Literary fiction · Similar reads
Books like The Kite Runner
The best books like The Kite Runner are A Thousand Splendid Suns, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, and The Sympathizer. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is about guilt and redemption, class and ethnic division, father-son 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.
- A Thousand Splendid Suns
01
Khaled Hosseini · Historical fiction
A Thousand Splendid Suns follows two Afghan women across nearly forty years of their country's turbulence: Mariam, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy merchant who is married off at fifteen to a much older man in Kabul, and Laila, a young woman from a different generation whose family is destroyed in a rocket strike during the civil war and who is subsequently forced into the same household.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
02
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Ishmael Beah · Memoir
Ishmael Beah was twelve years old when the Sierra Leone civil war reached his village and he was separated from his family.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - The Sympathizer
03
Viet Thanh Nguyen · Literary fiction
The Sympathizer is narrated by a nameless communist spy who is also the aide-de-camp to a South Vietnamese general.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
04
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
Marjane Satrapi · Memoir
Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's graphic memoir of growing up in Tehran during and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Crossroads
05
Jonathan Franzen · Literary fiction
It is Christmas Eve 1971 in the Chicago suburb of New Prospect, Illinois, and the Hildebrandt family is in various states of crisis.
Both dig into guilt and redemption.
Read the summary → - The Mayor of Casterbridge
06
Thomas Hardy · Literary fiction
The Mayor of Casterbridge opens with an act so audacious it takes a moment to process: a drunken hay-trusser named Michael Henchard sells his wife and infant daughter at a country fair for five guineas.
Both dig into guilt and redemption.
Read the summary → - Great Expectations
07
Charles Dickens · Classics
Great Expectations follows Pip, an orphan boy on the Kent marshes who is yanked from modest obscurity into the orbit of wealth and social aspiration when an anonymous benefactor funds his move to London.
Both dig into guilt and redemption.
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 The Kite Runner: quick answers
What are the best books like The Kite Runner?
The best books like The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini are A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi, Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The Kite Runner, such as guilt and redemption, class and ethnic division, father-son relationships.
What should I read after The Kite Runner?
A natural next read after The Kite Runner is A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. A kindred literary fiction read. Other strong choices are A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi.
What books are similar to The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini?
The Kite Runner centers on guilt and redemption, class and ethnic division, father-son relationships. Books with a similar feel include A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi, Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen, The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
