Books like

Books like The River

12 books with a reading profile close to The River by Peter Heller. Clear-cut; an easy read.

  1. 1 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.

  2. 2 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.

  3. 3 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.

  4. 4 Portrait of a Thief

    Portrait of a Thief

    by Grace D. Li

    thriller, narrative

    Will Chen, a senior at Harvard, is recruited by a shadow corporation to spearhead a heist reclaiming five looted zodiac fountainheads from European museums.

  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 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.

  7. 7 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.

  8. 8 Blacktop Wasteland

    Blacktop Wasteland

    by S.A. Cosby

    Also clear-cut · thriller, narrative

    Beauregard "Bug" Montage is a mechanic in rural Virginia struggling to keep his family business afloat while facing mounting household debts.

  9. 9 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.

  10. 10 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.

  11. 11 Notes on an Execution

    Notes on an Execution

    by Danya Kukafka

    thriller, narrative

    Ansel Packer sits on Texas death row with twelve hours left before his lethal injection.

  12. 12 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.

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