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The Sorrow of Belgium

Hugo Claus · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

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.

BildungsromanWorld War IIComing of AgeLiterary Fiction
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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

BildungsromanWorld War IIComing of AgeLiterary Fiction
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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.

BildungsromanWorld War IIComing of AgeLiterary Fiction
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Life: An Exploded Diagram

Mal Peet · 400 pages

In 1960s Norfolk, England, seventeen-year-old Clem Ackroyd lives with his mother and grandmother in a tiny cottage, but his life is transformed when he falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy farmer in this tale that flashes back through the stories of three generations.

BildungsromanComing of AgeWorld War IICharacter-Driven
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The Power of One

Bryce Courtenay · 518 pages

Follows Peekay, a white British boy in South Africa during World War II, between the ages of five and eleven, as he survives an abusive boarding school and goes on to succeed in life and the boxing ring, with help from a chicken, a boxer, a pianist, black African prisoners, and many others.

BildungsromanWorld War IIComing of AgeCharacter-Driven
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Saville

David Storey · 506 pages

BildungsromanComing of AgeLiterary FictionWorld War II
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My Brother Jack

George Johnston

BildungsromanComing of AgeWorld War IILiterary Fiction
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The Learning Tree

Gordon Parks · 303 pages

Autobiographical novel about a boy entering his teens in a racially segregated Kansas town in the 1920s.

BildungsromanComing of AgeCharacter-DrivenTeen Protagonist
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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 AgeLiterary FictionWorld War II
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Memoirs of a Geisha

Arthur Golden · 456 pages

A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel tells with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. It begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a n

BildungsromanComing of AgeWorld War IILiterary Fiction
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Summer of '42

Herman Raucher · 251 pages

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

BildungsromanWorld War IIComing of AgeTeen Protagonist
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Jim the Boy

Tony Earley · 227 pages

BildungsromanComing of AgeLiterary FictionTeen Protagonist
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Out of the Shelter

David Lodge · 288 pages

BildungsromanComing of AgeWorld War IILiterary Fiction
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A Long Way from Verona

Jane Gardam · 202 pages

Thirteen-year-old Jessie knows she is a born writer, and through her honest records of parents, classmates and teachers, first love and World War II in England, she reveals her talent.

BildungsromanWorld War IIComing of AgeTeen Protagonist
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Paradise

Abdulrazak Gurnah · 256 pages

BildungsromanComing of AgeLiterary FictionCharacter-Driven
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain · 330 pages

BildungsromanComing of AgeTeen ProtagonistLiterary Fiction
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Martin Marten

Brian Doyle · 309 pages

"Dave is fourteen years old, living with his family in a cabin on Oregon's Mount Hood (or as Dave prefers to call it, like the Native Americans once did, Wy'east). He is entering high school, adulthood on the horizon not far off in distance, and contemplating a future away from his mother, father, and his precocious younger sister. And Dave is not the only one approaching adulthood and its freedom

BildungsromanComing of AgeTeen ProtagonistCharacter-Driven
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Sag Harbor

Colson Whitehead · 288 pages

The warm, funny, and supremely original new novel from one of the most acclaimed writers in AmericaThe year is 1985. Benji Cooper is one of the only black students at an elite prep school in Manhattan. He spends his falls and winters going to roller-disco bar mitzvahs, playing too much Dungeons and Dragons, and trying to catch glimpses of nudity on late-night cable TV. After a tragic mishap on his

BildungsromanComing of AgeLiterary FictionCharacter-Driven
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The Whisper of the River

Ferrol Sams · 528 pages

BildungsromanComing of AgeCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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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

BildungsromanComing of AgeLiterary FictionTeen Protagonist
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An Unfinished Season

Ward Just · 256 pages

BildungsromanComing of AgeLiterary FictionCharacter-Driven
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Brewster

Mark Slouka · 288 pages

It is 1968, and 16-year-old Jon and his friends form a tight friendship in which they find in each other everything they lack at home and plot to leave their dead-end town. The plot contains pervasive profanity, sexual situations, and graphic violence.

BildungsromanComing of AgeLiterary FictionCharacter-Driven
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Sacred Country

Rose Tremain · 384 pages

BildungsromanComing of AgeLiterary FictionCharacter-Driven
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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Betty Smith · 443 pages

The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the century, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchant

BildungsromanComing of AgeTeen ProtagonistHistorical Fiction

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