Source
r/suggestmeabook•
AnonMSme

Need a book with a (preferably female) main character that has anger management or other emotional intelligence issues.

My daughter (8yo) and I read a lot of books together. We use these as a launching point to various conversations. Right now I'm trying to find books that would let us talk about emotional intelligence, that is, the ability for people to be aware of their own emotions and not be controlled by them.

I'm looking for a book where one of the main characters (Doesn't need to be the protagonist. Someone else with a lot of front row time would be fine) has issues controlling their emotions or being aware of them.

She's 8 but she reads at a pretty high level. Finished LOTR and a few Heinlein YA novels and currently reading Dune (yes, I'm a giant sci-fi / fantasy dork and clearly influence her choices). So adult themes are ok. Excessive gore, rape, graphic violence are not (so no GoT recs please).

  • Sci-Fi / Fantasy preferred but not a must.
  • If possible, the person struggling with their emotions should be a girl / woman.

Posted Nov 9, 2021, 8:20 PM UTC

13
Splooshkat•

Maybe not struggling with their emotions in exactly the way you are meaning, but The Calculating Stars has a main character with anxiety issues.

1
Birdsongbee•

Percy Jackson has Clarisse though she might not enter until the 2nd book.

The princess diaries is cheesy but lots of emotional intelligence conversationscould be sparked, but maybe not around anger.

Jake and lily by Jerry spinelli might work.

1
nmk537•

The Westing Game has a big cast of characters, but one of the central figures is Turtle Wexler, a bright 13-year-old girl with anger issues that perhaps stem from being marginalized by an overbearing mother. Her big sister Angela, burdened by being the obvious favorite, is outwardly angelic enough, but she keeps her own emotional turmoil bottled up until it finally erupts in an unexpected way. More broadly, the book's third person omniscient point of view is used well to show how sometimes everyone else can see something obvious about a person that they cannot perceive about themselves, while other times a person's inner life is kept buried deeply away from view.

1