18 books like A Student of Weather

What to read after A Student of Weather — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

A Painted House John Grisham · 2000 · ★ 4.1 · 462p · ≈ 15h · Moderate Using his own childhood for inspiration (and leaving the lawyers behind), bestselling author John Grisham sets A Painted House in 1950s rural Arkansas. During harvest time, together with hired Mexicans and hill people, seven-year-old Luke Chandler picks cotton on his family's rented 80 acres. But racial tension, a forbidden love affair, and murder cause Luke to grow up before he's ready. Shares: Rural families, Farm life, Bildungsromans

The Game A. S. Byatt · 1967 · ★ 4.0 · 286p · ≈ 9h · Moderate From the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession comes a novel portraying a sibling rivalry which compels us to reconsider the uses and misuses of imagination."Complex and thoughtful."—The Times Literary SupplementWhen they were little girls, Cassandra and Julia played a game in which they entered an alternate world modeled on the landscapes of Arthurian romance. Now the sisters are grown, and… Shares: Sibling rivalry, Sisters

Miss Marjoribanks Margaret Oliphant · 1866 · 546p · ≈ 18h · Challenging When Dr. Marjoribanks’s wife dies, his teenage daughter makes it her purpose in life “to be a comfort to dear papa.” At least, Lucilla thinks, ten years of such devotion might suffice, by which time she might have begun to “go off.” But beneath this grand intention lies a yet more ambitious plan: to revolutionize the moribund and constricted social life of Carlingford. She is remarkably… Shares: Young women, Bildungsromans

The bent twig Dorothy Canfield Fisher · 1915 · 480p · ≈ 16h · Challenging Unlike other young women of her generation, who were "bred up from childhood to sit behind tea-tables and say the right things to tea-drinkers," Sylvia Marshall - the "twig" of this novel - was reared to think for herself and to trust her own instincts and experience. This, coupled with her passionate temperament, makes Sylvia a compelling figure as she resists efforts to mold her with every… Shares: Young women, Bildungsromans

Wish You Well David Baldacci · 2000 · ★ 4.1 · 368p · ≈ 12h · Moderate Precocious 12-year-old Louisa Mae Cardinal lives inthe hectic New York City of 1940 with her family.Then tragedy strikes--and Lou and her younger brother,Oz, must go with their invalid mother to live on theirgreat-grandmother's farm in the Virginia mountains.Suddenly Lou finds herself coming of age in a newlandscape, making her first true friend, and experiencingadventures tragic, comic, and… Shares: Farm life, Bildungsromans, Domestic fiction

Irma Voth Miriam Toews · 2011 · ★ 3.6 · 272p · ≈ 9h · Moderate The stifling, reclusive life of nineteen-year-old Irma Voth, recently married and more recently deserted, is turned on its head when a film crew moves in to make a movie about the strict religious community in which she and her family live. Shares: Sisters, Young women, Bildungsromans

Twelve Nick McDonell · 2002 · ★ 3.2 · 244p · ≈ 8h · Moderate "White Mike is clean. He has never smoked a cigarette in his life. Never had a drink, never sucked down a doobie. But White Mike has become a very good drug dealer, even though it started out as a one-shot deal with his cousin Charlie. White Mike was a good student, but he's been out of school for six months, and though some people might wonder what he's doing, no one seams to care very much that… Shares: Bildungsromans, New york

The Henna Artist Alka Joshi · 2020 · ★ 4.2 · 384p · ≈ 12h · Moderate A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLERA REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK"Captivated me from the first chapter to the final page."—Reese WitherspoonVivid and compelling in its portrait of one woman’s struggle for fulfillment in a society pivoting between the traditional and the modern, The Henna Artist opens a door into a world that is at once lush and fascinating, stark and cruel.Escaping… Shares: Sisters, Young women

No name Wilkie Collins · 1862 · ★ 4.1 · 561p · ≈ 18h · Challenging No Name is a 19th-century novel by the master of sensation fiction, Wilkie Collins. A country gentleman is killed in an accident and his wife dies shortly after him. The blow is double for their daughters, who discover that they were born before their parents were married. Their sudden illegitimacy robs them of their inheritance and their accustomed place in society. Shares: Sisters, Young women

Fall On Your Knees:A Novel Ann-Marie MacDonald · 1996 · ★ 3.9 · 508p · ≈ 16h · Moderate The story of a jinxed family, a catalog of rape, incest and death. James Piper abuses his daughter, atones by sending her to New York to study singing while he goes to war, she returns pregnant, dies in childbirth when her mother opens her to save her twins. One of the twins dies, mother commits suicide, the second twin contracts polio while being baptized in a creek by an aunt, the aunt is raped… Shares: Sisters, Domestic fiction, New york

Candy Terry Southern · 1964 · ★ 3.9 · 224p · ≈ 7h · Moderate Banned upon its initial publication, the now-classic Candy is a romp of a story about the impossibly sweet Candy Christian, a wide-eyed, luscious, all-American girl. Candy -- a satire of Voltaire's Candide -- chronicles her adventures with mystics, sexual analysts, and everyone she meets when she sets out to experience the world. Shares: Young women, Bildungsromans

Big Girl Danielle Steel · 1911 · ★ 3.7 · 386p · ≈ 12h · Challenging In this heartfelt and incisive new novel, Danielle Steel celebrates the virtues of unconventional beauty while exploring deeply resonant issues of weight, self-image, sisterhood, and family. A chubby little girl with blond hair, blue eyes, and ordinary looks, Victoria Dawson has always felt out of place in her family, especially in body-conscious L.A. Her father, Jim, is tall and slender, and… Shares: Sisters, Young women, Bildungsromans, Domestic fiction

World's fair E. L. Doctorow · 1985 · ★ 3.9 · 288p · ≈ 9h · Moderate Recalls a certain New York City boyhood in the 1930s, through the eyes of the child himself and then him as an adult trying to reconstruct the past. Shares: Bildungsromans, New york

Trading Up Candace Bushnell · 2002 · ★ 3.3 · 586p · ≈ 19h · Moderate A lingerie model whose fame and success have gone to her head, Janey Wilcox becomes involved in a world of too much money and too little ethics where she is forced to reexamine her values to determine how far she is willing to go to succeed. Shares: Young women, Bildungsromans, New york

Roustabout Michelle Chalfoun · 1996 · ★ 4.3 · 236p · ≈ 7h · Moderate the seedy side of the circus through the eyes of a young female worker Shares: Young women, Bildungsromans

Running Cara Hoffman · 2017 · ★ 4.3 · 288p · ≈ 9h · Moderate "Running brings together an ensemble of outsiders who get by as "runners"hustlers who sell tourists on low-end accommodations for a small commission and a place to stay. Bridey Sullivan, a young American woman who has fled a peculiar and traumatic upbringing in Washington State, takes up with a queer British couple, the poet Milo Rollack and Eton drop-out Jasper Lethe. Slipping in and out of… Shares: Young women, Bildungsromans

The Invisible Circus Jennifer Egan · 1994 · ★ 3.6 · 338p · ≈ 11h · Moderate In Jennifer Egan’s highly acclaimed first novel, set in 1978, the political drama and familial tensions of the 1960s form a backdrop for the world of Phoebe O’Connor, age eighteen. Phoebe is obsessed with the memory and death of her sister Faith, a beautiful idealistic hippie who died in Italy in 1970. In order to find out the truth about Faith’s life and death, Phoebe retraces her steps from San… Shares: Sisters, Bildungsromans

Folly and Glory Larry McMurtry · 2001 · ★ 4.4 · 236p · ≈ 7h · Moderate "As this finale opens, Tasmin and her family are under irksome, though comfortable, arrest in Mexican Santa Fe. Her father, the eccentric Lord Berrybender, is planning to head for Texas with his whole family and his retainers, English, American and Native American. Tasmin, who would once have followed her husband, Jim Snow, anywhere, is no longer even sure she likes him, or knows where to go… Shares: Young women, Bildungsromans, Domestic fiction

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