Books like

Books like Exciting Times

12 books with a reading profile close to Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan. Inward-looking; a moderate read.

1

Travesuras de la niña mala

by Mario Vargas Llosa

Also inward-looking · romance, narrative

Ricardo, a Peruvian translator who lives in Paris, first falls for Lily, a Chilean girl in Lima in the 1950s.
2

The Paying Guests

by Sarah Waters

Also inward-looking · romance, narrative

Set in 1922 South London, the narrative centers on Frances Wray and her widowed mother, who are forced by financial ruin following the Great War to take in lodgers.
3

Trespasses

by Louise Kennedy

Also inward-looking · romance, narrative

Set in 1970s Belfast during the Troubles, the narrative follows Cushla Lavery, a Catholic primary school teacher who divides her time between her classroom and her family’s pub.
4

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

by Akwaeke Emezi

Also inward-looking · romance, narrative

Five years after the car accident that killed her husband, Feyi Adekola is finally re-entering the dating scene in Brooklyn.
5

Evenings and Weekends

by Oisín McKenna

Also inward-looking · romance, narrative

Set during a sweltering weekend in London, the narrative follows a group of interconnected friends navigating the precariousness of the modern city.
6

Big Swiss

by Jen Beagin

Also inward-looking · romance, narrative

Greta lives in a drafty, unheated farmhouse in Hudson, New York, where she works as a transcriptionist for a sex therapist.
7

In Memoriam

by Alice Winn

Also inward-looking · romance, narrative

In 1914, Gaunt and Ellwood are students at Preshute College, an elite English boarding school where they hide their romantic feelings for one another behind a shared obsession with epic poetry.
8

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

by Bryn Greenwood

Also inward-looking · romance, narrative

Wavy Quinn is the daughter of a meth dealer growing up in a chaotic, neglectful household in rural Kansas.
9

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

by Kiran Desai

Also inward-looking · romance, narrative

Sonia and Sunny are two individuals navigating the isolation of contemporary urban life while attempting to maintain a long-distance connection.
10

The Paper Palace

by Miranda Cowley Heller

Also inward-looking · romance, narrative

Elle Bishop, a middle-aged woman, spends twenty-four hours at her family’s summer camp in Cape Cod, known as The Paper Palace.
11

Open Water

by Caleb Azumah Nelson

Also inward-looking · romance, narrative

Set in South East London, the story follows an unnamed Black photographer and an unnamed Black dancer who meet at a pub and fall in love.
12

Young Mungo

by Douglas Stuart

Also inward-looking · romance, narrative

Set in the housing schemes of 1990s Glasgow, the story follows Mungo Hamilton, a Protestant teenager defined by his gentleness.

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