Literary fiction · Similar reads
Books like The Virgin Suicides
The best books like The Virgin Suicides are The Bell Jar, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and The Liars' Club. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides is about female adolescence, male gaze and projection, suburban entrapment. 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 → - The Liars' Club
03
Mary Karr · Memoir
Mary Karr's debut memoir about growing up in the oil-refinery town of Leechfield, Texas in the 1960s is widely credited with sparking the memoir boom of the 1990s.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - Educated: A Memoir
04
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 → - Between the World and Me
05
Ta-Nehisi Coates · Memoir
Between the World and Me is a letter from Ta-Nehisi Coates to his teenage son, Samori, about what it means to live in a Black body in the United States.
A kindred literary fiction read.
Read the summary → - The Secret in Their Eyes
06
Eduardo Sacheri · Mystery
Benjamin Chaparro is a recently retired clerk from the Buenos Aires criminal courts.
Both dig into memory and obsession.
Read the summary → - A Farewell to Arms
07
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
08
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
09
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
10
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
11
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
12
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 →
Books like The Virgin Suicides: quick answers
What are the best books like The Virgin Suicides?
The best books like The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides are The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, The Liars' Club by Mary Karr, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The Virgin Suicides, such as female adolescence, male gaze and projection, suburban entrapment.
What should I read after The Virgin Suicides?
A natural next read after The Virgin Suicides 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, The Liars' Club by Mary Karr, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover.
What books are similar to The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides?
The Virgin Suicides centers on female adolescence, male gaze and projection, suburban entrapment. Books with a similar feel include The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, The Liars' Club by Mary Karr, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Secret in Their Eyes by Eduardo Sacheri — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
