18 books like Where the heart is
Petropolis
In her stunning debut novel, Anya Ulinich delivers a funny and unforgettable story of a Russian mail-order bride trying to find her place in America. After losing her father, her boyfriend, and her baby, Sasha Goldberg decides that getting herself to the United States is the surest path to deliverance. But she finds that life in Phoenix with her Red Lobster–loving fiance isn't much better than…
Shares: Teenage mothers, Teenage Girls, Bildungsromans
The carnival at Bray
his promising debut, set in the heyday of grunge, tells the story of Maggie Lynch, a displaced Chicagoan and grunge music fan, living in a quiet town (Bray) on the Irish Sea. Maggie was uprooted from her friends, her music scene, and her beloved Uncle Kevin when her romantically fickle mother married her latest boyfriend, resulting in a move to his hometown. During her time of difficult…
Shares: Teenage Girls, Bildungsromans
Push
Precious Jones, an illiterate sixteen-year-old, has up until now been invisible: invisible to the father who rapes her and the mother who batters her and to the authorities who dismiss her as just one more of Harlem's casualties. But when Precious, pregnant with a second child by her father, meets a determined and highly radical teacher, we follow her on a journey of education and enlightenment…
Shares: Teenage mothers, Bildungsromans
The Tender Years
Virginia is a young girl becoming slowly but surly a very beautiful young women. But during her tender years she is involved in conflicts between friends, right and wrong, and wondering what to do during circumstances. When her friend, Jenny Wood, is always coming up with plans and harmless gags, to trick people, Virginia must make a decision about what to do. Virginia's efforts to convert Jenny…
Shares: Teenagers, Teenage Girls, Friendship
The last song
1 bestselling author Nicholas Sparks's new novel is at once a compelling family drama and a heartrending tale of young love.Seventeen year old Veronica "Ronnie" Miller's life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wilmington, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alientated from her parents, especially her father...until her…
Shares: Teenagers, Teenage Girls, Bildungsromans, Romance
Le grand Meaulnes
'I read it for the first time when I was seventeen and loved every page. I find its depiction of a golden time and place just as poignant now as I did then' Nick HornbyThe Lost Estate is Robin Buss's translation of Henri Alain-Fournier's poignant study of lost love, Le Grand Meaulnes.When Meaulnes first arrives at the local school in Sologne, everyone is captivated by his good looks, daring and…
Shares: Teenagers, Bildungsromans
Middlesex
A unique coming of age story. While the main character in this novel is dealing with gender identity issues the main focus of this brilliantly written story is the confusion we all face as we grow into the person we were meant to be. The reader finds himself identifying with the main character's experiences. This is a brilliantly written story. The prose is honest in a way that few authors dare…
Shares: Teenagers, Teenage Girls, Bildungsromans
The Wonder Spot
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: Teenagers, Teenage Girls, Bildungsromans, Romance
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Set in 1930s Georgia, the novel centers around a deaf and mute man, John Singer. Singer has been devastated by the loss of his dear friend, Antonapoulos, who was committed to an asylum for bad behavior
Shares: Teenagers, Teenage Girls, Friendship, Romance
Miss Marjoribanks
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: Bildungsromans, Romance
The Invisible Circus
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: Teenage Girls, Bildungsromans
The quick and the dead
"Alice, Corvus, and Annabel, each a motherless child, are an unlikely circle of friends. One filled with convictions, another with loss, the third with a worldly pragmatism, they traverse an air-conditioned landscape eccentric with signs and portents - from the preservation of the living dead in a nursing home to the presentation of the dead as living in a wild-life museum - accompanied by…
Shares: Teenage Girls, Bildungsromans, Friendship
The Sopranos
"The choir from Our Lady of Perpetual Succour School for Girls is being bused from the Port on Scotland's western coast to the national singing finals in the big, big city. And it's an important day for the Sopranos: Orla, Kylah, (Ra)Chell, Manda, and Fionnula (the Cooler) - pub crawling, shoplifting, and body-piercing being top priorities.
Then it's time to lose that competition - lose, because…
Shares: Teenage Girls, Bildungsromans, Friendship
Bloodsucking Fiends
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: Teenagers, Bildungsromans
The Mad Wife
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFrom bestselling author Meagan Church comes a haunting exploration of identity, motherhood, and the suffocating grip of societal expectations that will leave you questioning the lives we build—and the lies we live.They called it hysteria. She called it survival.Lulu Mayfield has spent the last five years molding herself into the perfect 1950s housewife.…
Shares: Romance
The Frozen River: A GMA Book Club Pick
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • GMA BOOK CLUB PICK • AN NPR BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia and Code Name Hélène comes a gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history."Fans of…
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The Lion Women of Tehran
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFrom nationally bestselling author Marjan Kamali, this perfect book club read is “evocative...and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism” (People) set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran. In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move…
Shares: Romance
Daughters of the Sun and Moon
A New York Times bestseller! From beloved bestselling author Lisa See, the story of three Chinese women whose unexpected friendship helps them survive and, despite the odds, thrive, in the turmoil of post–Civil War Los Angeles. In 1870, three Chinese women arrive in the small, dusty, and violent pueblo of Los Angeles. Dove, the bound-footed daughter of an imperial scholar, is entrancing and…
Shares: Romance