Books like 'Ruined'
Readers who enjoyed Ruined by Lynn Nottage also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical military, war & conflict drama war historical-fiction university poc-mc social-commentary politics black-mc
-
Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner by Harold Bloom
Rated: 4.69 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn "The Kite Runner," history and personal responsibility come together in the story of Amir, an Afghan boy who is haunted by the guilt of betraying his childhood friend Hassan, the son of his father's servant. In the background loom the many tumultuous changes that have gripped Afghanistan in the years since Amir's carefree kite-flying childhood... -
Šikmý kostel: románová kronika ztraceného města by Karin Lednická
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsRománová kronika ztraceného města. Podtitul knihy lapidárně shrnuje příběh o někdejší pastevecké vesnici, která vystavěla svůj rozkvět na těžbě uhlí, aby o století později zašla na úbytě – také kvůli těžbě uhlí. Dnes už z výstavních budov a vznosné katedrály nezbylo nic. Jen šikmý kostel, který strmě a varovně ční do pusté krajiny... -
The Woman from Tantoura: A Palestinian Novel by Radwa Ashour
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsPalestine. For most of us, the word brings to mind a series of confused images and disjointed associations-massacres, refugee camps, UN resolutions, settlements, terrorist attacks, war, occupation, checkered kouffiyehs and suicide bombers, a seemingly endless cycle of death and destruction... -
Shoot Me, I'm Already Dead by Julia Navarro
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe gripping story of two families who follow their dreams and struggle to overcome their own destiny.Marian Miller, a NGO aid worker, is asked to write a report on the illegal Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory... -
-
-
Retrospective by Juan Gabriel Vásquez
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAn epic yet intimate novel about a Colombian man caught up in the sweep of global historical and ideological revolutions. The Colombian film director, Sergio Cabrera, is in Barcelona for a retrospective of his work...Categorized as:
historical-fiction politics war poc-mc fiction historical literary-fiction communism -
Jubilee by Margaret Walker
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA 50th anniversary edition of Margaret Walker's best-selling classic with a foreword by Nikki Giovanni Jubilee tells the true story of Vyry, the child of a white plantation owner and one of his black slaves. Vyry bears witness to the South’s antebellum opulence and to its brutality, its wartime ruin, and the promises of Reconstruction...Categorized as:
black-mc drama historical-fiction poc-mc social-commentary university war 20th-century -
The Incorrigible Optimists Club by Jean-Michel Guenassia
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsParis, 1959. As dusk settles over the immigrant quarter, 12-year-old Michel Marini - amateur photographer and compulsive reader - is drawn to the hum of the local bistro. From his usual position at the football table, he has a vantage point on a grown-up world - of rock 'n' roll and of the Algerian War... -
Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn this searing novel, a courageous young woman tries to protect her dream of becoming a doctor as civil war devastates Sri Lanka.Jaffna, 1981. Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, a vicious civil war tears through her home, and her dream spins off course as she sees her four beloved brothers and their friend K swept up in the mounting violence...Categorized as:
historical-fiction war politics poc-mc social-commentary fiction historical literary-fiction -
Γκιακ by Δημοσθένης Παπαμάρκος
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsΟι ήρωες των διηγημάτων του Γκιακ, στρατιώτες που πολέμησαν στη Μικρασιατική Εκστρατεία, έρχονται αντιμέτωποι με τους ρόλους που τους επιβάλλουν οι παραδοσιακοί κανόνες και το βίωμα του πολέμου. Συγκρούονται, υποτάσσονται, ζουν εν κρυπτώ ή φεύγουν. Το γκιακ είναι το αίμα, ο συγγενικός δεσμός και ο νόμος του αίματος που σκιάζει τις ζωές τους...Categorized as:
historical-fiction war drama fiction 21st-century historical literary-fiction violent-conflict -
-
Αιολική γη by Ilias Venezis
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratings"Η Αιολική γη γράφεται μέσα στα δύσκολα χρόνια της Κατοχής, σε μια περίοδο δηλαδή ανάπηρης ελευθερίας, ανυπέρβλητων δυσκολιών και ευτελισμού της ανθρώπινης ζωής... -
Edelweiss by Madge Swindells
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsGermany, September, 1937. Bill Roth, Reuters' US correspondent based in Germany hears a rumour that handicapped children destined for euthanasia under Nazi ideology, are being rescued by an underground group of German and Austrian students. He investigates and meets Marietta von Burgheim, a woman of beauty and morality and an heiress to great wealth... -
Freeman by Leonard Pitts Jr.
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFreeman, the new novel by Leonard Pitts, Jr., takes place in the first few months following the Confederate surrender and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Upon learning of Lee's surrender, Sam--a runaway slave who once worked for the Union Army--decides to leave his safe haven in Philadelphia and set out on foot to return to the war-torn South... -
-
Inés y la alegría by Almudena Grandes
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsToulouse, verano de 1939. Carmen de Pedro, responsable en Francia de los diezmados comunistas españoles, se cruza con Jesús Monzón, un cargo menor del partido que, sin ella intuirlo, alberga un ambicioso plan... -
The Wake of the Wind by J. California Cooper
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA dramatic and thought-provoking novel of one family's triumph in the face of the hardships and challenges of the post-Civil War South.The Wake of the Wind , J. California Cooper's third novel, is her most penetrating look yet at the challenges that generations of African Americans have had to overcome in order to carve out a home for themselves and their families...Categorized as:
historical-fiction drama social-commentary poc-mc black-mc fiction civil-war historical -
What Is the What by Dave Eggers
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsFrom the bestselling author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, What Is the What is the epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who, along with thousands of other children —the so-called Lost Boys—was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts... -
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway, John Hemingway
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsTHE ONLY COMPLETE COLLECTION BY THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, readers will delight in the author's most beloved classics such as "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "Hills Like White Elephants," and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and will discover seven new tales published for the first time in this collection...Categorized as:
black-mc drama historical-fiction poc-mc university war 20th-century action-adventure -
1921: The Great Novel of the Irish Civil War by Morgan Llywelyn
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Irish fight for independence is one of the most captivating tales of the twentieth century. Morgan Llywelyn, the acclaimed historical writer of books like Lion of Ireland, Bard and The Horse Goddess , is the writer born to bring this epic battle to life...Categorized as:
historical-fiction war politics fiction historical 20th-century audiobook literary-fiction -
The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Young Lions is a vivid and classic novel that portrays the experiences of ordinary soldiers fighting World War II. Told from the points of view of a perceptive young Nazi, a jaded American film producer, and a shy Jewish boy just married to the love of his life, Shaw conveys, as no other novelist has since, the scope, confusion, and complexity of war... -
Trail of Longing by Merry Farmer
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsEmma Sutton fell in love with Dr. Dean Meyers on the very first day of their journey west on the Oregon Trail. Dean is handsome, caring, and noble. If only she could tell him! But between her crippling shyness and the marital machinations of her mother, she despairs of ever being able to say what’s in her heart... -
Danny Boy by Anne Bennett
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA deeply moving saga of a young couple with high hopes for a bright future in rural Ireland, only to find themselves embroiled in the uprising of 1916 and having to make a new life for themselves in Birmingham. Rosie's family doesn't have much money, but she's rich in other ways: she loves her life on the farm, her sisters, her friends, and even her spoilt baby brother... -
Todos os Sonhos do Mundo by Theresa Révay
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsVoltar ao grande romance. Viver, página a página, a intensidade de uma história de amor, perda, força e coragem. Xénia escapou à Revolução Russa e à guerra, mas o seu coração está ainda por sarar. Derrubado o governo nazi, regressa a Berlim em busca do Max, o único homem que amou. Reencontra-o marcado pela guerra, atormentado... -
Untethered by Angela Jackson-Brown
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSometimes family is found in the most unlikely of places . . .In the small college town of Troy, Alabama, amidst the backdrop of 1967, Katia Daniels lives a life steeped in responsibility. At the Pike County Group Home for Negro Boys, she pours her heart into nurturing the young lives under her care, harboring a longing for children of her own... -
-
Sharpe's Battle by Bernard Cornwell, William Gaminara
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsThe thirteenth novel in the Sharpe series. Once more Sharpe's career is on the line, following a disastrous attack by an elite French unit. To save his honour Sharpe must lead his men to glory in one of the bitterest battles of the Peninsular War... -
Ever My Love by Gretchen Craig
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsOn the eve of Civil War, the daughter of Southern planters finds her loyalties tested in a magnificent saga of family pride and forbidden love...Brought up amid the luxury of plantation life, Marianne Johnston never questions her sheltered life until, driven by her conscience, she joins the Underground Railroad... -
1776 by Peter Stone, Sherman Edwards
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratings1776 is an inspiring and imaginative re-creation of the events from May 8 to July 4 in Philadelphia, when the second Continental Congress argued about, voted on, and signed the Declaration of Independence. From John Adams's opening diatribe to the signing of the document, 1776 is a classic musical play of mounting tension and triumph... -
The Stars Look Down by A.J. Cronin
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Stars Look Down was A.J. Cronin's fourth novel, published in 1935, and this tale of a North country mining family was a great favourite with his readers. Robert Fenwick is a miner, and so are his three sons. His wife is proud that all her four men go down the mines... -
Javanese Gentry by Umar Kayam
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"In my mind rose a misty picture of a little girl in a floral dress. As for her face: nothing. I could only hope that she had been pretty. I sat overcome. What a procession of developments in one day! Only that morning I had left Madiun; at midday I was wobbling on a buggy past an ocean of rice fields; tonight, suddenly, I had been renamed by my parents and handed a wife... -
The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNo set of novels so richly recreates the last days of India under British rule--"two nations locked in an imperial embrace"--as Paul Scott's historical tour de force, " The Raj Quartet." "The Jewel in the Crown" opens in 1942 as the British fear both Japanese invasion and Indian demands for independence...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction poc-mc politics university war 20th-century action-adventure -
Eagle in the Sky by Wilbur Smith
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA novel in which a passionate affair between a French aristocrat and Michael Courtney forces her to set out and seek a future for their unborn child in Africa, but first she must brave the terrors of war, shipwreck, fever and the vastness of Namibia before finding a home... -
Sharpe's Fury by Bernard Cornwell, Paul McGann
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsThe year is 1811 and the French appear to have won their war in Portugal and Spain, with Spain fallen to the invader except for the sea-wrapped city of Cadiz. Captain Richard Sharpe has no business being in Cadiz, but an attack on a French held bridge goes disastrously wrong and Sharpe finds himself in a city under French siege and political rivalry... -
Veriruusut by Anneli Kanto
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsRiipaiseva romaani vuoden 1918 naiskaartilaisistaViisitoistavuotias Sigrid on saanut kansakoulun päätökseen ja vastikään päässyt ripille. Isänsä kehotuksesta hän hakee paperitehtaalle töihin ja päätyy sinne aputytöksi. Tehtaalla Sigrid ystävystyy railakkaan Martan kanssa, jolla on jo sulhanenkin.Helmikuun alussa 1918 tehdas suljetaan ja punakaarti ottaa komennon Valkeakoskella... -
The Renegade: A Tale of Robert the Bruce by Jack Whyte
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Renegade is a blazing, brilliant, new historical adventure in Jack Whyte's Guardians series. Packed with action, heroism, and vibrant historical detail, The Renegade recounts the life of Scotland's greatest medieval king, Robert the Bruce... -
-
Written on the Wind by Judith Pella
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsBook 1 of the Daughters of Fortune series. Cameron Hayes??? determination to distance herself from her famous father and establish herself as a journalist finds her back in her beloved Russia, now threatened by Hitler's greed. In Moscow she meets Dr. Alex Rostov, a once-prominent US surgeon who has been forced to return to his Russian homeland...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction politics social-commentary war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Cuckoo in the Nest by Michelle Magorian
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAs an evacuee, Ralph received a good education, but after the war Ralph's working-class father resents his education and his ambition to be an actor, and is furious when Ralph is sacked from the paper mill. The story traces Ralph's struggle to reconcile the disparate strands of his life...Categorized as:
historical-fiction war drama politics social-commentary young-adult fiction historical -
Underground: Finding the Light to Freedom by Shane W. Evans
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA family silently crawls along the ground. They run barefoot through unlit woods, sleep beneath bushes, take shelter in a kind stranger's home. Where are they heading? They are heading for Freedom by way of the Underground Railroad."A stellar introduction to the Underground Railroad, narrated by a group of slaves...Categorized as:
historical-fiction social-commentary poc-mc black-mc children-books historical fiction realistic -
The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe Farming of Bones begins in 1937 in a village on the Dominican side of the river that separates the country from Haiti. Amabelle Desir, Haitian-born and a faithful maidservant to the Dominican family that took her in when she was orphaned, and her lover Sebastien, an itinerant sugarcane cutter, decide they will marry and return to Haiti at the end of the cane season...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction poc-mc politics social-commentary university war 20th-century -
Her Mother's Secret by Natasha Lester
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratings1918, England. Armistice Day should bring peace into Leonora's life. Rather than secretly making cosmetics in her father's chemist shop to sell to army nurses such as Joan, her adventurous Australian friend, Leo hopes to now display her wares openly. Instead, Spanish flu arrives in the village, claiming her father's life. Determined to start over, she boards a ship to New York City... -
Ardh Al Burtuqal Al Hazin: Short Stories in Arabic by غسان كنفاني, Ghassan Kanafani
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsGhassan Kanafani is an Arab Palestinian writer and fighter. In this literal Arab genri several short stories are included. These stories were written in the 1960's at Kuwait and Bairut-Lebanon, and reflect nostalgia for the home land, Palestine... -
Guernica by Dave Boling
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAn extraordinary epic of love, family and war set in the Basque town of Guernica before, during, and after its destruction by the German Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction politics social-commentary war 20th-century adult audiobook -
Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMatilda, daughter of Henry I, knows that there are those who will not accept her as England's queen when her father dies. But the men who support her rival Stephen do not know the iron will that drives her.Adeliza, Henry's widowed queen and Matilda's stepmother, is now married to a warrior who fights to keep Matilda off the throne... -
Red Cavalry by Isaac Babel
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOne of the great masterpieces of Russian literature, the Red Cavalry cycle retains today the shocking freshness that made Babel's reputation when the stories were first published in the 1920s... -
عن الرجال والبنادق by غسان كنفاني
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsمجموعة قصصية يستلهم فيها كنفاني ككل إبداعه الأدبي مأساة شعب فلسطين الذي لم يكتب غسان كنفاني شيئا إلا عنه، ولم يستلهم قصصه إلا منه... -
-
My Beloved Son by Catherine Cookson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsEllen Jebeau married a man who did little but dream, and who then died with debt his only legacy. Whatever else her marriage had lacked, however, she had her son Joseph. She resolved he should have all in life she had missed and to achieve that end, she would stop at nothing... -
All Souls' Rising by Madison Smartt Bell
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn this first installment of his epic Haitian trilogy, Madison Smartt Bell brings to life a decisive moment in the history of race, class, and colonialism. The slave uprising in Haiti was a momentous contribution to the tide of revolution that swept over the Western world at the end of the 1700s... -
A Bright Room Called Day by Tony Kushner
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratings“One of the things that makes Kushner such a vibrant writer is the way he luxuriates in exuberance and sorrow, emotions that these intense Berliners have in spades. His intellectual characters are tremendously passionate and expressive, so it's hard not to care about what they care about, and what happens to them.” –Washington Post“A juggernaut of a play... -
After the Parade by Dorothy Garlock
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDOROTHY GARLOCK...is a New York Times extended list bestselling author, "a gifted writer" (Chicago Sun-Times) who celebrates the indomitable American spirit and the triumphs of the caring heart. Now she vividly portrays the era after World War II, when men and women torn apart by years of combat had to rebuild marriages and lives... Rawlings, Oklahoma, 1945... -
One by One in the Darkness by Deirdre Madden
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA story about three Northern Irish sisters. It has a double narrative, part of which describes their childhood and shows the impact of the political changes and the violence of the late-1960s upon the people of Ulster. The author won the Somerset Maugham Prize for "The Birds of the Innocent Wood"...Categorized as:
historical-fiction war politics university fiction literary-fiction historical female-author -
Byzantium Endures by Michael Moorcock
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe first volume of the Pyat Quartet.Byzantium Endures, the first of the Pyat Quartet, introduces one of Michael Moorcock's most magnificent creations - Maxim Arturovitch Pyatnitski. Born in Kiev on the cusp of the twentieth century, he discovers the pleasures of sex and cocaine and glimpses a sophisticated world beyond his horizons before the storm of the October Revolution breaks...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.