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

Matthew Flinders' Cat

Bryce Courtenay · 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. Start over

24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

Shantaram

Gregory David Roberts · 936 pages

Un prófugo de una prisión de alta seguridad en Australia y llega a Bombay dejando tras de sí toda su vida anterior: una ex - esposa y una hija de la cual ha perdido su custodia. Su nombre es Lin, pero pronto será conocido como Shantaram, el hombre de la paz de Dios. En Bombay conoce a Prabaker, su guía hindú, poseedor de una eterna sonrisa que le hace ganarse a todo el mundo. Prabaker le enseña a

Mentor RelationshipAddictionSubstance AbuseBig City
❤️

Gather

Kenneth M. Cadow · 325 pages

Publisher Annotation: A resourceful teenager in rural Vermont struggles to hold on to the family home while his mom recovers from addiction in this striking debut novel.

AddictionSubstance AbuseMentor RelationshipCharacter-Driven
❤️

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.

AddictionSubstance AbuseMentor RelationshipCharacter-Driven
🙂

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

AddictionMentor RelationshipSubstance AbuseContemporary Fiction
🙂

For One More Day

Mitch Albom · 208 pages

In an inspirational debut novel by the author of Tuesdays with Morrie, Charles "Chick" Benetto, grieving over the death of his mother, uses alcohol as a crutch to deal with his loneliness, isolation, and depression and the disintegration of his life, until an encounter with his mother's ghost brings him new awareness and leads him to attempt to put his life back together.

AddictionSubstance AbuseCharacter-DrivenContemporary Fiction
🙂

I See You've Called in Dead

John Kenney · 294 pages

AddictionSubstance AbuseBig CityCharacter-Driven
🙂

The River Is Waiting

Wally Lamb · 451 pages

Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that's before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness

AddictionSubstance AbuseCharacter-DrivenEmotional
🙂

Long Bright River

Liz Moore · 473 pages

A female cop begins to fear for her addicted sister. A serial murder is targeting homeless female prostitutes. Can Mickey find her sister before the killer does ?

AddictionBig CitySubstance AbuseContemporary Fiction
🙂

The Shack

William Paul Young · 252 pages

This book is a life changing in the way you think about a higher power and who,what,and why, He makes the decisions He does. It will make you think of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in a whole new way. An excellent read.

Mentor RelationshipCharacter-DrivenSubstance AbuseContemporary Fiction
🙂

Factotum

Charles Bukowski · 205 pages

One of Charles Bukowski's best, this beer-soaked, deliciously degenerate novel follows the wanderings of aspiring writer Henry Chinaski across World War II-era America. Deferred from military service, Chinaski travels from city to city, moving listlessly from one odd job to another, always needing money but never badly enough to keep a job. His day-to-day existence spirals into an endless litany o

AddictionBig CitySubstance AbuseCharacter-Driven
🙂

I Am the Messenger

Markus Zusak · 386 pages

Mentor RelationshipCharacter-DrivenSubstance AbuseEmotional
🙂

The Spectacular Now

Tim Tharp

In the last months of high school, charismatic eighteen-year-old Sutter Keely lives in the present, staying drunk or high most of the time, but that could change when starts working to boost the self-confidence of a classmate, Aimee.

AddictionSubstance AbuseCharacter-DrivenContemporary Fiction
🙂

Rachel's Holiday

Marian Keyes · 570 pages

RACHEL'S HOLIDAY, Marian's classic novel about addiction, is being given a new lease of life with a fantastic new jacket treatment. Here's Rachel Walsh, twenty-seven and the miserable owner of size 8 feet. She has regular congress with Luke Costello, a man who wears his leather trousers tight. And she's fond - some might say too fond - of recreational drugs. Until she finds herself being frogmarch

AddictionSubstance AbuseCharacter-DrivenEmotional
🙂

Rosie

Anne Lamott · 275 pages

If Elizabeth Ferguson had her way, she'd spend her days savoring good books, cooking great meals, and waiting for the love of her life to walk in the door. But it's not a man she's waiting for, it's her daughter, Rosie-her wild-haired, smart-mouthed, and wise-beyond-her-years alter ego. With Rosie around, the days aren't quite so long, but Elizabeth can't keep the realities of the world at bay, an

AddictionSubstance AbuseCharacter-DrivenContemporary Fiction
🙂

Bright Lights, Big City

Jay McInerney · 182 pages

Written entirely in the second person, McInerney's first novel is a vivid account of cocaine addiction.

AddictionBig CitySubstance AbuseContemporary Fiction
🙂

The Casual Vacancy

J.K. Rowling · 512 pages

When Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…. Pagford is no

AddictionSubstance AbuseCharacter-DrivenContemporary Fiction
🙂

Ask Again, Yes

Mary Beth Keane · 388 pages

AddictionSubstance AbuseContemporary FictionCharacter-Driven
🙂

A Far Better Thing

H.G. Parry · 416 pages

AddictionSubstance AbuseCharacter-DrivenEmotional
🙂

Pay It Forward

Catherine Ryan Hyde · 299 pages

The story of a social studies teacher who gives an assignment to his junior high school class to think of an idea to change the world for the better, then put it into action. When one young student creates a plan for "paying forward" favors, he not only affects the life of his struggling single mother, but he sets in motion an unprecedented wave of human kindness which, unbeknownst to him, has blo

AddictionSubstance AbuseCharacter-DrivenContemporary Fiction
🙂

Go

John Clellon Holmes · 311 pages

AddictionBig CitySubstance AbuseCharacter-Driven
🙂

The Taste of Salt

Martha Southgate · 281 pages

"Josie Henderson is most at home in and around water, and as a senior-level black female scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, she is practically alone in her field. But in building this impressive life for herself, she has tried to shed the one thing she cannot: her family roots back in Cleveland. When Tick, her brother and childhood ally against their alcoholic father, arrives o

AddictionSubstance AbuseCharacter-DrivenContemporary Fiction
🙂

Cost

Roxana Robinson · 420 pages

AddictionSubstance AbuseCharacter-DrivenEmotional
🙂

Walking Disaster

Jamie McGuire · 442 pages

AddictionSubstance AbuseContemporary FictionEmotional
🙂

Trainspotting

Irvine Welsh · 352 pages

Scottish writer Irvine Welsh's first novel, Trainspotting, is a collection of short-stories revolving around a group of friends, their drug use, and struggles in the city of Edinburgh.

AddictionBig CitySubstance AbuseContemporary Fiction
📖 New 2026 Kindles just released. See them on Amazon ↗