Literary fiction · Similar reads
Books like Ethan Frome
The best books like Ethan Frome are The Age of Innocence, The Portrait of a Lady, and All Quiet on the Western Front. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is about entrapment and duty, desire and repression, rural poverty. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- The Age of Innocence
01
Edith Wharton · Literary fiction
Newland Archer is a well-meaning, intelligent young man preparing to marry May Welland — a suitable, beautiful, entirely conventional young woman from his own social world — when her cousin Ellen Olenska arrives in New York.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - The Portrait of a Lady
02
Henry James · Literary fiction
Isabel Archer is an intelligent, independent young American woman who arrives in Europe convinced that she wants nothing more than to be free — free from convention, from the pressure to marry, from the enclosures that other women seem to accept without complaint.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - All Quiet on the Western Front
03
All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque · History
All Quiet on the Western Front follows Paul Bäumer, a young German soldier who enlists with his classmates during the First World War after being swept up in patriotic speeches.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Farewell to Arms
04
Ernest Hemingway · Literary fiction
A Farewell to Arms is set during the First World War in northern Italy and follows Frederic Henry, an American serving as a lieutenant in the Italian ambulance corps, who falls in love with Catherine Barkley, a British nurse.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Fine Balance
05
Rohinton Mistry · Literary fiction
A Fine Balance is set in an unnamed Indian city during Indira Gandhi's Emergency of 1975–1977, a period of suspended democracy, forced sterilization, and slum clearances that is barely taught in the West and barely taught in India.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Little Life
06
Hanya Yanagihara · Literary fiction
A Little Life follows four men from college into middle age and beyond — Willem, an actor; JB, a painter; Malcolm, an architect; and Jude, a lawyer with a past that is revealed in increasingly devastating detail as the novel progresses.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
07
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
James Joyce · Literary fiction
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man traces the intellectual and spiritual development of Stephen Dedalus from early childhood to the edge of adulthood, when he leaves Ireland to pursue life as an artist.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Thousand Acres
08
Jane Smiley · Literary fiction
A Thousand Acres retells King Lear on a thousand-acre Iowa farm in the 1970s.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Visit from the Goon Squad
09
Jennifer Egan · Literary fiction
A Visit from the Goon Squad is a novel told in thirteen chapters, each from a different point of view and sometimes in a radically different form — including one chapter composed entirely as a PowerPoint presentation.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
10
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain · Literary fiction
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn begins where Tom Sawyer left off — Huck Finn, the outcast son of the town drunk, has been taken in and given a respectable life he doesn't want.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - American Pastoral
11
Philip Roth · Literary fiction
American Pastoral opens with a narrator, Nathan Zuckerman, learning at a high school reunion about the life and death of Seymour "the Swede" Levov — a man who embodied postwar American success so completely he seemed almost allegorical.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Americanah
12
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie · Literary fiction
Americanah follows Ifemelu, a young Nigerian woman who leaves Lagos for America as a university student and spends fifteen years navigating a country that insists on categorizing her in ways Nigeria never did.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary →
Books like Ethan Frome: quick answers
What are the best books like Ethan Frome?
The best books like Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton are The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with Ethan Frome, such as entrapment and duty, desire and repression, rural poverty.
What should I read after Ethan Frome?
A natural next read after Ethan Frome is The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. A kindred literary fiction read. Other strong choices are The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway.
What books are similar to Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton?
Ethan Frome centers on entrapment and duty, desire and repression, rural poverty. Books with a similar feel include The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
