Books like 'The Contender'
Readers who enjoyed The Contender by Robert Lipsyte also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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The Fortress by Meša Selimović
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA novel on 18th century Sarajevo under Ottoman rule, featuring a soldier returned from the wars. A Muslim, he marries a Christian girl who supports him while he dabbles in politics, eventually leading a raid to rescue a friend from jail... -
Pather Panchali: Song of the Road by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPather Panchali deals with the life of the Roy family, consisting of Harihar, Sarbajaya, Apu and Durga, both in their ancestral village Nishchindipur in rural Bengal and later when they move to Varanasi in search of a better life, as well as the anguish and loss they face during their travels...Categorized as:
children classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsIn 1939, as Hitler casts his enormous, cruel shadow across the world, the seeds of apartheid take root in South Africa. There, a boy called Peekay is born. His childhood is marked by humiliation and abandonment, yet he vows to survive and conceives heroic dreams, which are nothing compared to what life actually has in store for him...Categorized as:
bullying children classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction realistic -
Heaven to Betsy & Betsy in Spite of Herself by Vera Neville
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsHeaven to Betsy : Betsy Ray is loving every minute of freshman year at Deep Valley High-with new and old friends all around her...not to mention boys! But most intriguing of all is the one she and her best friend, Tacy, dub "the Tall Dark Stranger...Categorized as:
children classics coming-of-age high-school historical-fiction 20th-century book female-author -
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Betsy Was a Junior & Betsy and Joe by Vera Neville
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsBetsy Was a Junior: It's the best school year ever, especially now that charming, funny Tib Muller is back in Deep Valley. But when her crowd gets into trouble, Betsy's best year could turn out to be her worst...Categorized as:
children classics coming-of-age high-school historical-fiction 20th-century book female-author -
A Royal Visit to Victory Street by Pam Howes
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFrom Amazon charts bestseller Pam Howes comes an emotional and uplifting saga about the power of family and a community trying to rebuild their lives after the terrible war that nearly destroyed everything…1956, Liverpool. With the shadow of the war looming over them and bomb craters littering the surrounding streets, hope feels far away for the residents of Victory Street... -
Castelul fetei in alb by Constantin Chiriță
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsLaura este o fată nou venită în orășel care vrea să se împrietenească cu renumiții Cireșari. Din păcate, bunica ei îi interzice acest lucru, așa că Laura pornește singură către Castelul celor două cruci. Ea ajunge la castel, dar este capturată și facută prizonieră acolo. Ea le trimite un bilet Cireșarilor care urmează un traseu foarte încâlcit...Categorized as:
classics children coming-of-age realistic fiction action-adventure young-adult children-books -
Body and Soul by Frank Conroy
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn the dim light of a basement apartment, six-year-old Claude Rawlings sits at an old white piano, picking out the sounds he has heard on the radio and shutting out the reality of his lonely world.The setting is 1940s New York, a city that is "long gone, replaced by another city of the same name... -
Heaven to Betsy by Maud Hart Lovelace
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHigh School is Heaven! It's Betsy Ray's freshman year at Deep Valley High School, and she and her best childhood chum, Tacy Kelly, are loving every minute...Categorized as:
children classics coming-of-age high-school historical-fiction realistic 20th-century book -
Code of Honor by Alan Gratz
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLive by the code. Die by the code?Kamran Smith has it all. He’s the star of the football team, dates the most popular girl, and can’t wait to enlist in the army like his big brother, Darius. Although Kamran’s mother is from Iran, Kamran has always felt 100% American. Accepted.And then everything implodes.Darius is accused of being a terrorist. Kamran refuses to believe it...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction male-mc poc-mc realistic -
The Inseparable Twins by Anatoly Pristavkin, Michael Glenny
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsВ этот сборник А.Приставкина вошли повесть "Ночевала тучка золотая" и рассказы, написанные в разные годы. Но объединены они все одной общей темой - темой войны. Это суровое и тяжкое детство, это люди, спасшие из военного пожара целое поколение. Это размышления автора о раннем взрослении юных, о дружбе и товариществе, о любви к родной земле... -
Prokleta avlija by Ivo Andrić, Celia Hawkesworth
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsProkleta avlija/The Damned Yard (Description from Ivo Andrić Foundation website)The novel is written in 1954. Ćamil, a wealthy young man of Smyrna living in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, is fascinated by the story of Džem, ill-fated brother of the Sultan Bajazet, who ruled Turkey in the fifteenth century...Categorized as:
classics high-school historical-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies fiction historical -
Sacajawea by Anna Lee Waldo
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsClad ln a doeskin, alone and unafraid, she stood straight and proud before the onrushlng Forces of America’s destiny: Sacajawea. child of a Shoshoni chief, lone woman on Lewis and Clark‘s historic trek-beautiful spear of a dying nation.She knew many men, walked many miles...Categorized as:
children classics historical-fiction poc-mc realistic 20th-century action-adventure book -
The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsEverything’s changing for twelve-year-old Marlee. Her brother’s gone off to college and her sister’s moved out of the room they’ve shared since Marlee was born. To Marlee, it feels like her whole world’s falling apart. On top of all that, she’s starting middle school and has to break in new teachers—teachers who don’t yet know Marlee doesn’t talk... -
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A River Runs Through it and Other Stories by Norman Maclean, Annie Proulx
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsJust as Norman Maclean writes at the end of "A River Runs through It" that he is "haunted by waters," so have readers been haunted by his novella. A retired English professor who began writing fiction at the age of 70, Maclean produced what is now recognized as one of the classic American stories of the twentieth century...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction realistic sports 20th-century -
مرگ یزدگرد by Bahram Beyzaie
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsبهرام بیضایی (زاده ۵ دی ماه ۱۳۱۷ در تهران) کارگردان سینما، تئاتر، نمایشنامهنویس، فیلمنامهنویس و پژوهشگر ایرانی است. بیضایی علاوه بر کارگردانی و نمایشنامهنویسی در سینما عرصههای دیگری چون تدوین، ساخت عنوانبندی و تهیهکنندگی را هم تجربه کرده است. وی کارگردان برخی از بهترین و ماندگارترین آثار سینمای تاریخ ایران است... -
Tumbling by Diane McKinney-Whetstone
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsDiane McKinney-Whetstone's lyrical first novel, Tumbling, vividly captures a tightly knit African-American neighborhood in South Philadelphia during the forties and fifties. Its central characters, Herbie and Noon, are a loving but unconventional couple whose marriage remains unconsummated for many years as Noon struggles to repossess her sexuality after a brutal attack in her past... -
Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsShorty and his family, along with thousands of Japanese Americans, are sent to an internment camp after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Fighting the heat and dust of the desert, Shorty and his father decide to build a baseball diamond and form a league in order to boost the spirits of the internees. Shorty quickly learns that he is playing not only to win, but to gain dignity and self-respect as well... -
Road To Memphis by Mildred D. Taylor
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAs America hovers on the brink of World War II, Cassie Logan fights a battle closer to home--the battle of black against white.The third book in the powerfully written Logan family saga finds the 17-year-old Cassie Logan dreaming of college and law school...Categorized as:
black-mc children classics coming-of-age high-school historical-fiction poc-mc realistic -
The Citadel by A.J. Cronin
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Citadel follows the life of Andrew Manson, a young and idealistic Scottish doctor, as he navigates the challenges of practicing medicine across interwar Wales and England. Based on A.J. Cronin’s own experiences as a physician, this book boldly confronts traditional medical ethics, and has been noted as one of the inspirations for the formation of the National Health Service...Categorized as:
classics drama high-school historical-fiction realistic 20th-century adult audiobook -
Let the Circle Be Unbroken by Mildred D. Taylor
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA sequel to the universally acclaimed Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, continuing in the story of the Logan family in Mississippi during the Depression. The children, especially Cassie, are happy in their warm, stable family but outside is a climate of fear and tension. Their friend T.J. goes on trial for murder and stands before an all-white jury...Categorized as:
children classics coming-of-age historical-fiction poc-mc realistic teens 20th-century -
To Sir, With Love by E.R. Braithwaite
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThis classic schoolroom drama of a black teacher in London's tough East End who triumphs over bigotry and ignorance to change the lives of his students forever was hailed by the "New York Times" as "a book that the reader devours quickly, ponders slowly, and forgets not at all"With opportunities for black men limited in post-World War II London, Rick Braithwaite, a former Royal Air Force pilot...Categorized as:
black-mc classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction poc-mc realistic -
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 classics drama high-school historical-fiction poc-mc realistic 20th-century -
The Last Convertible by Anton Myrer
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAnton Myrer's beloved, bestselling novel of America's World War II generation is as powerful now as it was upon its publication. An immediate classic, it tells the story of five Harvard men, the women they loved -- and the elegant car that came to symbolize their romantic youth... -
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My Family for the War by Anne C. Voorhoeve
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWinner of the Mildred L. Batchelder medal for most oustanding children's book in translation.Escaping Nazi Germany on the kindertransport changes one girl's life foreverAt the start of World War II, ten-year-old Franziska Mangold is torn from her family when she boards the kindertransport in Berlin, the train that secretly took nearly 10,000 children out of Nazi territory to safety in England...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction realistic teens 20th-century -
Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn a poor town in Kansas, an African American family struggles. At its centre sits Sandy Rodgers - a young boy attempting to find purpose amid the chaos, meagreness and music of his surroundings...Categorized as:
black-mc classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction poc-mc 20th-century -
Ziggy, Stardust and Me by James Brandon
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsIn this tender-hearted debut, set against the tumultuous backdrop of life in 1973, when homosexuality is still considered a mental illness, two boys defy all the odds and fall in love. Now in paperback. The year is 1973. The Watergate hearings are in full swing. The Vietnam War is still raging. And homosexuality is still officially considered a mental illness...Categorized as:
coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction poc-mc realistic 20th-century abuse -
Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery, Jane Urquhart
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsEmily Starr was born with the desire to write. As an orphan living on New Moon Farm, writing helped her face the difficult, lonely times. But now all her friends are going away to high school in nearby Shrewsbury, and her old-fashioned, tyrannical aunt Elizabeth will only let her go if she promises to stop writing! All the same, this is the first step in Emily's climb to success...Categorized as:
children classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction realistic teens -
More All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the third book of Sydney Taylor's classic children's series, Ella finds a boyfriend and Henny disagrees with Papa over her curfew. Thus continues the tale of a Jewish family of five sisters-Ella, Henny, Sarah, Charlotte and Gertie-and little brother, Charlie, living at the turn of the century in New York's Lower East Side...Categorized as:
children classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction realistic 20th-century audiobook -
The Berlin Boxing Club by Robert Sharenow
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSydney Taylor Award-winning novel Berlin Boxing Club is loosely inspired by the true story of boxer Max Schmeling's experiences following Kristallnacht. Karl Stern has never thought of himself as a Jew. But the bullies at his school in Nazi-era Berlin, don't care that Karl has never been in a synagogue or that his family doesn't practice religion...Categorized as:
bullying classics coming-of-age high-school historical-fiction male-mc poc-mc realistic -
Grenade by Alan Gratz
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsHere it is! The hugely anticipated follow-up to Gratz's NYT bestselling, critically acclaimed phenomenon REFUGEE. This is another searing and heart-pounding look at kids making their way through war.A New York Times bestseller!It's 1945, and the world is in the grip of war.Hideki lives on the island of Okinawa, near Japan...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction male-mc poc-mc realistic -
The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Education of Little Tree tells of a boy orphaned very young, who is adopted by his Cherokee grandmother and half-Cherokee grandfather in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee during the Great Depression...Categorized as:
children classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction poc-mc realistic -
Battles in the Desert by José Emilio Pacheco
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThis landmark novella—one of the central texts of Mexican literature, is eerily relevant to our current dark times—offers a child’s-eye view of a society beset by dictators, disease, and natural disasters, set in “the year of polio, foot-and-mouth disease, floods...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction drama coming-of-age romance fiction 20th-century historical -
Collected Stories by Frank O'Connor
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe definitive collection of short stories by a master of the form and one of Ireland's most celebrated authorsThis indispensable volume contains the best of Frank O’Connor's short fiction. From “Guests of the Nation” to “The Mad Lomasneys” to “First Confession” to “My Oedipus Complex,” these tales of Ireland have touched generations of readers the world over and placed O'Connor alongside W. B...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction realistic 20th-century adult anthologies fiction historical -
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Love is Just a Word by Johannes Mario Simmel, Йоханес Марио Зимел
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis is the story of Oliver and Verena, who fall in love and risk everything to keep each other.He is the son of a notorious German industrialist. She is the voluptuous, indiscreet wife of a wealthy and ruthless businessman.Apart they have been two lonely people. Half alive. Together, they are radiant... -
Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriwether, Nellie Y. McKay
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis modern classic is “a tough, tender, bitter novel of a black girl struggling towards womanhood” in 1930s Harlem—with a foreword by James Baldwin ( Publishers Weekly ). Depression-era Harlem is home for twelve-year-old Francie Coffin and her family, and it’s both a place of refuge and the source of untold dangers for her and her poor, working class family...Categorized as:
historical-fiction classics coming-of-age poc-mc realistic black-mc fiction young-adult -
Gem of the Ocean by August Wilson
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratings“No one except perhaps Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams has aimed so high and achieved so much in the American theater.”—John Lahr, The New Yorker“A swelling battle hymn of transporting beauty. Theatergoers who have followed August Wilson’s career will find in Gem a touchstone for everything else he has written.”—Ben Brantley, The New York Times“Wilson’s juiciest material... -
One-Handed Catch by Mary Jane Auch
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsNot even losing his hand can keep Norm from trying out for the baseball teamWhat would life be like with only one hand? That's exactly what eleven-year-old Norm finds out when he loses his left hand in an accident at his family's store. It's July 4, 1946. World War II has ended, and life is getting back to normal... -
The Watch That Ends the Night by Allan Wolf
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsArrogance and innocence, hubris and hope--twenty-four haunting voices of the Titanic tragedy, as well as the iceberg itself, are evoked in a stunning tour de force.Millionaire John Jacob Astor hopes to bring home his pregnant teen bride with a minimum of media scandal. A beautiful Lebanese refugee, on her way to family in Florida, discovers the first stirrings of love...Categorized as:
classics drama high-school historical-fiction poc-mc realistic 20th-century action-adventure -
Soldier X by Don L. Wulffson
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSixteen-year-old Erik Brandt barely knows what Germany is fighting for when he is drafted into Hitler's army in 1944. Sent to the killing fields of the Eastern Front, he is surrounded by unimaginable sights, more horrific than he ever thought possible. It's kill or be killed, and it seems clear that Erik's days are numbered...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age drama historical-fiction male-mc realistic 20th-century action-adventure -
A World for Julius by Alfredo Bryce Echenique
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJulius was born in a mansion on Salaverry Avenue, directly across from the old San Felipe Hippodrome. Life-size Disney characters and cowboy movie heroes romp across the walls of his nursery. Out in the carriage house, his great-grandfather’s ornate, moldering carriage takes him on imaginary adventures... -
The Black Stallion and Satan by Walter Farley
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSatan has won the Triple Crown, yet Alec still misses the Black, who’s living in Arabia with Sheikh Abu Ishak. Unexpectedly, Alec receives word that the sheikh has died and has left the Black to Alec. A race between the Black and Satan is inevitable, but unexpected events put the horses in the path of a raging forest fire. Suddenly, they are racing for their lives...Categorized as:
children classics coming-of-age historical-fiction realistic sports 20th-century action-adventure -
The Black Stallion's Filly by Walter Farley
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBlack Minx has the strength and stamina to win the most famous horse race in the world, but she doesn’t seem to like racing. So strongly does she resist training that Alec Ramsay and Henry Dailey have to trick her into running! But Black Minx has a few tricks of her own …In 1952, Walter Farley crated Black Minx, the first daughter of the famous Black Stallion...Categorized as:
children classics coming-of-age historical-fiction realistic 20th-century action-adventure animals -
Lentil by Robert McCloskey
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLentil's harmonica playing saves the day when calamity threatens the homecoming celebration for the leading citizen of Alto, Ohio... -
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The Island Stallion by Walter Farley
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFlame was a dream horse! Steve Duncan had a haunting vision of finding a magnificent red stallion... and finally discovered him in a hidden island paradise. But the giant horse was wild and unapproachable. Then Steve saved Flame from a horrible death, and a miraculous friendship began - changing both their lives forever. . .Categorized as:
children classics coming-of-age historical-fiction realistic sports 20th-century action-adventure -
National Velvet by Enid Bagnold
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsA butcher's daughter in a small Sussex town ends her nightly prayers with "Oh, God, give me horses, give me horses! Let me be the best rider in England!" The answer to 14-year-old Velvet Brown's plea materializes in the form of an unwanted piebald, raffled off in a village lottery, who turns out to be adept at jumping fences--exactly the sort of horse that could win the world's most famous...Categorized as:
children classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction realistic sports 20th-century -
The Short Stories by Langston Hughes
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis collection of forty-seven stories written between 1919 and 1963--the most comprehensive available--showcases Langston Hughes's literary blossoming and the development of his personal and artistic concerns. Many of the stories assembled here have long been out of print, and others never before collected...Categorized as:
classics black-mc poc-mc fiction anthologies 20th-century literary-fiction historical -
Devil on My Heels by Joyce McDonald
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn 1957 fifteen-year-old Dove, the daughter of a prosperous orange grower in Benevolence, Florida, feels increasingly uneasy after learning of acts of racism against the African American orange pickers by those close to her...Categorized as:
children classics coming-of-age historical-fiction 20th-century book children-books fiction -
I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots by Susan Straight
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsBeginning in the late 1950s, this novel tells the story of Marietta Cook, a tall girl growing up in Pine Gardens, a Gullah-speaking village in South Carolina. When Marietta's mother dies, she heads to Charleston in search of her uncle - only to find a lover and return pregnant with twins two years later... -
A Pair of Wings by Carole Hopson
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAn airline captain crafts a riveting, adventurous novel inspired by the remarkable true life of pioneer aviatrix Bessie Coleman, a Black woman who learned to fly at the dawn of aviation and found freedom in the air A few years after the Wright brothers’ first flight, Bessie was working the Texas cotton fields with her family when an airplane flew over their heads...
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