Books like Never Let Me Go

If you liked Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, start here: 12 similar summaries, with why each one matches.

  1. White Oleander

    Janet Fitch · 1999

    Because shares tags: literary fiction, coming of age.

    Astrid cycles foster homes after mother Ingrid murders boyfriend.

  2. Their Eyes Were Watching God

    Zora Neale Hurston · 1937

    Because shares tags: literary fiction, coming of age.

    Janie Crawford tells Pheoby about Eatonville life with Logan Killicks, Joe Starks called Jody, and Tea Cake.

  3. The Virgin Suicides

    Jeffrey Eugenides · 1993

    Because shares tags: literary fiction, coming of age.

    Five Lisbon sisters die in 1970s Grosse Pointe as boys watch.

  4. She's Come Undone

    Wally Lamb · 1992

    Because shares tags: literary fiction, coming of age.

    Abused as a girl, divorced and struggling with weight, Dolores Price slowly finds healing after years of trauma.

  5. My Dark Vanessa

    Kate Elizabeth Russell · 2020

    Because shares tags: literary fiction, coming of age.

    Vanessa recalls teacher Strane abuse as adult reckoning looms.

  6. Kafka on the Shore

    Haruki Murakami · 2002

    Because shares tags: coming of age, literary fiction.

    Fifteen year old Kafka Tamura flees Tokyo while old Nakata, who talks to cats, drifts toward the same library town in Shikoku in parallel.

  7. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

    Jonathan Safran Foer · 2005

    Because shares tags: literary fiction, coming of age.

    Nine year old Oskar searches New York for a lock matching his father's key after 9/11.

  8. All Quiet on the Western Front

    Erich Maria Remarque · 1929

    Because shares tags: coming of age, literary fiction.

    Paul Bäumer enlists at nineteen and faces the trenches of World War I in Remarque's 1929 classic, told from the German side of the wire.

  9. Station Eleven

    Emily St. John Mandel · 2014

    Because shares tags: dystopia, literary fiction.

    After a flu empties the world, a traveling troupe plays Shakespeare for small towns linked by one dead actor.

  10. Demon Copperhead

    Barbara Kingsolver · 2022

    Because shares tags: literary fiction, coming of age.

    Born in a Lee County trailer, Damon Fields survives foster care, football fame, and opioid addiction in Appalachia.

  11. Call Me by Your Name

    André Aciman · 2007

    Because shares tags: literary fiction, coming of age.

    One summer on the Italian Riviera: seventeen-year-old Elio and grad student Oliver circle each other through swims, talks, and missed…

  12. Norwegian Wood

    Haruki Murakami · 1987

    Because shares tags: literary fiction, coming of age.

    Toru recalls 1969 Tokyo, torn between fragile Naoko and lively Midori after a friend's suicide.

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