Fictional Found Families

January 3, 2024 7:52 PM

I'm looking for found families in fiction, especially in romance, mystery, fiction fiction, though suggest things from any genre!

I recently read a couple books where all the characters were living together in a large apartment building or rooming house (The Only Purple House in Town; Adult Assembly Required) and I loved them and want more!

SF/F are totally fine genres too - I've just read more in them so I'm more likely to have already read them.

posted by azalea_chant to Media & Arts (30 answers total)

If you haven't read The Expanse series I got a very strong found family vibe from the way the crew of the Rosinante interact. It's perhaps a bit more action-y than you wanted but still very much a thing
posted by Alensin at 8:03 PM on January 3 [3 favorites]

Just off the top of my head: The Guardians of the Galaxy and the crew of the Going Merry in One Piece.
posted by SPrintF at 8:06 PM on January 3 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Sorry - I should have said in books not just "fiction". Looking for books here! Or maybe short stories.
posted by azalea_chant at 8:16 PM on January 3

Hard agree for The Expanse. I missed them when I finished the books.
posted by phunniemee at 8:18 PM on January 3 [2 favorites]

Tales of the City is probably the ur-example of this kind of thing.
posted by mykescipark at 8:20 PM on January 3 [8 favorites]

Melissa Scott and Jo Graham have an alternate-history/secret history series about a found family that runs a small airline in Colorado in the 1920s. Most of the characters are also members of an ancient order of white magicians. It's called Order of the Air.
posted by suelac at 8:25 PM on January 3 [1 favorite]

The Librarianist by Patrick DeWitt has this, as does the Thursday Murder Club mystery series.
posted by lizard music at 8:42 PM on January 3 [1 favorite]

I also would suggest The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky CHambers, and the otehr books in that series.
posted by Alensin at 8:44 PM on January 3 [8 favorites]

Best answer: The Woefield Poultry Collective, by Susan Juby (published as Home to Woefield in the US).

Community Board, by Tara Conklin.

Killers of a Certain Age, by Deanna Raybourn.

Enthusiastically seconding the Thursday Murder Club books!
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 9:09 PM on January 3 [1 favorite]

You haven't defined what a Found Family is and I haven't read those books but if it's a community of unrelated people then I'll suggest Monkey Grip by Helen Garner and second the Maupin books.
posted by dobbs at 9:34 PM on January 3

Cynthia Voigt, Tell Me if the Lovers are Losers. Young adult fiction where the protagonists share a dormitory at university. I can't find a decent review online, but it's at the Internet Archive.

A lot of space opera has the living together found family vibe. An older one is The Witches of Karres.

You could have a look at the found family tag at Smart Bitches.
posted by paduasoy at 11:21 PM on January 3

Especially by book two, the Myth Adventures series.
posted by Sophont at 2:09 AM on January 4

I absolutely adore Sarah Winman's Still Life (NYTimes) or Goodreads. It's a bunch of Londoners who all move away to Florence in the 1950s, for various reasons, and they are just there for each other through so much.
posted by ambrosen at 3:22 AM on January 4

Never Let Me Go
The Midnight Club
posted by phunniemee at 4:40 AM on January 4

Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom. Fantasy heist novels, some of our crew have known each other for years, others are new, but especially by Crooked Kingdom they're so very family.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 4:42 AM on January 4 [1 favorite]

You haven't defined what a Found Family is

The term "Found family" does indeed mean a close-knit community of people unrelated by blood relations.

There's a children's book I enjoyed when I was small called The Animal Family, which begins when a solitary man living in a cabin on a small island finds a mermaid washed up on shore and nurses her back to health, and she sticks around out of gratitude; in time the pair then take in an injured lynx, a bear cub, and then a shipwrecked boy.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:09 AM on January 4 [4 favorites]

The House in the Cerulean Sea
posted by belladonna at 5:25 AM on January 4 [4 favorites]

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston fits the bill in the "queer romance" category, and I third the recommendation for the Thursday Murder Club books!
posted by SeedStitch at 5:52 AM on January 4 [1 favorite]

Lish McBride has a romance series in progress with a good found family. The first book is A Little Too Familiar.
posted by Maeve at 6:16 AM on January 4

You might like this past Ask of mine - Books of friends saving the world, and would recommend the Sharon Shinn Twelve Houses series (minus the 2nd book).
posted by inevitability at 6:31 AM on January 4 [1 favorite]

I was coming here to say Tales of the City but since that's been mentioned I'll add Generation X.
posted by less-of-course at 7:19 AM on January 4

a sophisticated children's novel: The Voyage of QV66 by Penelope Lively (about a group of animals)
posted by an opinicus at 8:35 AM on January 4 [1 favorite]

Just jumping in to say I also enjoyed the first Thursday Murder Club book, but CW for extreme fat shaming.
posted by tangosnail at 9:29 AM on January 4 [1 favorite]

Louise Penny's mysteries contain both the Found Family of Three Pines and the Surete and overlap into Actual Family (but saying how would involve spoilers).

Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic series is the very definition of Found Family.
posted by epj at 1:08 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]

Its a major theme (IMO) of Greenwood by Michael Christie. A great book. "Cloud Atlas meets The Overstory" is a bit reductive but not wrong.
posted by pjenks at 3:38 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]

I just finished a series based around just this theme! It's the Rook and Rose series by M.A. Carrick, starting with The Mask of Mirrors. A theme of the book is found family vs. blood relations. The story starts with a small found family which grows through fits and starts in the series.
posted by rednikki at 9:08 AM on January 5

If you are looking for a book where the found family is mostly already established, Cat Rambo's "You Sexy Thing" is a fun space caper with that theme.
posted by rednikki at 9:09 AM on January 5

Nthing Tales of the City, and also adding A Closed and Common Orbit and The Year Without Sunshine (which I first posted as a FPP a couple of months ago).

(And thanks for this great question - I love found families too!)
posted by kristi at 11:44 AM on January 5

Oh my goodness, how could I forget! The London Charismatics by Jacqueline Benson. Starts with "A Fire in the Glass." Found family in pre-WW1 England, many of whom have psychic powers, attempting to avert disaster. It is lush and wonderful and I don't see it recommended nearly as often as it should be.
posted by rednikki at 1:44 PM on January 5

And also! Infinity Gate by M. R. Carey. That's definitely a "watch the found family come together" kind of book.

If you don't mind lots of action and romance, Kit Rocha's "Mercenary Librarians" will definitely scratch this itch. Postapocalyptic, about a found family creating a better world for each other.
posted by rednikki at 1:58 PM on January 5