Books like

Books like Looking for Alibrandi

12 books with a reading profile close to Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta. Inward-looking and thought-provoking; an easy read.

1

The Black Flamingo

by Dean Atta

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

Michael, a mixed-race teenager of Jamaican and Greek-Cypriot heritage, grows up in London feeling he is never enough of any single identity.
2

Jacob Have I Loved

by Katherine Paterson

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

Set on the isolated island of Rass in the Chesapeake Bay during the 1940s, the story follows Louise Bradshaw’s struggle to find an identity separate from her twin sister, Caroline.
3

Mockingbird

by Kathryn Erskine

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

Ten-year-old Caitlin Ann Smith lives with Asperger’s syndrome in a world of black-and-white rules and literal interpretations.
4

Clap When You Land

by Elizabeth Acevedo

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

Twin sisters Camino and Yahaira Rios live separate lives in the Dominican Republic and New York City, unaware of each other’s existence.
5

Love Letters to the Dead

by Ava Dellaira

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

When Laurel’s English teacher assigns a letter to a deceased person, the high school freshman begins a secret journal addressed to figures like Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, and Amy Winehouse.
6

The Tiger Rising

by Kate DiCamillo

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

Twelve-year-old Rob Horton lives in a Florida motel with his father, mourning his mother’s death while repressing his grief through a skin rash on his legs.
7

Three Days in June

by Anne Tyler

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Set against the humid backdrop of Baltimore, seventeen-year-old June navigates seventy-two hours of familial tension and burgeoning romantic attraction.
8

Girl in Translation

by Jean Kwok

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Kimberly Chang is eleven when she and her mother leave Hong Kong for Brooklyn, with little English and a debt to her aunt Paula, who owns a clothing factory.
9

Maame

by Jessica George

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Twenty-five-year-old Maddie Wright spends her days navigating a high-pressure London office and her nights as the sole caregiver for her father, who struggles with late-stage Parkinson’s disease.
10

Melissa

by Alex Gino

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

Fourth-grader Melissa knows she is a girl, even though everyone else sees her as a boy named George.
11

The Thing About Jellyfish

by Ali Benjamin

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

After her best friend Franny drowns, twelve-year-old Suzy Swanson stops talking.
12

Suicide Notes

by Michael Thomas Ford

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Jeff Weeks is a fifteen-year-old who wakes up in a psychiatric ward after attempting suicide.

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