In September of this year, two-time Oscar Award-winning Spanish filmmaker, screenwriter and producer Pedro Almodóvar released his memoir, The Last Dream, a collection of 12 stories and personal essays — and we’re obsessed. Compiled over more than 50 years, the director has deemed this collection a “fragmentary autobiography.” Part biography and part imaginative writing, with no intention of straightforwardly recounting his life, The Last Dream does not follow any of the “rules” around memoirs, but it’s that interdisciplinary approach that makes it so compelling. 

Inspired by Almodóvar, we’ve rounded up five more must-read picks. These novels, which span time, place, and genre are worth your time precisely because of their refusal to conform.

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston

Published in 1976, The Woman Warrior is a melting pot of a memoir about the author’s first-generation American experience. But unlike a typical memoir, Hong Kingston’s novel goes beyond just the personal, blending her mother’s personal stories of China with elements of Chinese folklore and history and giving context to the author’s experiences and identity.

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

What does an ordinary life look like? Probably something like yours. And is that worthy of writing about? Rosenthal proves that it is, narrating her own life through  alphabetically organized encyclopedia entries featuring vignettes, stories, charts, maps and various lists. It’s a unique format that makes the recounting of the ordinary, in fact, extraordinary.

The Undying by Anne Boyer

As its subtitle—“Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care”—makes clear, this is a memoir that scans the experience and costs of living with breast cancer in the U.S, through the author’s own diagnosis and experience with the illness. The memoir, which was released in 2019, has been heralded as “extraordinary and furious” by the New York Times. 

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

Author Helen Macdonald grew up with a unique dream. As a child, she wanted to become a falconer. When, as an adult, Macdonald is faced with the death of her father, she embarks on a spiritual journey to live out that childhood dream. Macdonald’s stunning memoir, and recounting of this journey,  blends nature writing, memoir, biography and history into a personal reflection on grief. 

Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz

Arguably the quintessential “It girl” of the 1960s and ‘70s, author Eve Babitz’s novels unflinchingly depict the reality of Los Angeles during these decades, both the good and the nitty gritty. In Slow Days, Fast Company, Babitz uses her collection of short essays to offer a glamorous and cutting look into her life during this period,