Books like

Books like The Door

12 books with a reading profile close to The Door by Magda Szabó. Deep, inward-looking, contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

1

Sing, Unburied, Sing

by Jesmyn Ward

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Thirteen-year-old Jojo lives with his grandparents and toddler sister on the Mississippi Gulf Coast while his mother, Leonie, struggles with drug addiction and grief.
2

All the Lovers in the Night

by Mieko Kawakami

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Fuyuko Irie is a freelance proofreader in her mid-thirties who lives a solitary, ritualistic life in Tokyo.
3

Intermezzo

by Sally Rooney

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Peter and Ivan Koubek are brothers navigating personal crises following their father's death.
4

Breasts and Eggs

by Mieko Kawakami

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Natsu is a struggling writer living in Tokyo who receives a visit from her older sister, Makiko, and her niece, Midoriko.
5

Runaway: Stories

by Alice Munro

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Alice Munro's collection has eight stories, many set in rural Ontario.
6

My Dark Vanessa

by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

In 2000, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye begins a sexual relationship with her forty-two-year-old English teacher, Jacob Strane, at a Maine boarding school.
7

Transcendent Kingdom

by Yaa Gyasi

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Gifty is a PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where she studies reward-seeking behavior in mice to understand the neural pathways of addiction and depression.
8

Hot Milk

by Deborah Levy

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Sofia Papastergiadis, a frustrated doctoral student, travels with her mother, Rose, to a private medical clinic in Almería, Spain.
9

Life Before Man

by Margaret Atwood

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Set in Toronto during the late 1970s, the narrative centers on a stagnant love triangle between Elizabeth, her husband Nate, and his lover Lesje.
10

Real Life

by Brandon Taylor

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Wallace, a Black queer doctoral student from Alabama, navigates a tense weekend at a predominantly white Midwestern university.
11

Challenger Deep

by Neal Shusterman

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Caden Bosch is a bright teenager who is slipping into mental illness.
12

A Little Life

by Hanya Yanagihara

Also deep and inward-looking · narrative, psychology

Hanya Yanagihara’s novel follows four college classmates—Willem, JB, Malcolm, and Jude—as they navigate adulthood in New York City.

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