18 books like Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe
Selection Day
From Aravind Adiga, the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The White Tiger, a dazzling new novel about two brothers in a Mumbai slum who are raised by their obsessive father to become cricket stars, and whose coming-of-age threatens their relationship, future, and sense of themselves. Manjunath Kumar is fourteen and living in a slum in Mumbai. He knows he is good at cricket--if not as…
Shares: Gay teenagers, Brothers, Bildungsromans, Families
Bleeding hearts
"Killian Kendall is used to being overlooked, even in his own family. That's about to change. With the arrival of a new kid at school, Killian's whole world is about to be turned upside down. The new guy is openly gay and, for reasons he can't really understand, Killian finds himself drawn to him. When the boy is killed in a brutal attack, and Killian is injured in the process, Killian begins…
Shares: Gay teenagers, Bildungsromans
Blankets
Loosely based on the author's life, chronicling his journey from childhood to adulthood, exploring the people, experiences, and beliefs that he encountered along the way.
Shares: Brothers, Family life, Coming-of-age, Families
Leave Myself Behind
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO NOAH YORK:
"Anybody who tells you he doesn't have mixed feelings about his mother
is either stupid or a liar."
"Real life seldom makes me cry. The only thing that gets to me is
the occasional Kodak commercial."
"Sometimes I feel like Michelangelo, chiseling away at all the crap until nothing is left but the exquisite thing in the middle that no one else sees until it's…
Shares: Gay teenagers, Friendship
Lawn boy
"Mike Muñoz is a young Mexican American not too many years out of high school--and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew. Though he tries time and again to get his foot on the first rung of that ladder to success, he can't seem to get a break. But then things start to change for Mike, and after a raucous, jarring, and challenging trip, he finds he can finally see the…
Shares: Mexican Americans, Bildungsromans
El plan infinito
Story of Gregory Reeves's search for love and his attempt to reconcile his past which included poverty, neglect, war, and abusive relationships with his current strivings for success and peace of mind.
Shares: Mexican American families, Bildungsromans
Brother
"Deep in the heart of Appalachia stands a crooked farmhouse miles from any road. The Morrows keep to themselves, and it's served them well so far. When girls go missing off the side of the highway, the cops don't knock on their door. Which is a good thing, seeing as to what's buried in the Morrows' backyard. But nineteen-year-old Michael Morrow isn't like the rest of his family. He doesn't take…
Shares: Brothers, Families
Mockingbird
In Caitlin's world, everything is black or white. Things are good or bad. Anything in between is confusing. That's the stuff Caitlin's older brother, Devon, has always explained. But now Devon's dead and Dad is no help at all. Caitlin wants to get over it, but as an eleven-year-old girl with Asperger's, she doesn't know how. When she reads the definition of closure, she realizes that is what she…
Shares: Brothers, Family life, Families
It
"It" is a 1986 horror novel by American author Stephen King. "It" was his 22nd book and his 17th novel written under his own name. The story follows the experiences of seven children as they are terrorized by an evil entity that exploits the fears of its victims to disguise itself while hunting its prey. "It" primarily appears in the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown to attract its preferred…
Shares: Homosexuality, Coming-of-age
The Italian Girl
Edmund has escaped from his family into a lonely life.Returning for his mother's funeral he finds himself involved in the old, awful problems together with some new ones. He also rediscovers the eternal family servant, the ever-changing Italian girl, who has always 'a second mother' This particular return to mother holds some surprises for Edmund.
Shares: Brothers, Families
Life
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.
Shares: Family life, Bildungsromans, Coming-of-age, Families
All the ugly and wonderful things
"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: Family life, Bildungsromans, Coming-of-age
Maurice
Maurice is a novel by E. M. Forster. A tale of homosexual love in early 20th-century England, it follows Maurice Hall from his schooldays through university and beyond. It was written in 1913–1914, and revised in 1932 and 1959–1960.
Shares: Homosexuality, Coming-of-age
The bent twig
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: Bildungsromans, Families
The Outsiders
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…
Shares: Brothers, Family life, Families, Friendship
Rex Zero and the end of the world
In the summer of 1962 with everyone nervous about a possible nuclear war, ten-nearly-eleven-year-old Rex, having just moved to Ottawa from Vancouver with his parents and five siblings, faces his own personal challenges as he discovers new friends and a new understanding of the world around him.
Shares: Family life, Bildungsromans, Families, Friendship
The goodbye summer
The New York Times bestselling author is back with a warm, winning new novel about daring to love, braving a loss, and setting yourself free. Caddie Winger's mother died when she was nine, and Caddie was raised by her grandmother. Now their roles are reversed, and it's Caddie -- thirty-two years old, still living with her grandmother, and giving piano lessons to neighborhood children -- who takes…
Shares: Self-perception, Families, Friendship
Asymmetry
Explores the imbalances that spark and sustain dramatic human relations, tracing the overlapping stories of a young American editor's relationship with a famous older writer, an unexpected New York romance during the early years of the Iraq War and an Iraqi-American man who is detained by immigration officers in Heathrow.
Shares: Family life, Coming-of-age
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