Books like

Books like Fresh Complaint: Stories

12 books with a reading profile close to Fresh Complaint: Stories by Jeffrey Eugenides. Inward-looking and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

Stone Mattress: Nine Tales

by Margaret Atwood

Also thought-provoking · narrative, literary

Margaret Atwood's 2014 collection gathers nine stories about aging, grudges and the lingering consequences of old choices.
2

Brick Lane

by Monica Ali

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary

Nazneen is seventeen when she leaves a village in Bangladesh for an arranged marriage to Chanu, a man more than twenty years older, in a London housing estate in Tower Hamlets.
3

March

by Geraldine Brooks

Also thought-provoking · narrative, literary

This novel reimagines the American Civil War from the perspective of John March, the absent father from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.
4

Beautyland

by Marie-Helene Bertino

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary

Adina Gady grew up in Philadelphia believing she was a human girl, but she is actually an extraterrestrial sent to observe the inhabitants of Earth.
5

Flight Behavior

by Barbara Kingsolver

Also thought-provoking · narrative, literary

Dellarobia Turnbow, a restless farm wife in rural Tennessee, discovers a valley filled with millions of monarch butterflies that have deviated from their typical migration path to Mexico.
6

Inseparable

by Simone de Beauvoir

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary

This autobiographical novel tracks the intense friendship between Sylvie and Andrée, fictionalized versions of Simone de Beauvoir and Elisabeth "Zaza" Lacoin.
7

The Wife

by Meg Wolitzer

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary

Joan Castleman has stood beside her husband Joe, a celebrated novelist, for decades.
8

The Safekeep

by Yael van der Wouden

narrative, literary

In 1961 Overijssel, Isabel lives a life defined by rigid routine and the preservation of her late mother’s isolated country estate.
9

The Family Fang

by Kevin Wilson

Also thought-provoking · narrative, literary

Caleb and Camille Fang are performance artists who use their children, Annie and Buster, in public acts of disruption that they call art, creating scenes of chaos in malls and restaurants.
10

Behind the Scenes at the Museum

by Kate Atkinson

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary

Ruby Lennox begins her story at the moment of her conception in 1951 in York, and narrates her family's history through her own eyes.
11

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water

by Angie Cruz

Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary

Set in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the narrative follows Cara Romero, a woman in her sixties who loses her factory job of twenty-five years.
12

Animal Dreams

by Barbara Kingsolver

Also inward-looking · narrative, literary

Codi Noline returns to her rural Arizona hometown to care for her father, a doctor descending into Alzheimer’s disease.

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