Books like The World According to Garp
If you liked The World According to Garp by John Irving, start here: 12 similar summaries, with why each one matches.
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Because shares tags: literary fiction, family saga.
Oscar loves sci-fi and wants love, while Yunior traces family curses back through Trujillo terror.
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The God of Small Things
Because shares tags: literary fiction, tragedy.
Twins Rahel and Estha grow up in Kerala in 1969, where family rules and caste lines shape a loss that follows them into adulthood.
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A Confederacy of Dunces
Because shares tags: comedy, literary fiction.
Ignatius J. Reilly, jobless and full of opinions in New Orleans, meets work, his mother, and the law in Toole's posthumous Pulitzer winner.
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White Oleander
Because shares tags: literary fiction, tragedy.
Astrid cycles foster homes after mother Ingrid murders boyfriend.
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The Virgin Suicides
Because shares tags: literary fiction, tragedy.
Five Lisbon sisters die in 1970s Grosse Pointe as boys watch.
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Madame Bovary
Because shares tags: literary fiction, tragedy.
Emma Rouault marries Charles Bovary for romance, then seeks lovers and luxury until debts ruin them both.
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East of Eden
Because shares tags: family saga, tragedy.
In California's Salinas Valley, the Trasks and Hamiltons replay Cain and Abel through love, betrayal, and the hard choice to rise above the…
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Middlesex
Because shares tags: literary fiction, family saga.
Cal Stephanides traces three generations from Greece to Detroit to explain being intersex and becoming himself.
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Wuthering Heights
Because shares tags: tragedy, literary fiction.
Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights retold: Heathcliff and Cathy on the moors, two houses, two generations.
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The Great Gatsby
Because shares tags: literary fiction, tragedy.
The Great Gatsby through Nick Carraway: Gatsby's parties, the green light, Daisy and Tom, and why Fitzgerald's 1925 novel ends as a…
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A Prayer for Owen Meany
Because also by John Irving; shares tag: literary fiction.
John Wheelwright believes in God because of Owen Meany, the tiny friend whose foul ball killed his mother.
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The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner
Because shares tag: tragedy.
Newborn Bree thinks through hunger with Diego in Victoria army basement.
