Want to write a powerful memoir? Start by reading one

Before you write your story, read someone else’s.

Memoir writing isn’t just about remembering. It’s about crafting, shaping, distilling, and offering. And to do that well, you need mentors. Not the kind who drink coffee across from you (though those are great too), but the kind who’ve already poured their lives into pages.

As a memoir coach, I always tell aspiring authors:
If you want to write a memoir that inspires, educates, and entertains—read ten good ones first.

Below, I’m sharing the ten memoirs I recommend to every author I coach. Each one is a masterclass in structure, voice, courage, or craft. Each one will crack you open just enough to write more honestly and bravely.

10 Memoirs Every Aspiring Author Should Read

1. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Walls recounts her wildly unstable childhood with a reporter’s restraint and a daughter’s tenderness. It's gritty and grace-filled, often shocking but never self-pitying.

💡 Lesson for memoirists: How to write about family dysfunction with dignity—and how to build a compelling narrative arc from chaos.

2. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Written by a neurosurgeon facing terminal cancer, this memoir is part love letter, part eulogy, part philosophical musing. It’s gentle, urgent, and razor-sharp.

💡 Lesson for memoirists: A powerful example of theme-driven memoir and how to reflect deeply without losing narrative momentum.

3. Educated by Tara Westover

From rural Idaho to the halls of Cambridge, Westover’s journey is one of transformation through education. It's raw, eloquent, and painful in all the right ways.

💡 Lesson for memoirists: A blueprint for chronicling personal growth and confronting painful truths with clarity and courage.

4. Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Yes, it’s about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. But it’s really about walking through grief, rage, and reinvention. Strayed’s voice is fierce, funny, and unforgettable.

💡 Lesson for memoirists: How to structure a memoir around a physical journey that mirrors emotional healing.

5. This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff

Wolff’s childhood was filled with instability, yet he renders it with subtlety and wit. A literary memoir that dances between pain and humor without missing a beat.

💡 Lesson for memoirists: A masterclass in scene writing, dialogue, and the understated power of tone.

6. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

A haunting, intellectual portrait of grief written with Didion’s signature precision. It’s less about emotion and more about the mind’s attempt to out-think the unthinkable.

💡 Lesson for memoirists: How to write about grief with restraint, clarity, and power—letting readers feel without being told how.

7. Heavy by Kiese Laymon

This memoir rips through expectations, shame, race, and love with a rhythmic, poetic style. Laymon breaks the mold—and dares you to follow.

💡 Lesson for memoirists: A powerful example of how voice can be its own character—and how risk leads to resonance.

8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

A pioneering memoir that still sings decades later. Angelou's lyrical prose and unflinching truth helped define the genre.

💡 Lesson for memoirists: How identity, voice, and poetic language shape the way we tell hard stories.

9. H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

What do grief, falconry, and the biography of T.H. White have in common? Everything, it turns out. Macdonald’s memoir is literary, layered, and luminous.

💡 Lesson for memoirists: How to weave personal, historical, and metaphorical threads into a rich, cohesive tapestry.

10. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Food. Family. Grief. Identity. This sensory-rich memoir invites readers into the intimate rituals of a mother-daughter relationship and the ache of cultural loss.

💡 Lesson for memoirists: Teaches how to write through the senses and explore identity through everyday details.

✨ What These Memoirs Teach Us

As you read, don’t just get lost in the story - study it.

Ask:

• How is this structured?

• Where does the story begin, and why?

• How does the author move between past and present?

• What makes this voice stand out?

These books aren’t just memoirs.
They’re blueprints. They’re permission slips. They’re proof.

🚀 Ready to Write Your Memoir?

If you’ve got a story to tell—but need guidance, support, and a dose of courage—I’m here for you.

✅ Join my free Facebook group: Memoir Magic for Aspiring Authors
✅ Take the free quiz: Is My Story Worth Telling? space.com/storyquiz(Spoiler alert: it is.)
✅ Grab my free writing prompts resource right here

Your story matters. Let’s write it—bravely, boldly, beautifully.