Literary fiction · Similar reads
Books like The Lovely Bones
The best books like The Lovely Bones are The Year of Magical Thinking, A Grief Observed, and The Bell Jar. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold is about grief and mourning, childhood and its loss, family dissolution. 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 Year of Magical Thinking
01
Joan Didion · Memoir
Joan Didion's account of the year following the sudden death of her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, is the most rigorous and unflinching memoir of grief in American literature.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - A Grief Observed
- The Bell Jar
03
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 → - The Virgin Suicides
04
Jeffrey Eugenides · Literary fiction
Five sisters.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Beloved
05
Toni Morrison · Literary fiction
Beloved is set in post-Civil War Ohio, where Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman, lives with her daughter Denver in a house shadowed by the ghost of a baby she killed rather than let be taken back into slavery.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Intermezzo
06
Sally Rooney · Literary fiction
Intermezzo is Sally Rooney's fourth novel, following two brothers in Dublin in the months after their father's death.
Both dig into grief and mourning.
Read the summary → - The Sound and the Fury
07
William Faulkner · Literary fiction
The Sound and the Fury is widely considered Faulkner's greatest novel, and it is genuinely one of the most formally radical works in American fiction.
Both dig into family dissolution.
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 Lovely Bones: quick answers
What are the best books like The Lovely Bones?
The best books like The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold are The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, Beloved by Toni Morrison, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The Lovely Bones, such as grief and mourning, childhood and its loss, family dissolution.
What should I read after The Lovely Bones?
A natural next read after The Lovely Bones is The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. A kindred literary fiction read. Other strong choices are A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides.
What books are similar to The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold?
The Lovely Bones centers on grief and mourning, childhood and its loss, family dissolution. Books with a similar feel include The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, Beloved by Toni Morrison, Intermezzo by Sally Rooney — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
