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Curtis Sittenfeld · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

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

BildungsromanBelongingBoarding SchoolLoss of Innocence
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Demian

Hermann Hesse · 166 pages

A young man awakens to selfhood and to a world of possibilities beyond the conventions of his upbringing in Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse’s beloved novel Demian. Emil Sinclair is a quiet boy drawn into a forbidden yet seductive realm of petty crime and defiance. His guide is his precocious, mysterious classmate Max Demian, who provokes in Emil a search for self-discovery and spiritual fulfillme

BildungsromanBullyingBoarding SchoolLoss of Innocence
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Stargirl

Jerry Spinelli · 192 pages

A celebration of nonconformity; a tense, emotional tale about the fleeting, cruel nature of popularity--and the thrill and inspiration of first love. Ages 12+ Leo Borlock follows the unspoken rule at Mica Area High School: don't stand out--under any circumstances! Then Stargirl arrives at Mica High and everything changes--for Leo and for the entire school. After 15 years of home schooling, Star

BildungsromanBullyingBoarding SchoolBelonging
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I am Charlotte Simmons

Tom Wolfe · 682 pages

"Dupont University - the Olympian halls of learning housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition... Or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a wide-eyed, bookish freshman from a strict, devout, poor and poorly educated family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. But Charlotte soon learns, to her mounting di

BildungsromanBelongingLoss of InnocenceClassism
❤️

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.

BildungsromanLoss of InnocenceSexual AssaultFirst Love
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The House on Mango Street

Sandra Cisneros · 110 pages

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A coming-of-age classic, acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world—from the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for he

BildungsromanBelongingClassismLoss of Innocence
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The Catcher in the Rye

J.D. Salinger · 218 pages

Story of Holden Caufield with his idiosyncrasies, penetrating insight, confusion, sensitivity and negativism. Holden, knowing he is to be expelled from school, decides to leave early. He spends three days in New York City and tells the story of what he did and suffered there.

BildungsromanBoarding SchoolLoss of InnocenceSelf-Deprecating Humor
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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

BildungsromanLoss of InnocenceFirst LoveClassism
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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

BelongingBildungsromanFirst LoveClassism
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The Age of Miracles

Karen Thompson Walker · 304 pages

The coming-of-age story of young Julia, whose world is thrown into upheaval when it is discovered that the Earth's rotation has suddenly begun to slow, posing a catastrophic threat to all life.

Loss of InnocenceBullyingBelongingFirst Love
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Girl in Translation

Jean Kwok · 293 pages

BildungsromanBelongingClassismBullying
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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.

BildungsromanLoss of InnocenceSelf-Deprecating HumorDry Humor
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Before I Fall

Lauren Oliver

Loss of InnocenceBoarding SchoolBullyingFirst Love
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Speak

Laurie Halse Anderson · 197 pages

"Speak up for yourself--we want to know what you have to say." From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated

Loss of InnocenceBullyingSexual AssaultDry Humor
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Just Listen

Sarah Dessen · 377 pages

Last year, Annabel was "the girl who has everything" — at least that's the part she played in the television commercial for Kopf's Department Store. This year, she's the girl who has nothing: no best friend because mean-but-exciting Sophie dropped her, no peace at home since her older sister became anorexic, and no one to sit with at lunch. Until she meets Owen Armstrong. Tall, dark, and mu

BelongingBoarding SchoolBullyingSexual Assault
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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

BildungsromanBelongingBoarding SchoolFirst Love
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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.

BildungsromanSexual AssaultLoss of InnocenceBullying
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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.

BildungsromanSelf-Deprecating HumorLoss of InnocenceDry Humor
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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

BildungsromanLoss of InnocenceBullyingComing of Age
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Sloppy Firsts

Megan McCafferty · 297 pages

When her best friend moves away, sixteen-year-old Jessica is devastated and finds it difficult to deal with the girls at school, her obsessive parents, and her lack of a love life.

Loss of InnocenceBoarding SchoolFirst LoveSelf-Deprecating Humor
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This Song Will Save Your Life

Leila Sales · 288 pages

BelongingBullyingComing of AgeFirst Love
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The Outsiders

S.E. Hinton · 192 pages

According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs f

BildungsromanLoss of InnocenceBelongingClassism
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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.

BildungsromanLoss of InnocenceBullyingBoarding School
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It's Kind of a Funny Story

Ned Vizzini · 444 pages

A humorous account of a New York City teenager's battle with depression and his time spent in a psychiatric hospital.

Self-Deprecating HumorFirst LoveBildungsromanBullying




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