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Cold Sassy Tree

Olive Ann Burns · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

The Silver Star

Jeannette Walls · 304 pages

Two motherless sisters--Bean and Liz--are shuttled to Virginia, where their Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying mansion that's been in their family for generations. When school starts in the fall, Bean easily adjusts and makes friends, and Liz becomes increasingly withdrawn. Then something happens to Liz and Bean is left to challenge the injustice of the adult world.

BildungsromanComing of AgeFamily SecretsTeen Protagonist
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Summer of '42

Herman Raucher · 251 pages

One summer in the life of a 15-year old boy.

BildungsromanComing of AgeAge Gap RomanceDeath of a Spouse
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Anne of Avonlea

L.M. Montgomery

BildungsromanComing of AgeTeen ProtagonistNostalgic
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A Walk to Remember

Nicholas Sparks · 240 pages

There was a time when the world was sweeter....when the women in Beaufort, North Carolina, wore dresses, and the men donned hats.... Every April, when the wind smells of both the sea and lilacs, Landon Carter remembers 1958, his last year at Beaufort High. Landon had dated a girl or two, and even once sworn that he'd been in love. Certainly the last person he thought he'd fall for was Jamie, the s

Death of a SpouseComing of AgeGrief and MourningNostalgic
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Little Women

Louisa May Alcott · 321 pages

Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, *Little Women*. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War. It is no

BildungsromanComing of AgeNostalgicClassism
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The Catcher in the Rye

Jerome David Salinger · 277 pages

With the author's recent passing, the classic novel about young Holden Caulfield's disillusionment with the adult world and its phoniness will only rise in popularity--and controversy, since it is a favorite target of censors, who often cite profan

BildungsromanComing of AgeGrief and MourningDry Humor
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To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee · 309 pages

One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than 40 languages, sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and voted one of the best novels of the 20th century by librarians across the United States. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poi

BildungsromanComing of AgeClassismNostalgic
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Jim the Boy

Tony Earley · 227 pages

BildungsromanComing of AgeNostalgicCharming
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Circle of Friends

Maeve Binchy · 560 pages

It began with Benny Hogan and Eve Malone, growing up, inseparable, in the village of Knockglen. Benny--the only child, yearning to break free from her adoring parents...Eve--the orphaned offspring of a convent handyman and a rebellious blueblood, abandoned by her mother's wealthy family to be raised by nuns. Eve and Benny--they knew the sins and secrets behind every villager's lace curtains

BildungsromanComing of AgeClassismNostalgic
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The Wednesday Wars

Gary D. Schmidt · 268 pages

Holling Hoodhood is really in for it. He's just started seventh grade with Mrs. Baker, a teacher he knows is out to get him. The year is 1967, and everyone has bigger things to worry about, especially Vietnam. Then there's the family business. As far as Holling's father is concerned, the Hoodhood's need to be on their best behavior: the success of Hoodhood and Associates depends on it. But

BildungsromanComing of AgeTeen ProtagonistCharming
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The Cider House Rules

John Irving · 573 pages

Set in rural Maine in the first half of this century, it tells the story of Dr. Wilbur Larch--obstetrician and director of the orphanage in the town of St. Clouds. It is also the story of his favorite orphan, Homer, who is never adopted.

BildungsromanComing of AgeFamily SecretsFirst Person Narrator
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How to Build a Girl

Caitlin Moran · 341 pages

After she shames herself on local television, Johanna Morgan reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde--a fast-talking, hard-drinking Gothic hero--until two years later, while eviscerating bands as a music critic, she realizes she's built Dolly with a fatal flaw.

BildungsromanComing of AgeNostalgicTeen Protagonist
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A Painted House

John Grisham · 465 pages

Using his own childhood for inspiration (and leaving the lawyers behind), bestselling author John Grisham sets A Painted House in 1950s rural Arkansas. During harvest time, together with hired Mexicans and hill people, seven-year-old Luke Chandler picks cotton on his family's rented 80 acres. But racial tension, a forbidden love affair, and murder cause Luke to grow up before he's ready.

Coming of AgeFamily SecretsTeen ProtagonistHeartwarming
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Demon Copperhead

Barbara Kingsolver · 560 pages

"Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose." Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in hi

BildungsromanComing of AgeClassismTeen Protagonist
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Black Swan Green

David Mitchell · 344 pages

A novel. From hardcover: "Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys’ games on a frozen l

BildungsromanComing of AgeTeen ProtagonistNostalgic
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The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963

Christopher Paul Curtis · 239 pages

The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963.

Coming of AgeTeen ProtagonistDry HumorAmerican South
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I Capture the Castle

Dodie Smith · 360 pages

Cassandra, the 17-year-old narrator, lives an eccentric existence in a crumbling castle in the English countryside in the 1930s. Her father is a former bestselling novelist now suffering from a chronic case of writer's block and her glamorous but bohemian stepmother Topaz is a sometime artist model. Money is in short supply but Cassandra and her discontented older sister Rose are forced to make th

Coming of AgeClassismNostalgicDry Humor
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Out of the Dust

Karen Hesse · 235 pages

"Dust piles up like snow across the prairie. . . ." A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo's life, scarring her inside and out. Her mother is gone. Her father can't talk about it. And the one thing that might make her feel better -- playing the piano -- is impossible with her wounded hands. To make matters worse, dust storms are devastating the family farm and all the farms nearby. Wh

Death of a SpouseComing of AgeGrief and MourningTeen Protagonist
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain · 330 pages

BildungsromanComing of AgeNostalgicTeen Protagonist
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Red Sky at Morning

Richard Bradford · 256 pages

The experiences of a teenager growing up in a small town in New Mexico are, at various times, funny, sad, and poignant.

BildungsromanComing of AgeDry HumorTeen Protagonist
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Run with the Horsemen

Ferrol Sams · 422 pages

A boy's story of growing up on an ancestral farm in Georgia in the early 1900s.

BildungsromanComing of AgeNostalgicTeen Protagonist
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Tell the Wolves I'm Home

Carol Rifka Brunt · 384 pages

It is 1987, and only one person has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus -- her uncle, the renowned painter Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her older sister, June can only be herself in Finn's company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend. So when he dies, far too young, of a mysterious illness her mother can barely speak about, June's world is turned upside d

BildungsromanComing of AgeGrief and MourningNostalgic
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The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Stephen Chbosky · 216 pages

Charlie writes letters to an unknown mail recipient, detailing his struggles with high school, family, and finding his place in the world. Full of beautiful quotes and written with such sincerity, this is a book that makes the reader reflect on their purpose in life, while simultaneously reminding us about the power music, friendships, and "feeling infinite" can have on our life. Read this book.

BildungsromanComing of AgeNostalgicGrief and Mourning
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A Separate Peace

John Knowles · 196 pages

Gene Forrester looks back fifteen years to a World War II year in which he and his best friend were roommates in a New hampshire boarding school.

BildungsromanComing of AgeNostalgicTeen Protagonist

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