18 books like Heartburn

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

Stoner John Williams · 1965 · ★ 4.4 · 336p · ≈ 11h · Moderate William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family… Shares: Marital conflict, Adultery, Domestic fiction

The Painted Veil William Somerset Maugham · 1925 · ★ 4.0 · 238p · ≈ 7h · Challenging A story of the beautiful but love-starve Kitty Fane who is forced to accompany her husband to the heart of a cholera epidemic. She is compelled by her awakening conscience to reassess her life and learn how to love. Shares: Adultery, Married people, Domestic fiction

At First Sight Nicholas Sparks · 2001 · ★ 4.4 · 320p · ≈ 10h · Moderate There are a few things Jeremy Marsh was sure he'd never do: he'd never leave New York City; never give his heart away again after barely surviving one failed marriage; and, most of all, never become a parent. Now, Jeremy is living in the tiny town of Boone Creek, North Carolina, married to Lexie Darnell, the love of his life, and anticipating the birth of their daughter. But just as his life… Shares: Pregnant women, Married people, Romance & Relationships

Young Wives Olivia Goldsmith · 2000 · ★ 3.5 · 512p · ≈ 17h · Moderate Three thirty-something women, all betrayed by their husbands, bind together for friendship and revenge. Shares: Marital conflict, Domestic fiction

House of Windows John Langan · 2009 · 260p · ≈ 8h · Moderate When a young writer finds himself cornered by a beautiful widow in the waning hours of a late-night cocktail party, he seeks at first to escape, to return to his wife and infant son, but the tale she weaves, of her missing husband, a renowned English professor, and her lost stepson, a soldier killed on a battlefield on the other side of the world, of phantasmal visions, a family curse, and a… Shares: Married people, Authors

En cas de malheur Georges Simenon · 1956 · 185p · ≈ 6h · Moderate Dans la tourmente de la passionQuelque chose d'insidieux s'est glissé dans l'existence de Lucien Gobillot. Sa tranquillité, son succès professionnel et sa réputation mondaine, résultats d'un mariage ambitieux et de quelques complaisances juridiques, sont menacés. Ce qui aurait pu n'être qu'une passade sans lendemain, semblable à celles que sa femme Viviane lui consent avec une complicité… Shares: Adultery, Romance & Relationships

The Sacred and Profane Love Machine Iris Murdoch · 1974 · ★ 3.9 · 365p · ≈ 12h · Moderate This is a story of different loves; and of how a man may need two women in such a way that he can be happy with neither. Sacred and profane love are related opposites; the one enjoyed renders the other necessary, so that the ever unsatisfied heart swings constantly to and fro. Shares: Married people, Domestic fiction

Pavilion of Women Pearl S. Buck · 1900 · ★ 4.2 · 316p · ≈ 10h · Challenging A los cuarenta años, Madame Wu, esposa de un miembro de una de las dinastías de terratenientes más consideradas de China, abandona voluntariamente la vida matrimonial y busca una concubina para su marido. Su decisión cambia la vida de todos los que la rodean... A las puertas de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, la familia se enfrenta a la encrucijada entre tradición, comunismo y pensamiento occidental,… Shares: Married people, Domestic fiction, Romance & Relationships

Parlour games Mavis Cheek · 2002 · 436p · ≈ 14h · Moderate A game of "Questions and Commands" depicted by [[James Gillray, 1788]] Shares: Adultery, Married people

Breathing Lessons Anne Tyler · 1988 · ★ 3.7 · 327p · ≈ 10h · Moderate While driving to the funeral of a friend, a couple married twenty-eight years examine the expectations and disappointments of their marriage. Shares: Married people, Domestic fiction, Romance & Relationships

The Wonder Spot Melissa Bank · 2005 · ★ 3.3 · 407p · ≈ 13h · Moderate Follows the quest of Sophie Applebaum for her own identity--who she is, what she loves, whom she loves, and occasionally whom she feels others should love--over the course of 25 years. Shares: Jewish women, Domestic fiction

Halfway to forever Karen Kingsbury · 2002 · 430p · ≈ 14h · Moderate You wept with them as they were Waiting for MorningYou shared their Moment of WeaknessNow they face the greatest struggles of their lives.Matt and Hannah Bronzan have found a new life in the face of devastating loss.  Together with Hannah’s daughter, Jenny, they are finally moving forward—toward the adoption of a little girl. A younger sister for Jenny, a daughter for them to love and raise… Shares: Pregnant women, Domestic fiction

The Return of the Native Thomas Hardy · 1878 · ★ 3.9 · 257p · ≈ 8h · Challenging The native of the title is Clym Yeobright, who returns to the area from the bright society of Paris and, as any reader of Hardy knows, all is not smooth. He is quickly taken by and marries the one woman he should not--Eustacia Vye. The suffering that follows is mitigated somewhat by the ending. Shares: Adultery, Married people

Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy · 1895 · ★ 3.8 · 488p · ≈ 16h · Challenging Hardy's last work of fiction, Jude the Obscure is also one of his most gloomily fatalistic, depicting the lives of individuals who are trapped by forces beyond their control. Jude Fawley, a poor villager, wants to enter the divinity school at Christminster. Sidetracked by Arabella Donn, an earthy country girl who pretends to be pregnant by him, Jude marries her and is then deserted. He earns a… Shares: Adultery, Romance & Relationships

Rabbit, Run John Updike · 1960 · ★ 3.6 · 317p · ≈ 10h · Moderate Rabbit, Run is the book that established John Updike as one of the major American novelists of his—or any other—generation. Its hero is Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, a onetime high-school basketball star who on an impulse deserts his wife and son. He is twenty-six years old, a man-child caught in a struggle between instinct and thought, self and society, sexual gratification and family duty—even, in a… Shares: Adultery, Domestic fiction

Taming of the Shrew William Shakespeare · 1886 · 112p · ≈ 3h · Challenging Baptista Minola has two daughters, the beautiful Bianca and the shrewish Katherina. A visiting stranger, Petruchio, learns of Katherina's large dowry, marries her and through his own even more extreme actions modifies her behavior. Shares: Married people, Romance & Relationships

The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford · 1915 · ★ 3.7 · 162p · ≈ 5h · Challenging This is the saddest story I have ever heard. We had known the Ashburnhams for nine seasons of the town of Nauheim with an extreme intimacy - or, rather with an acquaintanceship as loose and easy and yet as close as a good glove's with your hand. My wife and I knew Captain and Mrs Ashburnham as well as it was possible to know anybody, and yet, in another sense, we knew nothing at all about… Shares: Adultery, Married people

The Way of the World William Congreve · 1700 · ★ 3.3 · 182p · ≈ 6h · Demanding The Way of the World is a comedy play written by the English playwright William Congreve, first performed in 1700. It premiered in the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. It is widely regarded by critics as one of the finest works of Restoration comedy ever written, and has often been called a centrepiece of the genre. Initially, however, the play struck many audience members as continuing… Shares: Adultery, Romance & Relationships

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