Literary fiction · Similar reads
Books like Normal People
The best books like Normal People are The Bell Jar, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. Normal People by Sally Rooney is about class and social mobility, intimacy and vulnerability, power dynamics in 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.
- The Bell Jar
01
Sylvia Plath · Memoir
The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's only novel, published in January 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, one month before Plath's death.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
02
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 → - Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
03
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 →
- The Alchemist
04
Paulo Coelho · Religion & Spirituality
The Alchemist is a Brazilian novel first published in 1988 and translated into 80 languages, making it one of the most translated books in history.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
05
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.
Both dig into identity formation.
Read the summary → - A Farewell to Arms
06
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
07
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
08
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 Thousand Acres
09
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
10
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
11
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
12
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 →
Books like Normal People: quick answers
What are the best books like Normal People?
The best books like Normal People by Sally Rooney are The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with Normal People, such as class and social mobility, intimacy and vulnerability, power dynamics in relationships.
What should I read after Normal People?
A natural next read after Normal People is The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. A kindred literary fiction read. Other strong choices are A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
What books are similar to Normal People by Sally Rooney?
Normal People centers on class and social mobility, intimacy and vulnerability, power dynamics in relationships. Books with a similar feel include The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
