Books like

Books like Notes on an Execution

12 books with a reading profile close to Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka. Balanced in tone; an easy read.

  1. 1 The Other Black Girl

    The Other Black Girl

    by Zakiya Dalila Harris

    thriller, narrative

    Nella Rogers is an editorial assistant and the only Black employee at Wagner Books, a prestigious but white-dominated publishing house in New York City.

  2. 2 The Female of the Species

    The Female of the Species

    by Mindy McGinnis

    thriller, narrative

    Alex Craft is a high school student who functions as a vigilante in her small town, three years after the rape and murder of her older sister.

  3. 3 Sadie

    Sadie

    by Courtney Summers

    thriller, narrative

    Nineteen-year-old Sadie Hunter disappears from her small town following the brutal murder of her younger sister, Mattie.

  4. 4 State of Wonder

    State of Wonder

    by Ann Patchett

    thriller, narrative

    Pharmacology researcher Marina Singh travels from Minnesota to the Amazon basin to investigate the death of a colleague and the status of a long-delayed drug project.

  5. 5 A Ladder to the Sky

    A Ladder to the Sky

    by John Boyne

    thriller, narrative

    Maurice Swift is a young waiter with immense literary ambition but zero original ideas.

  6. 6 The Beach

    The Beach

    by Alex Garland

    thriller, narrative

    Alex Garland’s novel follows Richard, a young British backpacker in Bangkok who acquires a hand-drawn map promising a hidden coastal paradise.

  7. 7 A Burning

    A Burning

    by Megha Majumdar

    thriller, narrative

    Set in contemporary Kolkata, the story begins when Jivan, a young Muslim woman living in the slums, posts a comment on Facebook questioning the government’s response to a deadly terrorist attack on a train.

  8. 8 White Ivy

    White Ivy

    by Susie Yang

    thriller, narrative

    Ivy Lin grew up in Chinese immigrant poverty in suburban America, raised by a mother who steals and a grandmother who pushes her to succeed.

  9. 9 The Guest

    The Guest

    by Emma Cline

    thriller, narrative

    Twenty-two-year-old Alex is cast out of her older boyfriend Simon’s wealthy Long Island home after a breach of etiquette.

  10. 10 Penance

    Penance

    by Eliza Clark

    thriller, narrative

    Set in the seaside town of Crow-on-Sea, this novel uses a fictional true-crime format to document the murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson.

  11. 11 The North Water

    The North Water

    by Ian McGuire

    thriller, narrative

    In 1859, Patrick Sumner, a disgraced former army surgeon from the Indian Mutiny, signs on as medic aboard the whaling ship Volunteer, bound for the Arctic.

  12. 12 Maya's Notebook

    Maya's Notebook

    by Isabel Allende

    thriller, narrative

    Maya Vidal is nineteen, a drug addict and a fugitive from Berkeley, California, who has fled to a remote island in Chiloé, in southern Chile, to hide from criminals and the FBI.

Get picks matched to your own reading on papr.

Get papr

Your library, beautifully understood.

papr turns your books into a reading persona, chapter insights you can listen to, and a quiet way to find people who think like you. Free to join.

Get papr — it's free
Download on the App Store Get it on Google Play