Most moms don’t come straight from central casting. Most moms aren’t like the moms we see in movies, on television or in chapter books from our childhood. Most moms don’t get it right every time. Most moms aren’t like, well, most moms. So, for Mother’s Day, here are five books about and for moms who live and think outside the box.

The Leavers: For the mom who understands that the path through motherhood does not run straight or smooth, and sometimes there is no good choice. Lisa Ko’s PEN/Bellwether Prize winning debut is one of the most anticipated novels of the year. It’s a moving story of how a boy comes into his own when everything he loves is taken away, and how a mother learns to live with the mistakes of the past.

Leave Me: For the mom who understands that the path through motherhood does not run straight or smooth, but that makes the journey no less extraordinary. Super-bestselling novelist Gayle Forman shares the honest, humorous, unforgettable story of Maribeth Klein, who has to run away to find her home.

Our Short History: For the mom who understands there is no greater love than a mother’s for her child — and who has a box of Kleenex handy. In Lauren Grodstein’s poignant and witty novel, Karen Neulander faces the last days of her terminal cancer by writing a letter about her life and their life together to her six-year-old son.

What My Mother Gave Me: For the mom who understands that being a mother starts with being a daughter. Thirty-one notable women share the stories of the gifts that meant the most from their mothers, everything from a year of sobriety to a box of nail polish.

The Year My Mother Came Back: For the mom who is always there for you. Even thirty years after her death, Alice Eve Cohen’s mother appears to her, seemingly in the flesh, and continues to do so during the hardest year Alice has had to face: the year her youngest daughter needs a harrowing surgery, her eldest daughter decides to reunite with her birth mother, and Alice herself receives a daunting diagnosis. A memoir about understanding and forgiving.