Books like Jennie Gerhardt
12 books with a reading profile close to Jennie Gerhardt by Theodore Dreiser. Inward-looking and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
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1
Sister Carrie
Also thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Eighteen-year-old Caroline Meeber leaves her rural Wisconsin home for Chicago with nothing but a small satchel and a desire for material comfort.
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2
Burial Rites
by Hannah Kent
Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Based on the true story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, this novel follows the final months of the last woman executed in Iceland.
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3
Ethan Frome
Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Set in the frozen landscape of Starkfield, Massachusetts, the story follows Ethan Frome, a farmer trapped in a hollow marriage to his sickly, suspicious wife, Zeena.
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4
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
by Anne Brontë
Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Helen Graham arrives at a desolate Yorkshire estate under a shroud of secrecy, sparking intense local gossip and the unwanted attention of a neighboring farmer, Gilbert Markham.
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5
Bless Me, Ultima
Also thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Six-year-old Antonio Márez grows up in a New Mexico village in the 1940s, in a household divided between his father's wandering family and his mother's farming one.
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6
Galatea
Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
In this short story, a statue carved from ivory is granted life by a goddess, becoming the wife of her creator, Pygmalion.
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7
Silas Marner
by George Eliot, John O'Connor
Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Silas Marner is a reclusive weaver living in the village of Raveloe after being falsely accused of theft by his religious community in Lantern Yard.
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8
Home
Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Frank Money, a Black Korean War veteran, wakes up in a psychiatric ward in Seattle in the 1950s, haunted by what he saw in battle.
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9
Shirley
Also thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Set in Yorkshire during the Napoleonic Wars, the narrative centers on the industrial unrest caused by the Orders in Council and the introduction of textile machinery.
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10
The Shipping News
by Annie Proulx
Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Quoyle, a socially inept and physically ungainly third-rate newspaperman, retreats to his ancestral home in Newfoundland following the death of his unfaithful wife and the discovery of his parents’ double suicide.
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11
The Winter of Our Discontent
Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
Ethan Allen Hawley, a scion of a formerly wealthy New England family, works as a grocery clerk for an immigrant shopkeeper in the fictional town of New Baytown.
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12
The Interestings
by Meg Wolitzer
Also inward-looking and thought-provoking · narrative, literary
The story begins in 1974 at a summer arts camp where six teenagers—Jules, Ash, Goodman, Ethan, Jonah, and Cathy—form a tight-knit circle based on their shared creative ambitions.
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