Books like 'Wishful Thinking'
Readers who enjoyed Wishful Thinking by Kamy Wicoff also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary sc-fi psychological time-travel magic humor secrets magical-realism family drama
-
The Magnus Archives: Season 5 by Johnathan Sims
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe Magnus Archives is a horror audiobook written by Jonathan Sims, directed by Alexander J. Newall and distributed by Rusty Quill. Sims narrates the stories in-character as the main character, Jonathan Sims, the newly-appointed head archivist of the fictional Magnus Institute; an institution based in London centred on research into the paranormal... -
Exhalation by Ted Chiang
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsalternate cover for this ISBN can be found hereThe universe began as an enormous breath being held.From the acclaimed author of Stories of Your Life and Others — the basis for the Academy Award-nominated film Arrival — comes a ground-breaking new collection of short fiction: nine stunningly original, provocative, and poignant stories...Categorized as:
magical-realism time-travel 21st-century action-adventure adult ai aliens alternate-history -
Golden in Death by J.D. Robb
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsIn the latest thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, homicide detective Eve Dallas investigates a murder with a mysterious motive―and a terrifying weapon.Pediatrician Kent Abner received the package on a beautiful April morning. Inside was a cheap trinket, a golden egg that could be opened into two halves... -
Good Old Neon by David Foster Wallace
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratings...Categorized as:
humor fiction mental-illness audiobook contemporary literary-fiction sci-fi classics -
-
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsA classic science fiction novel by one of the greatest writers of the genre, set in a future world where one man's dreams control the fate of humanity. In a future world racked by violence and environmental catastrophes, George Orr wakes up one day to discover that his dreams have the ability to alter reality. He seeks help from Dr...Categorized as:
magical-realism paranormal time-travel 20th-century adult aliens alternate-history apocalyptic -
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, Andy Weir
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 87 ratingsJason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters.- - -'Are you happy in your life?'Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious... -
The Egg by Andy Weir
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsA short story about the universe and your place in it...Categorized as:
drama humor paranormal time-travel 21st-century action-adventure afterlife audiobook -
Ubik by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsGlen Runciter runs a lucrative business—deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in “half-life,” a dreamlike state of suspended animation... -
Monday Begins on Saturday by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsWhen young programmer Aleksandr Ivanovich Privalov picks up two hitchhikers while driving in Karelia, he is drawn into the mysterious world of the Scientific Research Institute of Sorcery and Wizardry, where research into magic is serious business...Categorized as:
humor magic magical-realism time-travel 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book -
At the Edge of the Universe by Shaun David Hutchinson
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom the author of We Are the Ants comes “another winner” (Booklist, starred review) about a boy who believes the universe is slowly shrinking as the things he remembers are being erased from others’ memories.Tommy and Ozzie have been best friends since the second grade, and boyfriends since eighth. They spent countless days dreaming of escaping their small town—and then Tommy vanished... -
The Girl from Devil's Lake by J.A. Jance
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsArizona County Sheriff Joanna Brady solves her biggest case yet, from a body in the desert to crimes spanning decades and countries, in the thrilling latest installment in the New York Times bestselling suspense series.Sheriff Joanna Brady is looking forward to the holidays with her busy family, and to celebrating her daughter Jenny’s graduation from the police academy... -
A Spell of Rowans by Byrd Nash
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsRaised by a narcissistic mother, the Rowan children’s magical talents were twisted to fit her needs. When Rachel dies, her children must confront the past to have a future.Rachel Rowan could sniff out secrets and her antique shop, Rosemary Thyme, was a front to torment the residents of Grimsby. When she dies, her children are faced with the deadly fallout of blackmail, murder, and magic... -
Replay by Ken Grimwood
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsAt forty-three Jeff Winston is tired of his low-paid, unrewarding job, tired of the long silences at the breakfast table with his wife, saddened by the thought of no children to comfort his old age. But he hopes for better things, for happiness, maybe tomorrow ...But a sudden, fatal heart attack puts paid to that... -
Torture the Artist by Joey Goebel
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsVincent Spinetti is an archetypal tortured artist ? a sensitive young writer who falls victim to alienation, parental neglect, poverty, depression, alcoholism, illness, nervous breakdowns, and unrequited love... -
-
Alone by E.J. Noyes
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsHalf a million dollars will be Celeste Thorne’s reward for spending four years of her life in total isolation. No faces. No voices. No way to leave. Since Celeste has never really worried about being alone, the generous paycheck she’ll receive for her participation in the solitary psychological experiment seems like easy money... -
Recursion by Blake Crouch, سعید سیمرغ
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 77 ratingsMemory makes reality.That's what NYC cop Barry Sutton is learning, as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome—a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived.That's what neuroscientist Helena Smith believes...Categorized as:
drama paranormal time-travel 21st-century action-adventure adult alternate-history apocalyptic -
K-Pax by Gene Brewer
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsImagine a time and space traveler from another planet. One that looks human and exemplifies the ideal world he comes from, a world free from human nature's greed and cruelty. That creature would be "prot", as he calls himself, the newest patient at the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute.Prot seems to know more than he should about faster-than-the-speed-of-light-travel... -
The Humans by Matt Haig
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 63 ratingsBody-snatching has never been so heartwarming . . .The Humans is a funny, compulsively readable novel about alien abduction, mathematics, and that most interesting subject of all: ourselves. Combine Douglas Adams’s irreverent take on life, the universe, and everything with a genuinely moving love story, and you have some idea of the humor, originality, and poignancy of Matt Haig’s latest novel... -
The Program by Suzanne Young
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsIn Sloane’s world, true feelings are forbidden, teen suicide is an epidemic, and the only solution is The Program.Sloane knows better than to cry in front of anyone. With suicide now an international epidemic, one outburst could land her in The Program, the only proven course of treatment. Sloane’s parents have already lost one child; Sloane knows they’ll do anything to keep her alive... -
Wayward by Blake Crouch
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsWelcome to Wayward Pines, population 461. Nestled amidst picture-perfect mountains, the idyllic town is a modern-day Eden...except for the electrified fence and razor wire, snipers scoping everything 24/7, and the relentless surveillance tracking each word and gesture.None of the residents know how they got here. They are told where to work, how to live, and who to marry... -
The Butterfly Effect by James Swallow
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsStruggling with the psychological effects of his repressed childhood memories, a young man devises a technique of traveling back in time to inhabit his childhood body. As he attempts to mend the broken lives of those closest to him, he finds that every trip into the past brings chaotic results into the present, leading him to travel back again and again and causing irreparable damage...Categorized as:
paranormal time-travel action-adventure adult book contemporary fiction psychological -
Amen Maxine by Faith Gardner
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA new marriage.A perfect home.A machine that says it’s all a lie.Welcome to Silicon Valley, where the weather is perfect, the income is high … and Rowena Snyder is miserable. A transplant from New York, Rowena moved into her husband Jacob’s idyllic childhood home with their new baby. But suburbia isn’t Rowena’s cup of Starbucks. And she’s got serious anxiety and depression to boot... -
The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFirst published to acclaim in Germany, The Wall chronicles the life of the last surviving human on earth, an ordinary middle-aged woman who awakens one morning to find that everyone else has vanished. Assuming her isolation to be the result of a military experiment gone awry, she begins the terrifying work of survival and self-renewal...Categorized as:
drama magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult animals apocalyptic audiobook -
Pastoralia by George Saunders
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsWith this new collection, George Saunders takes us even further into the shocking, uproarious and oddly familiar landscape of his imagination.The stories in Pastoralia are set in a slightly skewed version of America, where elements of contemporary life have been merged, twisted, and amplified, casting their absurdity-and our humanity-in a startling new light...Categorized as:
humor magical-realism 20th-century 21st-century adult anthologies audiobook classics -
-
Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsBroad humor and bitter irony collide in this fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, who, at age seventy-one, wants to be left alone on his Long Island estate with the secret he has locked inside his potato barn... -
Slated by Teri Terry
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsA riveting psychological thrillerKYLA HAS BEEN SLATED - her memory erased, her personality wiped blank. This is the government's way of dealing with teen terrorists: give them a fresh start as a new person. They teach Kyla how to walk and talk again, give her a new identity and a new family, and tell her to be grateful for this second chance... -
One Door Away from Heaven by Dean Koontz
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsMichelina Bellsong is on a mission. She is following a missing family to the edge of America...to a place she never knew existed--a place of terror, wonder, and shattering revelation.What awaits her there will change her life and the life of everyone she knows--if she can find the key to survival... -
The Summer Guest by Justin Cronin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOn an evening in late summer, the great financier Harry Wainwright, nearing the end of his life, arrives at a rustic fishing camp in a remote area of Maine. He comes bearing two things: his wish for a day of fishing in a place that has brought him solace for thirty years, and an astonishing bequest that will forever change the lives of those around him... -
Do You Realize? by Kevin A. Kuhn
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsGeorge is a middle-management, middle-class, middle-aged guy who hates his job and struggles to stay connected to his wife and teenage children. Most guys might end up with a steamy affair and a flashy car for their midlife crisis, but George gets a quirky, philosophical physics professor named Shiloh... -
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAstrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos, invents planets every night for a bedtime story. He raises Robin, 9, after a car crash took their Aly. The family is strict vegetarians, Theo tells us each dish.Robin is bright, but full of anger that explodes in a flash. He suffers over animals tortured, killed to feed humans... -
The Treatment by Suzanne Young
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsCan Sloane and James survive the lies and secrets surrounding them, or will The Program claim them in the end? Find out in this sequel to The Program, which Publishers Weekly called “chilling and suspenseful.”How do you stop an epidemic?Sloane and James are on the run after barely surviving the suicide epidemic and The Program. But they’re not out of danger... -
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsWritten in 1914 but not published until 1925, a year after Kafka’s death, The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information... -
The Last Town by Blake Crouch
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsWelcome to Wayward Pines, the last town.Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrived in Wayward Pines, Idaho, three weeks ago. In this town, people are told who to marry, where to live, where to work. Their children are taught that David Pilcher, the town’s creator, is god. No one is allowed to leave; even asking questions can get you killed... -
Ten Little Words by Leah Mercer
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsI am always with you. I will always be here.This was the promise Ella’s mother betrayed thirty years ago when she walked into the sea, leaving her five-year-old daughter alone in the world. Ella’s been angry ever since, building up a wall to protect herself. But that all changes the day she opens a newspaper and finds those ten little words printed in a classified ad... -
-
V. by Thomas Pynchon
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe wild, macabre tale of the twentieth century and of two men—one looking for something he has lost, the other with nothing much to lose—and "V.," the unknown woman of the title... -
The Affirmation by Christopher Priest
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsPeter Sinclair is tormented by bereavement and failure. In an attempt to conjure some meaning from his life, he embarks on an autobiography, but he finds himself writing the story of another man in another, imagines, world whose insidious attraction draws him even further in.. -
Runner 13: A Thriller by Amy McCulloch
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings**Pre-order the gripping new thriller from the bestselling author of Breathless, based on her own extraordinary ultra-running experience**It’s the ultimate test of two-hundred-and-fifty miles in the brutal heat of the Sahara, with only the supplies you can carry on your back.Adri is ready... -
The Trial by Franz Kafka, Arthur H. Samuelson
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 71 ratingsWritten in 1914 but not published until 1925, a year after Kafka's death, The Trial is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century: the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information... -
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 53 ratingsSecond only to Slaughterhouse-Five of Vonnegut's canon in its prominence and influence, God Bless You, Mr... -
Strange Life of Ivan Osokin by P.D. Ouspensky
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSet in Moscow and Paris, Ouspensky's only full-length novel explores the theme of "eternal recurrence", a theory of time developed in Ouspensky's classic book A New Model of the Universe... -
One of the Boys by Jayne Cowie
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIf you could test your son for a gene that predicts violence, would you do it?Antonia and Bea are sisters, and doting mothers to their sons. But that is where their similarities end.Antonia had her son tested to make sure he didn’t possess the "violent" M gene.Bea refuses to let her son take the test. His life should not be determined by a positive or negative result... -
Bellwether by Connie Willis
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsConnie Willis has won more Hugo and Nebula awards than any other science fiction author. Now, with her trademark wit and inventiveness, she explores the intimate relationship between science, pop culture, and the arcane secrets of the heart.Sandra Foster studies fads - from Barbie dolls to the grunge look - how they start and what they mean...Categorized as:
female-mc humor paranormal time-travel 20th-century action-adventure animals audiobook -
Every Line of You by Naomi Gibson
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn the face of overwhelming grief and bullying, tech-savvy Lydia pours all of herself into creating the perfect AI, the perfect boyfriend-but will Henry turn out to be perfect, or a creation of her cruelest self?Lydia has been creating her AI, Henry, for years - since before her little brother died in the accident that haunts her nightmares; since before her Dad walked out, leaving her and her... -
The Invented Part by Rodrigo Fresán
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratings“A kaleidoscopic, open-hearted, shamelessly polymathic storyteller, the kind who brings a blast of oxygen into the room... -
-
The Things That Keep Us Here by Carla Buckley
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsHow far would you go to protect your family?Ann Brooks never thought she’d have to answer that question. Then she found her limits tested by a crisis no one could prevent. Now, as her neighborhood descends into panic, she must make tough choices to protect everyone she loves from a threat she cannot even see... -
Dissipatio H.G.: The Vanishing by Guido Morselli
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom his solitary buen retiro in the mountains, the last man on earth drives to the capital Chrysopolis to see if anyone else has survived the Vanishing. But there’s no one else, living or dead, in that city of “holy plutocracy,” with its fifty-six banks and as many churches...Categorized as:
magical-realism adult anthologies apocalyptic classics contemporary dystopia fiction -
Lexicon by Max Barry
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsAt an exclusive school somewhere outside of Arlington, Virginia, students aren't taught history, geography, or mathematics--at least not in the usual ways. Instead, they are taught to persuade. Here the art of coercion has been raised to a science...Categorized as:
humor magic magical-realism paranormal 21st-century action-adventure audiobook boarding-school -
Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsThe winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, Connie Willis captures the timeless essence of generosity and goodwill in this magical collection if Christmas stories. These eight tales — two of which have never before been published — boldly reimagine the stories of Christmas while celebrating the power of love and compassion...Categorized as:
humor magical-realism paranormal time-travel adult anthologies christian contemporary -
The Compound by Aisling Rawle
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsYou wake up in a compound in the middle of the desert, along with nine other women.All of you are young, all beautiful, all keen to escape the grinding poverty, political unrest and environmental catastrophe of the outside world.You realise that cameras are tracking your every move, broadcasting to millions of reality TV fans.Soon, ten men will arrive on foot – if they all survive the journey... -
As You Wish by Jude Deveraux
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNew York Times bestselling author Jude Deveraux returns with the highly anticipated third installment in her beloved Summerhouse series, where three women have the coveted opportunity to answer the age-old question: What would you do differently if you could do it all again? One fateful summer, three very different women find themselves together in Summer Hill, Virginia, where they find they...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.