Neither is
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series.
They grapple with different forms of heaviness. The books I suggested actually aren't nearly as intense or dense as they may seem based on their topics or my descriptions. Promise.
They have a lot of hopeful and interesting passages, and are surprisingly enjoyable to read. I know it doesn't seem like a book about the biography of cancer could conceivably be entertaining, but it legitimately is, ha. At least to me it was, and I've recommended it to a lot of people who've enjoyed it. It's definitely one of my top ten favorites.
On Immunity: An Inoculation was one of the books Mark Zuckerberg recommended for a book club he started on Facebook, and a family friend discovered it that way and suggested it to me. It's a rainy Sunday afternoon sort of read, short and smooth to flow through, but memorable and relevant.
Another nonfiction book I really loved is Trevor Noah's
Born a Crime about his experiences growing up biracial during the apartheid era in South Africa
. It's phenomenal. And it's extremely entertaining. As is
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover about her experiences being home schooled and having to educate herself. Both are really inspiring.
For fiction books, I just finished
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds and recommend. I started it at like midnight and at one point considered just staying up all night to finish it. It was so freaking good. Completely captivating.
I
pretty much everything John Green has ever written, even his worst books have been worth the read to me. I love the YouTube channel he and his brother run too.
I also really loved
The Hate U Give. I
still have not seen the movie so I always hesitate to talk about it because I'm afraid people will give me spoilers, ha. I'm definitely interested to know if you've read it and if so, what you thought of it, especially since you're an Australian and may have a different perspective (it deals with the experiences of a girl named Starr after witnessing her friend, an unarmed teen, being shot by a police officer).