some argue unnatural, situation. Realist that I am, I knew the romantic relationship between Lochan and Maya was doomed to fail. Still, it begs the question of how is love considered “wrong” in society’s eyes when the two people truly love each other.

7. "The Sun is Also a Star" by Nicola Yoon.

Topic: Immigration.

The Sun is Also a Star came out near the end of 2016 and blew up everywhere on BookTube. If you want diversity in your literature, this one is perfect for you: Daniel, a Korean-American poet with strict parents, falls in love with Natasha, a Jamaican immigrant who is about to be deported with her family back to Jamaica. The whole book is told within 24 hours and you fall in love just as Daniel is making Natasha fall in love with him. You also learn a little bit about family, religion, cultural identity, and what the American dream really means.

8. "Pretty Girl-13" by Liz Coley.

Topic: Trauma, abuse, and mental illness.

Angela is thirteen years old when a stranger abducts her while on a Girl Scout camping trip. Three years later, she turns up on her parents’ doorstep with no recollection of her abduction. In fact, she thinks she’s still thirteen. Angela is later diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder and her four alternate personalities have spent the past three years protecting her from the horror she experienced at the hands of her captor. As she pieces her broken memories together, there is more to her past than she thought. Yes, this book is dark and scary and sometimes horrifying, but it is absolutely worth the read if you are interested in criminal justice or psychology.

9. "Me Before You" by Jojo Moyes.

Topic: Assisted suicide.

26-year-old Lou is charged with taking care of Will, a cranky quadriplegic with a heartbreaking mission: live out the next six months for the sake of his parents and then go to a hospital in Switzerland where he the doctors end his life. Lou does everything she can think of to change his mind, but the whole book begs the question of personal choices and how each individual determines his or her own quality of life—and if that life is worth living.

10. "I’ll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson.

Topic: Sexuality, sibling rivalry, and family turmoil.

Jude and Noah were twins who were as close as could be—until one misunderstanding and one terrible tragedy tore them apart. Both are keeping secrets from the other; Jude was jealous of her brother’s artistic ability and the bond he had with their mother, while Noah struggled with his sexuality and envied his sister’s athletic skills that earned their father’s praise. Told in dual time periods—Jude when they are 16, Noah when they are 13—it’s all about the twins getting back to each other and moving on from their grief.