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Demian

Hermann Hesse · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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❤️

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

BildungsromanIdentity FormationFaith CrisisMentor Relationship
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

James Joyce · 228 pages

Stephen Dedalus grows up in Dublin, feeling different from the other boys. His childhood and adolescence are shaped by bullying, his father's weaknesses and the growing realization that in order to make his way in the world he must reject a conventional life and boecome an artist. Penguin Popular Classics are the perfect introduction to the world-famous Penguin Classics series — which encompass

BildungsromanIdentity FormationFaith CrisisBoarding School
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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

BildungsromanMentor RelationshipFriendship and BetrayalSlow-Paced
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This Side of Paradise

F. Scott Fitzgerald · 256 pages

This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald's romantic and witty first novel, was written when the author was only twenty-three years old. This semi-autobiographical story of the handsome, indulged, and idealistic Princeton student Amory Blaine received critical raves and catapulted Fitzgerald to instant fame. Now, readers can enjoy the newly edited, authorized version of this early classic of the

BildungsromanIdentity FormationWorld War ISelf-Discovery
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Prep

Curtis Sittenfeld · 427 pages

Curtis Sittenfeld's debut novel, Prep, is an insightful, achingly funny coming-of-age story as well as a brilliant dissection of class, race, and gender in a hothouse of adolescent angst and ambition.Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate famil

BildungsromanBullyingBoarding SchoolIdentity Formation
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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.

BildungsromanBullyingSlow-PacedClassics
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David Copperfield

Charles Dickens · 742 pages

BildungsromanFriendship and BetrayalBullyingDense Prose
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The Fall

Albert Camus · 147 pages

Faith CrisisSlow-PacedSelf-DiscoveryDense Prose
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The Inferno

Dante Alighieri · 288 pages

Dante, after becoming lost on the path of life, is led by Virgil into Hell to begin his journey back to the light of God.

Faith CrisisPhilosophyMentor RelationshipLyrical Prose
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All the King's Men

Robert Penn Warren · 490 pages

The story is about Willie Stark, a slick politician of humble birth, who was based on real-life Huey Long, a Louisiana governor, but the real main character is Jack Burden, a reporter who serves to narrate the story and Stark's rise to power.

Friendship and BetrayalPhilosophySlow-PacedLyrical Prose
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The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath · 258 pages

The Bell Jar is a classic of American literature, with over two million copies sold in this country. This extraordinary work chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, successful - but slowly going under, and maybe for the last time. Step by careful step, Sylvia Plath takes us with Esther through a painful month in New York as a contest-winning junior

BildungsromanIdentity FormationSelf-DiscoverySlow-Paced
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Franny and Zooey

J.D. Salinger · 202 pages

Franny came out in The New Yorker in 1955, and was swiftly followed in 1957 by Zooey. Both stories are early entries in a narrative series about the Glasses, a family of settlers in twentieth-century New York. In the first story, Franny, a young college girl, arrives in New Haven (Yale) to be with her boyfriend for a football weekend, where they go to a café. The story is essentially an account of

Faith CrisisSlow-PacedSelf-DiscoveryMentor Relationship
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Sophie's World

Jostein Gaarder · 456 pages

The protagonists are Sophie Amundsen, a 14-year-old girl, and Alberto Knox, her philosophy teacher. The novel chronicles their metaphysical relationship as they study Western philosophy from its beginnings to the present. A bestseller in Norway.

Identity FormationMentor RelationshipComing of AgeSlow-Paced
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A Wizard of Earthsea

Ursula K. Le Guin · 198 pages

The first novel of Ursula K. Le Guin's must-read Earthsea Cycle. "The magic of Earthsea is primal; the lessons of Earthsea remain as potent, as wise, and as necessary as anyone could dream." (Neil Gaiman) Ged was the greatest sorcerer in Earthsea, but in his youth he was the reckless Sparrowhawk. In his hunger for power and knowledge, he tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible sha

BildungsromanMentor RelationshipFriendship and BetrayalSelf-Discovery
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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

BildungsromanIdentity FormationSelf-DiscoveryBullying
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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

BildungsromanIdentity FormationBoarding SchoolSelf-Discovery
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Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Herman Melville · 420 pages

A classic of the sea, telling of the pursuit of Moby Dick, the white whale who defied capture.

Faith CrisisFriendship and BetrayalSlow-PacedClassics
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Taran Wanderer

Lloyd Alexander · 256 pages

The fourth book of the Prydain cycle tells of the adventures that befell Taran when he went in search of his birthright and the truth about himself.

BildungsromanMentor RelationshipIdentity FormationSlow-Paced
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Assassin's Apprentice

Robin Hobb · 435 pages

Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow of the royal court by his father's gruff stableman. He is treated like an outcast by all the royalty except the devious King Shrewd, who has him secretly tutored in the arts of the assassin. For in Fitz's blood runs the magic Skill--and the darker knowledge of a child raised with the stable hounds and rejected by hi

BildungsromanBullyingMentor RelationshipSlow-Paced
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Paradise Lost

John Milton · 336 pages

John Milton's Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny. The struggle rages across three worlds - heaven, hell, and earth - as Satan and his ban

Faith CrisisSlow-PacedPhilosophyMentor Relationship
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Go Tell It on the Mountain

James Baldwin · 226 pages

In one of the greatest American classics, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power

BildungsromanIdentity FormationFaith CrisisSelf-Discovery
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Bless Me, Ultima

Rudolfo Anaya · 252 pages

Ultima, a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic, comes to Antonio Marez's New Mexico family when he is six years old, and she helps him discover himself in the magical secrets of the pagan past.

BildungsromanIdentity FormationFaith CrisisComing of Age
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The Red Badge of Courage

Stephen Crane · 175 pages

The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel by American author Stephen Crane (1871–1900). Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound, a "red badge of courage," to counteract his cowardice. When his regiment once again faces the enemy, Henry acts as standar

Identity FormationSelf-DiscoveryClassicsComing of Age
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Dead Poets Society

N.H. Kleinbaum · 166 pages

Todd Anderson and his friends at Welton Academy can hardly believe how different life is since their new English professor, the flamboyant John Keating, has challenged them to "make your lives extraordinary!" Inspired by Keating, the boys resurrect the Dead Poets Society--a secret club where, free from the constraints and expectations of school and parents, they let their passions run wild. As Kea

BildungsromanFriendship and BetrayalSelf-DiscoveryMentor Relationship

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