Books like

Books like The Spectacular Now

12 books with a reading profile close to The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp. Inward-looking and thought-provoking; an easy read.

1

Tom Lake

by Ann Patchett

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

During the 2020 pandemic, Lara gathers with her three adult daughters on their family cherry orchard in Michigan.
2

This One Summer

by Mariko Tamaki

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Rose and Wind are childhood friends who reunite every July at a lakeside cabin in Awago Beach.
3

The Language of Flowers

by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Victoria Jones ages out of the California foster care system with no resources and a history of failed placements.
4

American Born Chinese

by Gene Luen Yang

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

Gene Luen Yang weaves together three distinct narrative threads to examine the internal conflicts of cultural assimilation.
5

The Light Between Oceans

by M.L. Stedman

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Tom Sherbourne, a traumatized veteran of the Great War, takes a job as a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, a remote island off the Western Australian coast.
6

The Immortalists

by Chloe Benjamin

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

In 1969 New York, the four Gold siblings—Varya, Daniel, Klara, and Simon—visit a psychic who predicts the exact date each will die.
7

Interesting Facts about Space

by Emily R. Austin

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Enid Hoffman is a deaf woman who manages her chronic anxiety through a fixation on space trivia and a compulsive habit of monitoring local crime reports.
8

Writers & Lovers

by Lily King

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Set in 1997 Massachusetts, the narrative follows Casey Peabody, a thirty-one-year-old waitress mourning her mother’s sudden death while struggling to finish a novel she has worked on for six years.
9

Black Cake

by Charmaine Wilkerson

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

After the death of Eleanor Bennett, her estranged children, Byron and Benny, reunite in California to hear her final recorded message.
10

I Am the Messenger

by Markus Zusak

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Ed Kennedy is an underage cab driver in a dead-end Australian suburb with no prospects beyond playing cards with his eccentric friends.
11

Hello Beautiful

by Ann Napolitano

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

William Waters grows up in a silent, loveless household, finding his only refuge in basketball.
12

Was man von hier aus sehen kann

by Mariana Leky

Also inward-looking · narrative, accessible

Luise, a ten-year-old girl in a small village in the German Westerwald, learns that whenever her grandmother Selma dreams of an okapi, someone in the village will die within twenty-four hours.

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