Literary fiction · Similar reads
Books like Intermezzo
The best books like Intermezzo are Educated: A Memoir, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Intermezzo by Sally Rooney is about grief and mourning, brotherhood, age-gap relationships. 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.
- Educated: A Memoir
01
Tara Westover · Memoir
Educated is Tara Westover's memoir about growing up in a survivalist family in rural Idaho and eventually earning a PhD in history from Cambridge University.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
02
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
Trevor Noah · Memoir
Born a Crime is Trevor Noah's memoir about growing up mixed-race in South Africa during the final years of apartheid and its chaotic aftermath.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
03
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers · Memoir
Dave Eggers's debut memoir about losing both parents to cancer within five weeks and raising his younger brother Toph while trying to start a literary magazine in San Francisco in the mid-1990s arrived in 2000 with unusual self-consciousness about its own nature.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Angela's Ashes
04
Frank McCourt · Memoir
Angela's Ashes is Frank McCourt's memoir of a catastrophically impoverished Irish Catholic childhood, first in Brooklyn and then in Limerick, during the 1930s and 1940s.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - The Namesake
05
Jhumpa Lahiri · Literary fiction
The Namesake follows the Ganguli family across three decades, beginning with Ashoke and Ashima's arranged marriage and their immigration from Calcutta to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and extending into the American adulthood of their son, Gogol.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - The Lincoln Highway
06
Amor Towles · Literary fiction
The Lincoln Highway unfolds over ten days in June 1954.
Both dig into brotherhood.
Read the summary → - The Lovely Bones
07
Alice Sebold · Literary fiction
The Lovely Bones is narrated by Susie Salmon, a fourteen-year-old girl who has been murdered by her neighbor and is watching her family from her personal heaven.
Both dig into grief and mourning.
Read the summary → - A Farewell to Arms
08
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
09
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
10
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
11
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
12
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 →
Books like Intermezzo: quick answers
What are the best books like Intermezzo?
The best books like Intermezzo by Sally Rooney are Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with Intermezzo, such as grief and mourning, brotherhood, age-gap relationships.
What should I read after Intermezzo?
A natural next read after Intermezzo is Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover. A kindred literary fiction read. Other strong choices are Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.
What books are similar to Intermezzo by Sally Rooney?
Intermezzo centers on grief and mourning, brotherhood, age-gap relationships. Books with a similar feel include Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
