AmongReaders.com Add a tiny library
📚 AmongReaders — track what you read, talk chapter by chapter without spoilers, and read with friends. Free.Join AmongReadersSign in

🧲 Books like this

I am J

Cris Beam · back to the book

What’s in it

Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.

24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

Every Day

David Levithan · 330 pages

Every morning A wakes in a different person's body, in a different person's life, learning over the years to never get too attached, until he wakes up in the body of Justin and falls in love with Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon.

Gender IdentityIdentity FormationSelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ Protagonist
❤️

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

John Green, David Levithan · 331 pages

One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two teens—both named Will Grayson—are about to cross paths. As their worlds collide and intertwine, the Will Graysons find their lives going in new and unexpected directions, building toward romantic turns-of-heart and the epic production of history’s most fabulous high school musical.Hilarious, poignant, and deeply insightful, John Green and D

Identity FormationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistSelf-Discovery
❤️

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Benjamin Alire Saenz · 368 pages

Fifteen-year-old Ari Mendoza is an angry loner with a brother in prison, but when he meets Dante and they become friends, Ari starts to ask questions about himself, his parents, and his family that he has never asked before.

Identity FormationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistSelf-DiscoveryComing of Age
❤️

Luna

Julie Anne Peters · 248 pages

Regan's brother Liam can't stand the person he is during the day. Like the moon from whom Liam has chosen his female namesake, his true self, Luna, only reveals herself at night. In the secrecy of his basement bedroom Liam transforms himself into the beautiful girl he longs to be, with help from his sister's clothes and makeup. Now, everything is about to change-Luna is preparing to emerge from he

Gender IdentityIdentity FormationSelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ Protagonist
🙂

Paper Towns

John Green · 320 pages

One month before graduating from his Central Florida high school, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen basks in the predictable boringness of his life until the beautiful and exciting Margo Roth Spiegelman, Q's neighbor and classmate, takes him on a midnight adventure and then mysteriously disappears.

Identity FormationSelf-DiscoveryComing of AgeTeenagers
🙂

Middlesex

Jeffrey Eugenides · 544 pages

A unique coming of age story. While the main character in this novel is dealing with gender identity issues the main focus of this brilliantly written story is the confusion we all face as we grow into the person we were meant to be. The reader finds himself identifying with the main character's experiences. This is a brilliantly written story. The prose is honest in a way that few authors dare t

Gender IdentityIdentity FormationSelf-DiscoveryComing of Age
🙂

Wandering Son, Vol. 2

Takako Shimura

Gender IdentityIdentity FormationComing of AgeTeenagers
🙂

That Summer

Sarah Dessen · 198 pages

During the summer of her divorced father's remarriage and her sister's wedding, fifteen-year-old Haven comes into her own by letting go of the myths of the past.

Identity FormationSelf-DiscoveryTeenagersComing of Age
🙂

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

Identity FormationTeenagersComing of AgeSelf-Discovery
🙂

Freakboy

Kristin Elizabeth Clark · 437 pages

Brendan Chase is an athlete, a star student, and boyfriend to the perfect girlfriend, Vanessa. She has silky brown hair, soft skin, and gentle curves -- everything that Brendan could ever want. Except that Brendan wants much more. He doesn't just want to be with her; he wants to be like her. At least sometimes he does. Is there a name for people like him? Guys who maybe sometimes want to be girls?

Gender IdentityIdentity FormationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistSelf-Discovery
🙂

Being Emily

Rachel Gold · 264 pages

They say whoever you are it's okay, you were born that way. Those words don't comfort Emily because she was born Christopher and her insides know that her outsides are all wrong.

Gender IdentityIdentity FormationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistSelf-Discovery
🙂

From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun

Jacqueline Woodson · 141 pages

Melanin Sun has a lot to say. But sometimes it's hard to speak his mind, so he fills up notebooks with his thoughts instead. He writes about his mom a lotu they're about as close as they can be, because they have no other family. So when she suddenly tells him she's gay, his world is turned upside down. And if that weren't hard enough for him to accept, her girlfriend is white. Melanin Sun is angr

Identity FormationComing of AgeSelf-DiscoveryCharacter-Driven
🙂

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children

Kirstin Cronn-Mills

"This is Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, on community radio 90.3, KZUK. I’m Gabe. Welcome to my show." My birth name is Elizabeth, but I’m a guy. Gabe. My parents think I’ve gone crazy and the rest of the world is happy to agree with them, but I know I’m right. I’ve been a boy my whole life. When you think about it, I’m like a record. Elizabeth is my A side, the song everybody knows, and Gab

Gender IdentitySelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ ProtagonistTeenagers
🙂

In One Person

John Irving · 448 pages

A New York Times bestselling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love—tormented, funny, and affecting—and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a "sexual suspect," a phrase first used by John Ir

Gender IdentityIdentity FormationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistComing of Age
🙂

Parrotfish

Ellen Wittlinger · 304 pages

Gender IdentitySelf-DiscoveryTeenagersLGBTQ+ Protagonist
🙂

The Chosen

Chaim Potok · 284 pages

It's about two jewish boys from different jewish sects with very differing doctrine. The kids meet in the unlikely circumstance of a baseball game, and a terrible accident, that leads them to be lifelong friends

Identity FormationTeenagersComing of AgeTeen Protagonist
🙂

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Becky Albertalli · 336 pages

Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the bo

Self-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ ProtagonistComing of AgeTeenagers
🙂

The Goldfinch

Donna Tartt · 817 pages

"The Goldfinch is a rarity that comes along perhaps half a dozen times per decade, a smartly written literary novel that connects with the heart as well as the mind....Donna Tartt has delivered an extraordinary work of fiction."--Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review Composed with the skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present day America and a drama of enthra

Self-DiscoveryComing of AgeNew York CityTeenagers
🙂

Love Letters to the Dead

Ava Dellaira · 327 pages

When Laurel starts writing letters to dead people for a school assignment, she begins to spill about her sister's mysterious death, her mother's departure from the family, her new friends, and her first love.

Self-DiscoveryComing of AgeTeenagersYoung Adult
🙂

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Rachel Cohn, David Levithan · 183 pages

It all starts when Nick asks Norah to be his girlfriend for five minutes. He only needs five minutes to avoid his ex-girlfriend, who's just walked in to his band's show. With a new guy. And then, with one kiss, Nick and Norah are off on an adventure set against the backdrop of New York City--and smack in the middle of all the joy, anxiety, confusion, and excitement of a first date.This he said/she

Coming of AgeSelf-DiscoveryTeenagersLGBTQ+ Protagonist
🙂

Tipping the Velvet

Sarah Waters · 480 pages

Nan King, an oyster girl, is captivated by the music hall phenomenon Kitty Butler, a male impersonator extraordinaire treading the boards in Canterbury. Through a friend at the box office, Nan manages to visit all her shows and finally meet her heroine. Soon after, she becomes Kitty's dresser and the two head for the bright lights of Leicester Square where they begin a glittering career as music-h

Gender IdentityLGBTQ+ ProtagonistSelf-DiscoveryComing of Age
🙂

I Am the Messenger

Markus Zusak · 386 pages

Coming of AgeSelf-DiscoveryTeenagersTeen Protagonist
🙂

The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

Ann Brashares · 373 pages

Can't wait for the next installment of the Pants? Check out the SPECIAL EDITION of The Second Summer of the Sisterhood, in stores now!Inside you'll find an exclusive "Who's Your Soul Mate Quiz" and a sneak peak at the third book, Girls in Pants.With a bit of last summer's sand in the pockets, the Traveling Pants and the Sisterhood that wears them embark on their 16th summer.Bridget: Impulsively s

Identity FormationSelf-DiscoveryComing of AgeTeenagers
🙂

Alex As Well

Alyssa Brugman · 224 pages

Raised as a boy, fourteen-year-old Alex, who has male and female sexual body parts, rejects the hormonal medications prescribed by his mother and decides to live as a girl.

Gender IdentityIdentity FormationSelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ Protagonist

In the works

To be read SpinnerCan’t pick your next book? Spin your Want to read.Blind date with a bookPick a mood, unwrap a surprise.Add a tiny librarySnap a little free library and its books.