18 books like Arcadia

What to read after Arcadia — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

The Girls Emma Cline · 2016 · ★ 3.5 · 352p · ≈ 11h · Moderate Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who… Shares: Communal living, Nineteen sixties

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: Hippies, Bildungsromans

The Broken World Brent Hightower · 2008 · 260p · ≈ 8h · Moderate Product Description The Broken World is the story of twelve-year-old Byrd Keane, growing up in rural New Mexico in the 1960s. Society is everywhere in crisis as his own family is torn apart by mental illness and the Vietnam War. From the last of the old outlaws to hippies in psychedelic school buses, from Hispanic rebellion to apocalyptic physicists who embrace the bomb, everyone is in conflict;… Shares: Hippies, Coming-of-age

The Barrowfields Phillip Lewis · 2017 · ★ 3.8 · 400p · ≈ 13h · Moderate "Just before Henry Aster's birth, his father -- outsized literary ambition and pregnant wife in tow -- reluctantly returns to the small Appalachian town in which he was raised and installs his young family in an immense house of iron and glass perched high on the side of a mountain. There, Henry grows up under the writing desk of this fiercely brilliant man. But when tragedy tips his father… Shares: Homecoming, 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

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

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: Bildungsromans, Coming-of-age

The chocolate money Ashley Prentice Norton · 2012 · 304p · ≈ 10h · Moderate An innocent little girl, A phenomenal fortune, A mother like no other. Ten-year old Bettina and her mother, Babs, are heiresses to one of America's biggest fortunes. But Bettina's whole life is overshadowed by that of her beautiful, hedonistic mother, the glamorous but domineering Babs. At fifteen, Bettina escapes to New England and an exclusive, preppy boarding school called Cardiss, where she… Shares: Bildungsromans, Coming-of-age

Our young man Edmund White · 2016 · ★ 3.3 · 304p · ≈ 10h · Moderate 282 pages ; 20 cm Shares: New york, Coming-of-age

Last Days of Summer Updated Ed Steve Kluger · 1998 · ★ 4.4 · 368p · ≈ 12h · Moderate From Goodreads: The hilarious and heart–warming story about a down–and–out kid who finds inspiration in his favourite baseball hero. In Brooklyn, 1940, a wisecracking, baseball loving twelve–year–old boy, Joey Margolis, is in desperate need of a hero. His rich father has recently divorced his mother, leaving her all but penniless, and she is forced to move herself and her son to an Italian… Shares: Bildungsromans, New york

Midnight Whispers V.C. Andrews · 1991 · ★ 3.9 · 440p · ≈ 14h · Moderate HAPPY AND INNOCENT, DAWN'S DAUGHTER CHRISTIE HAS GROWN UP IN THE SAFEST, MOST LOVING OF HOMES... Yet Christie can't help feeling as if a dark cloud hovers over Cutler's Cove... a cloud whose origins lie in her family's troubled history, and the many questions no one, not even Dawn, will answer. Only one person can always chase away her blues: Gavin, Daddy Jimmy's young and handsome… Shares: Bildungsromans, New york

All the ugly and wonderful things Bryn Greenwood · 2016 · ★ 4.0 · 349p · ≈ 11h · Moderate "As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It's safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight. Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house, until one night her star gazing… Shares: Bildungsromans, Coming-of-age

Lucy. Roman Jamaica Kincaid · 1990 · ★ 4.5 · 164p · ≈ 5h · Moderate The coming-of-age story of one of Jamaica Kincaid's most admired creations--available now in an e-book edition. Lucy, a teenage girl from the West Indies, comes to America to work as an au pair for a wealthy couple. She begins to notice cracks in their beautiful façade at the same time that the mysteries of own sexuality begin to unravel. Jamaica Kincaid has created a startling new heroine … Shares: New york, Coming-of-age

The Chosen Chaim Potok · 1966 · ★ 4.1 · 284p · ≈ 9h · Moderate 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 Shares: Bildungsromans, New york, Coming-of-age

The Book of Form and Emptiness Ruth L. Ozeki · 2021 · ★ 4.0 · 560p · ≈ 18h · Moderate The Book of Form and Emptiness is a novel by American author Ruth Ozeki, published in 2021 by Viking. Ozekis fourth novel, the book won the 2022 Women's Prize for Fiction. The story follows a boy who hears voices from inanimate objects while the narrative explores themes of mental illness and bereavement. Shares: Bildungsromans, Coming-of-age

Bloodsucking Fiends Christopher Moore · 1995 · ★ 4.2 · 304p · ≈ 10h · Moderate At last, a love story you can really sink your teeth into! With a psychedelic inventiveness that invites comparison with Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Robbins, Christopher Moore, the author of Coyote Blue, spins a hip tale of vampires on the loose and in love in San Francisco. When Jody wakes up in an alley, under a dupster, with a badly burned arm and a pain in her neck, she knows it isn't going to be… Shares: Bildungsromans, Coming-of-age

The Fortress of Solitude Jonathan Lethem · 2003 · ★ 3.8 · 511p · ≈ 17h · Moderate This is the story of two boys, Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude. They are friends and neighbors, but because Dylan is white and Mingus is black, their friendship is not simple. This is the story of their Brooklyn neighborhood, which is almost exclusively black despite the first whispers of something that will become known as "gentrification." This is the story of 1970s America, a time when the most… Shares: Bildungsromans, New york

The Interestings Meg Wolitzer · 2013 · ★ 3.6 · 560p · ≈ 18h · Moderate The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel someone through life at age thirty. Their friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their… Shares: Bildungsromans, Coming-of-age

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