(Image credit: Sela Shiloni / Random House)

When you're looking to get lost in a book, sometimes you need your reading material to match your mood. With Marie Claire' s series " Buy the Book ," we do the heavy lifting for you. We're offering curated, highly specific recommendations for whatever you're looking for—whether you're in your feels or hooked on a subgenre trending on #BookTok.

In this author-curated rendition, Anna Konkle —the writer and actress best known for co-creating and starring in the beloved Hulu series Pen15 —shares her favorite "traumedy" books.

When Anna Konkle set out to make PEN15 with her best friend and collaborator, Maya Erskine , she didn’t envision it would be dubbed a “cringe- comedy .” Instead, she thought of the coming-of-age Hulu series as a “traumedy”—a trauma-comedy that uses levity to explore tragedy, or, in this case, the universal woes of middle school.

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Long before the 39-year-old even realized she was interested in writing comedy , Konkle saw…