Books like 'Never Fall Down'
Readers who enjoyed Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical action / adventure horror 20th century military, war & conflict historical-fiction war survival realistic poc-mc
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Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz
Rated: 4.46 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsSurvive. At any cost.10 concentration camps.10 different places where you are starved, tortured, and worked mercilessly.It's something no one could imagine surviving.But it is what Yanek Gruener has to face.As a Jewish boy in 1930s Poland, Yanek is at the mercy of the Nazis who have taken over. Everything he has, and everyone he loves, have been snatched brutally from him... -
![The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón]()
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 91 ratingsBarcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals from its war wounds, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer's son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julian Carax. But when he sets out to find the author's other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written...Categorized as:
coming-of-age drama historical-fiction journey war 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure -
![The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult]()
The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsSome stories live forever . . .Sage Singer is a baker. She works through the night, preparing the day’s breads and pastries, trying to escape a reality of loneliness, bad memories, and the shadow of her mother’s death. When Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, begins stopping by the bakery, they strike up an unlikely friendship... -
![Projekt 1065 by Alan Gratz]()
Projekt 1065 by Alan Gratz
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsInfiltrate. Befriend. Sabotage.World War II is raging. Michael O'Shaunessey, originally from Ireland, now lives in Nazi Germany with his parents. Like the other boys in his school, Michael is a member of the Hitler Youth.But Michael has a secret. He and his parents are spies. Michael despises everything the Nazis stand for...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age drama family friendship high-school historical-fiction realistic -
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![Making Bombs for Hitler by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch]()
Making Bombs for Hitler by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsLida thought she was safe. Her neighbors wearing the yellow star were all taken away, but Lida is not Jewish. She will be fine, won't she?But she cannot escape the horrors of World War II.Lida's parents are ripped away from her and she is separated from her beloved sister, Larissa. The Nazis take Lida to a brutal work camp, where she and other Ukrainian children are forced into backbreaking labor... -
![The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan]()
The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 69 ratingsThe seals of Shayol Ghul are weak now, and the Dark One reaches out. The Shadow is rising to cover humankind.In Tar Valon, Min sees portents of hideous doom. Will the White Tower itself be broken?In the Two Rivers, the Whitecloaks ride in pursuit of a man with golden eyes, and in pursuit of the Dragon Reborn... -
![Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy]()
Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsAn epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west... -
![The Last Enchantment by Mary Stewart]()
The Last Enchantment by Mary Stewart
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsArthur Pendragon is King! Unchallenged on the battlefield, he melds the country together in a time of promise. But sinister powers plot to destroy Camelot, and when the witch-queen Morgause -- Arthur's own half sister -- ensnares him in an incestuous liaison, a fatal web of love, betrayal, and bloody vengeance is woven...Categorized as:
high-school historical-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure arthurian audiobook book -
![Interesting Times: The Play by Stephen Briggs, Terry Pratchett]()
Interesting Times: The Play by Stephen Briggs, Terry Pratchett
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA new stage adaptation of one of Pratchett's best-selling novelsThe Discworld's most inept wizard has been sent from Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork to the oppressive Agatean Empire to help some well-intentioned rebels overthrow the Emperor... -
![Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, Cindy Sheehan]()
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, Cindy Sheehan
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsAn immediate bestseller upon its original publication in 1939, Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo is a searing portrayal of war that has stunned and galvanized generations of readers... -
![Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks]()
Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 47 ratingsThe man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks and military action.The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought... -
![The Time of Contempt by Andrzej Sapkowski]()
The Time of Contempt by Andrzej Sapkowski
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsThe New York Times bestselling series that inspired the international hit video game: The Witcher Geralt is a witcher: guardian of the innocent; protector of those in need; a defender, in dark times, against some of the most frightening creatures of myth and legend. His task, now, is to protect Ciri... -
![The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón]()
The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsBarcelona, 1957. It is Christmas, and Daniel Sempere and his wife Bea have much to celebrate. They have a beautiful new baby son named Julian, and their close friend Fermín Romero de Torres is about to be wed. But their joy is eclipsed when a mysterious stranger visits the Sempere bookshop and threatens to divulge a terrible secret that has been buried for two decades in the city's dark past... -
![Max by Sarah Cohen-Scali]()
Max by Sarah Cohen-Scali
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsNazi Germany. 1936.“I should have been born yesterday, but that’s not what I wanted. The date didn’t suit me. So I’ve stayed put. Motionless. Rigid. Of course that means a lot of pain for my mother, but she’s a brave woman, and she’s putting up with the delay without complaint. I’m sure she approves of my tactic.“My wish, the first of my future life, is to come into the world on April 20... -
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![The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman]()
The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsIn Berlin in 1941 during humanity's darkest hour, three unforgettable young women must act with courage and love to survive, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dovekeepers and The Marriage of Opposites Alice Hoffman. In Berlin, at the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her twelve-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime... -
![Fail-Safe by Eugene Burdick, Harvey Wheeler]()
Fail-Safe by Eugene Burdick, Harvey Wheeler
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSomething has gone wrong. A group of American bombers armed with nuclear weapons is streaking past the fail-safe point, beyond recall, and no one knows why. Their destination—Moscow.In a bomb shelter beneath the White House, the calm young president turns to his Russian translator and says, "I think we are ready to talk to Premier Kruschchev...Categorized as:
historical-fiction politics war 20th-century action-adventure adult apocalyptic audiobook -
![Qb VII by Leon Uris]()
Qb VII by Leon Uris
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsIn Queen’s Bench Courtroom Number Seven, famous author Abraham Cady stands trial. In his book The Holocaust—born of the terrible revelation that the Jadwiga Concentration Camp was the site of his family’s extermination—Cady shook the consciousness of the human race. He also named eminent surgeon Sir Adam Kelno as one of Jadwiga’s most sadistic inmate/doctors... -
![Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith]()
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsMGB officer Leo is a man who never questions the Party Line. He arrests whomever he is told to arrest. He dismisses the horrific death of a young boy because he is told to, because he believes the Party stance that there can be no murder in Communist Russia. Leo is the perfect soldier of the regime. But suddenly his confidence that everything he does serves a great good is shaken...Categorized as:
communism drama historical-fiction journey politics war 20th-century action-adventure -
![The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy]()
The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsFollowing All the Pretty Horses in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy is a novel whose force of language is matched only by its breadth of experience and depth of thought.In the bootheel of New Mexico hard on the frontier, Billy and Boyd Parham are just boys in the years before the Second World War, but on the cusp of unimaginable events...Categorized as:
coming-of-age drama historical-fiction poc-mc realistic war 20th-century action-adventure -
![Human Acts by Han Kang, Alba Cunill Fulquet]()
Human Acts by Han Kang, Alba Cunill Fulquet
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsFrom the internationally bestselling author of The Vegetarian, a rare and astonishing (The Observer) portrait of political unrest and the universal struggle for justice.In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed... -
![Crash Dive by Craig DiLouie]()
Crash Dive by Craig DiLouie
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA WWII naval thriller in the tradition of the Hornblower series ... October, 1942. The United States and the Empire of Japan are at war. Charlie Harrison, a young and ambitious lieutenant, reports for duty aboard the S-55, a worn-out WWI-era submarine... -
![Potsdam Station by David Downing]()
Potsdam Station by David Downing
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsApril, 1945. The Third Reich is on the verge of extinction, and its enemies are already plotting against each other. For John Russell, this has personal importance: his son and girlfriend are trapped in Berlin and only the Soviets can get him in there. But the price of their help will threaten both his and the world's postwar future... -
![Shaman by Noah Gordon]()
Shaman by Noah Gordon
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsRobert Jeremy Cole, the legendary doctor and hero of The Physician, left an enduring legacy. From the 11th century on, the eldest son in each generation of the Cole family has borne the same first name and middle initial and many of these men have followed the medical profession... -
![The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden]()
The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 7 ratingsDuring the Great War, a combat nurse searches for her brother, believed dead in the trenches despite eerie signs that suggest otherwise, in this hauntingly beautiful historical novel with a speculative twist from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the NightingaleJanuary 1918... -
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![All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque]()
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsOne by one the boys begin to fall…In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the ‘glorious war’. With the fire and patriotism of youth they sign up. What follows is the moving story of a young ‘unknown soldier’ experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches...Categorized as:
coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction politics realistic war 20th-century -
![Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein]()
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 46 ratingsIn one of Robert Heinlein's most controversial bestsellers, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe--and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against mankind's most frightening enemy... -
![The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon]()
The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsAs compelling and disturbing as when it was first published in the midst of the Cold War, The Manchurian Candidate continues to enthrall readers with its electrifying action and shocking climax....Sgt. Raymond Shaw is a hero of the first order. He's an ex-prisoner of war who saved the life of his entire outfit, a winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, the stepson of an influential senator.. -
![The Secret of Midway by Steve Watkins]()
The Secret of Midway by Steve Watkins
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn the basement of his family's junkshop, Anderson and his friends Greg and Julie discover a trunk full of old military stuff. Including a battered navy peacoat from World War II, and when Anderson puts it on he finds a mysterious letter in the pocket. Curious, he takes the coat and letter home. But that's not all he brings home..Categorized as:
historical-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure book children-books fiction ghosts -
![Daddy by Loup Durand]()
Daddy by Loup Durand
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWho has the key to a $350 million fortune the Nazis have sent their most brilliant operative to find? Thomas, an 11-year old boy with the mind of a genius, the cunning of a fox, and the chance of a snowball in Hell to escape...unless he is helped by one man. An American who doesn't even know he exists. A man he calls Daddy... -
![Madness in the Ruins by John A. Connell]()
Madness in the Ruins by John A. Connell
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA mutilated body. No witnesses. The only clue, a message, “Those who I have made suffer will become saints and they shall lift me up from hell.” Winter, 1945. Munich is in ruins, and a savage killer is stalking the city.U.S. Army investigator Mason Collins enforces the law in the American Zone of Occupation. This post is his last chance to do what he loves most—being a homicide detective... -
![The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope]()
The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsNewly orphaned Peggy Grahame is caught off-guard when she first arrives at her family's ancestral estate. Her eccentric uncle Enos drives away her only new acquaintance, Pat, a handsome British scholar, then leaves Peggy to fend for herself. But she is not alone. The house is full of mysteries and ghosts... -
![Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison]()
Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratings'Legends of the Fall, an epic tale of three brothers and their lives of passion, madness, exploration and danger at the beginning of the Great War, confirms Jim Harrison's reputation as one of the finest American writers of his generation. This magnificent trilogy also contains two other superb short novels. In Revenge, love causes the course of a man's life to be savagely and irrevocably altered... -
![Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams]()
Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsThe second book in the trilogy that launched one of the most important fantasy writers of our time.It is a time of darkness, dread, and ultimate testing for the realm of Osten Ard, for the wild magic and terrifying minions of the undead Sithi ruler, Ineluki the Storm King, are spreading their seemingly undefeatable evil across the kingdom... -
![Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle]()
Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsTHE LUCKY ONES WENT FIRST…The gigantic comet has slammed into Earth, forging earthquakes a thousand times too powerful to measure on the Richter scale, tidal waves thousands of feet high. Cities were turned into oceans; oceans turned into steam... -
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![The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen]()
The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsHannah thinks tonight Passover Seder will be the same as always. But this year she will be mysteriously transported into the past. Only she knows the horrors that await... -
![Hollow City by Ransom Riggs]()
Hollow City by Ransom Riggs
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 76 ratingsThis second novel begins in 1940, immediately after the first book ended. Having escaped Miss Peregrine’s island by the skin of their teeth, Jacob and his new friends must journey to London, the peculiar capital of the world. Along the way, they encounter new allies, a menagerie of peculiar animals, and other unexpected surprises...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age friendship historical-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure audiobook -
![Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard]()
Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe classic, award-winning novel, made famous by Steven Spielberg's film, tells of a young boy's struggle to survive World War II in China.Jim is separated from his parents in a world at war. To survive, he must find a deep strength greater than all the events that surround him.Shanghai, 1941 — a city aflame from the fateful torch of Pearl Harbor...Categorized as:
coming-of-age drama family historical-fiction survival war 20th-century action-adventure -
![The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy]()
The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA poignant and suspenseful retelling of a classic fairy tale set in a war-torn world. In the last months of the Nazi occupation of Poland, two children are left by their father and stepmother to find safety in a dense forest. Because their real names will reveal their Jewishness, they are renamed "Hansel" and "Gretel... -
![The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti]()
The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA youth in Nazi Germany tells the truth about Hitler.Bartoletti has taken one episode from her Newbery Honor Book, Hitler Youth, and fleshed it out into a full novel.When 16-year-old Helmut Hubner listens to the BBC news on an illegal short-wave radio, he quickly discovers Germany is lying to the people. But when he tries to expose the truth with leaflets, he's tried for treason...Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship high-school historical-fiction male-mc poc-mc -
![The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima]()
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, celebrated Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima creates a haunting and vivid portrait of a young man’s obsession with idealized beauty and his destructive quest to possess it fully.Mizoguchi, an ostracized stutterer, develops a childhood fascination with Kyoto’s famous Golden Temple...Categorized as:
coming-of-age drama historical-fiction journey war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner]()
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsDisplaying the author's extraordinary gift for language, In the Shadow of the Banyan is testament to the transcendent power of narrative and a brilliantly wrought tale of human resilience... -
![Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer]()
Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAfter Charlotte's first night at boarding school, the view from the window has changed and the girl in the next bed is not the girl who was there last night. She is a stranger who calls Charlotte "Clare" and says she's her sister..Categorized as:
children coming-of-age family friendship historical-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure -
![Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank]()
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 46 ratings“An extraordinary real picture of human beings numbed by catastrophe but still driven by the unconquerable determination of living creatures to keep on being alive.” —The New Yorker“Alas, Babylon.” Those fateful words heralded the end... -
![Three Souls by Janie Chang]()
Three Souls by Janie Chang
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsAn absorbing novel of romance and revolution, loyalty and family, sacrifice and undying loveWe have three souls, or so I'd been told. But only in death could I confirm this ... So begins the haunting and captivating tale, set in 1935 China, of the ghost of a young woman named Leiyin, who watches her own funeral from above and wonders why she is being denied entry to the afterlife... -
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![The Witch’s Lens by Luanne G. Smith]()
The Witch’s Lens by Luanne G. Smith
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsAs World War I rages, there are evils—both living and dead—that only a witch can see in a spellbinding novel by the Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of The Raven Spell.With her husband off fighting at World War I’s eastern front, Petra Kurková embraces her fleeting freedom, roaming the city at night with her camera... -
![Mapping the Bones by Jane Yolen]()
Mapping the Bones by Jane Yolen
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe year is 1942, and Chaim and Gittel, Polish twins, are forced from their beautiful home and made to live in the Lodz Ghetto. Their family's cramped quarters are awful, but when even those dire circumstances become too dangerous, their parents decide to make for the nearby Lagiewniki Forest, where partisan fighters are trying to shepherd Jews to freedom in Russia... -
![The Porcelain Maker by Sarah Freethy]()
The Porcelain Maker by Sarah Freethy
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn epic story of love, betrayal, and art that spans decades, through the horrors of World War II to 21st century America, inspired by an actual porcelain factory in Dachau.Two lovers caught at the crossroads of history.A daughter’s search for the truth.Germany, 1929... -
![Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth by J.R.R. Tolkien]()
Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth by J.R.R. Tolkien
Rated: 3.99 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsClassic hardback edition of this fascinating collection of stories, featuring Tolkien’s own painting of the dragon Glaurung on the cover, which continues the tales of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion and contains an alternative version of The Children of Hurin... -
![The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien]()
The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 59 ratingsThis tale of Middle-earth's First Age, which appeared in incomplete forms in the posthumously published The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales , also edited by Tolkien's son, Christopher, only hinted at the depth and power of the tragic story of Túrin and Niënor, the children of Húrin, the lord of Dor-lómin, who achieved renown for having confronted Morgoth, who was the master of Sauron, the...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction war 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure audiobook book -
![The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø]()
The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsThe Redbreast is a fabulous introduction to Nesbø’s tough-as-nails series protagonist, Oslo police detective Harry Hole...Categorized as:
drama historical-fiction journey politics war 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure
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