Books like

Books like Kindred

12 books with a reading profile close to Kindred by Octavia E. Butler. Deep and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

How Much of These Hills Is Gold

by C Pam Zhang

Also deep and thought-provoking · history, narrative

Set against the declining years of the American Gold Rush, the novel follows Lucy and Sam, two orphaned siblings of Chinese descent, as they carry their father’s decomposing body across a harsh western landscape.
2

Wandering Stars

by Tommy Orange

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Wandering Stars traces a lineage of a Cheyenne family from the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre and the forced assimilation at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School to the present day.
3

The Night Watch

by Sarah Waters

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Set in London during and immediately after the Second World War, the narrative moves backward in time from 1947 to 1941.
4

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

by Anthony Marra

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

In a rural village in war-torn Chechnya, Akhmed rescues an eight-year-old girl named Havaa after her father is abducted by Russian soldiers.
5

In the Time of the Butterflies

by Julia Alvarez

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

In 1960, three of the four Mirabal sisters were beaten to death on a road in the Dominican Republic because they had opposed the dictator Rafael Trujillo.
6

The Night Watchman

by Louise Erdrich

Also deep and thought-provoking · history, narrative

Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at a jewel-bearing plant in rural North Dakota in 1953, and also a Chippewa council member.
7

Matrix

by Lauren Groff

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Cast out from the royal court of Eleanor of Aquitaine, seventeen-year-old Marie of France arrives at a destitute English abbey to serve as its new prioress.
8

Of Women and Salt

by Gabriela Garcia

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Spanning from nineteenth-century Cuban cigar factories to a modern-day detention center in Texas, the narrative follows five generations of women linked by blood and migration.
9

The Vaster Wilds

by Lauren Groff

Also deep and thought-provoking · history, narrative

In the early seventeenth century, a young servant girl escapes a starving, disease-ridden colonial settlement in North America, fleeing alone into the winter wilderness.
10

The Covenant of Water

by Abraham Verghese

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

Spanning seven decades in Kerala, South India, the narrative follows three generations of a family afflicted by a peculiar medical condition known as the Condition.
11

Americanah

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Also deep and thought-provoking · history, narrative

Ifemelu and Obinze are young lovers in military-ruled Nigeria who depart the country for different hemispheres.
12

There Are Rivers in the Sky

by Elif Shafak

Also thought-provoking · history, narrative

The narrative follows a single drop of water across centuries, linking three distinct lives shaped by the Tigris and Thames rivers.

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