Books like

Books like Girl at War

12 books with a reading profile close to Girl at War by Sara Nović. Inward-looking and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

  1. 1 American Wife

    American Wife

    by Curtis Sittenfeld

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

    Alice Blackwell, a quiet, bookish girl from Wisconsin, becomes a librarian and a teacher, and later marries Charlie Blackwell, a wealthy Republican who becomes President of the United States.

  2. 2 Yellow Wife

    Yellow Wife

    by Sadeqa Johnson

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

    Born into a life of relative privilege on a Virginia plantation, Pheby Delores Brown is promised her freedom at age eighteen.

  3. 3 The Mercies

    The Mercies

    by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

    Also inward-looking · history, narrative

    In 1617, a sudden storm kills every man in the remote Norwegian fishing village of Vardø.

  4. 4 A Northern Light

    A Northern Light

    by Jennifer Donnelly

    Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

    Set in 1906 in the Adirondack Mountains, the story follows Mattie Gokey, a farm girl torn between a university scholarship and her obligations to her widowed father and siblings.

  5. 5 The Bastard of Istanbul

    The Bastard of Istanbul

    by Elif Shafak

    Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

    Asya Kazancı is a nineteen-year-old Turkish girl in Istanbul, raised in a household of women, with no knowledge of who her father is.

  6. 6 The Mad Women's Ball

    The Mad Women's Ball

    by Victoria Mas

    Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

    Set in 1885 at the Salpêtrière asylum in Paris, the narrative follows Eugénie Cléry, a young woman committed to the institution by her father after she reveals her ability to speak with spirits.

  7. 7 Girl in Hyacinth Blue

    Girl in Hyacinth Blue

    by Susan Vreeland

    history, narrative

    The narrative follows a single, fictional Vermeer painting backwards through time, beginning with its mid-century concealment by a man whose father looted it from a Jewish family during the Holocaust.

  8. 8 Betty

    Betty

    by Tiffany McDaniel

    history, narrative

    Set in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains during the mid-twentieth century, the narrative follows Betty Carpenter, one of eight siblings born to a white mother and a Cherokee father.

  9. 9 Dominicana

    Dominicana

    by Angie Cruz

    history, narrative

    Ana Cancion is fifteen when she marries Juan Ruiz, a man twice her age, in the Dominican Republic in 1965, so that her family can eventually emigrate.

  10. 10 Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

    Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

    by Kathleen Rooney

    history, narrative

    On New Year's Eve in 1984, eighty-five-year-old Lillian Boxfish sets out for a walk around Manhattan.

  11. 11 The Vanishing Half

    The Vanishing Half

    by Brit Bennett

    Also inward-looking · history, narrative

    In the small town of Mallard, Louisiana, the light-skinned Vignes twins, Desiree and Stella, grow up in a community that prizes fair complexions.

  12. 12 The Storm We Made

    The Storm We Made

    by Vanessa Chan

    Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

    In 1930s British Malaya, Cecily Alcantara works as a low-level clerk while feeling the sting of colonial hierarchy.

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