Literary fiction · Similar reads
Books like The Blind Assassin
The best books like The Blind Assassin are Alias Grace, The Handmaid's Tale, and Educated: A Memoir. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood is about memory and self-deception, class and gender, complicity and survival. 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.
- Alias Grace
01
Margaret Atwood · Historical fiction
Alias Grace is based on the historical case of Grace Marks, a young Irish immigrant servant who was convicted in 1843, along with stable hand James McDermott, of the murders of her employer Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery in Upper Canada.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - The Handmaid's Tale
02
Margaret Atwood · Literary fiction
The Handmaid's Tale is set in the near-future theocratic Republic of Gilead, carved out of what was once the northeastern United States after a coup by a fundamentalist Christian movement.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Educated: A Memoir
03
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 → - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
04
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 → - Mrs Dalloway
05
Virginia Woolf · Literary fiction
Mrs Dalloway takes place over the course of a single June day in London in 1923, following Clarissa Dalloway — the wife of a politician, preparing for an evening party — and Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked veteran who never intersects with Clarissa but exists in parallel throughout the novel.
Both dig into class and gender.
Read the summary → - The Sense of an Ending
06
Julian Barnes · Literary fiction
The Sense of an Ending is a short novel in two parts.
Both dig into memory and self-deception.
Read the summary → - And Then There Were None
07
Agatha Christie · Mystery
Ten strangers are invited to an island off the Devon coast under various pretexts.
Both dig into memory and self-deception.
Read the summary → - Jane Eyre
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Charlotte Brontë · Classics
Jane Eyre is the first-person account of a woman who will not be diminished.
Both dig into class and gender.
Read the summary → - A Farewell to Arms
09
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
10
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
11
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
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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 →
Books like The Blind Assassin: quick answers
What are the best books like The Blind Assassin?
The best books like The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood are Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The Blind Assassin, such as memory and self-deception, class and gender, complicity and survival.
What should I read after The Blind Assassin?
A natural next read after The Blind Assassin is Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. A kindred literary fiction read. Other strong choices are The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.
What books are similar to The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood?
The Blind Assassin centers on memory and self-deception, class and gender, complicity and survival. Books with a similar feel include Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.