Books like 'And Yet They Were Happy'
Readers who enjoyed And Yet They Were Happy by Helen Phillips also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary sc-fi classics magical-realism female-mc literary-fiction family
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They Call Her Dirty Sally by Amy Matayo
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFor years, the town of Silver Bell, Arkansas has quietly mourned the hospital fire that claimed the lives of nine of its residents—the town doctor, a young expectant mother, and seven infants... -
![Protect by R.D. Brady]()
Protect by R.D. Brady
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSURVIVOR, MOTHER, LEADER ...HUMANITY'S LAST CHANCE The pulse-pounding, action-packed dystopian novel from Amazon best selling author, R.D. Brady.Deep within the remnants of the United States, Lyla Richards oversees a camp of two hundred survivors...Categorized as:
family female-mc literary-fiction action-adventure audiobook book children-books colonization -
![天橋上的魔術師 by Wu Ming-Yi, 吳明益]()
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![Winter's Burn by Elena Aitken]()
Winter's Burn by Elena Aitken
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsSingle mom, Beth Martin is doing her best raising her daughter Jules on her own after moving back to the small town she grew up in. She's been welcomed back by old friends and a decent job at the Springs resort. Things are going well, but something—or someone—is missing. When sexy rock star, Slade Black comes to town, it just might be what Beth is looking for... -
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![Time Shelter: A Novel by Georgi Gospodinov]()
Time Shelter: A Novel by Georgi Gospodinov
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 13 ratings“A trickster at heart, and often very funny” (Garth Greenwell, The New Yorker), award-winning Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov has enthralled readers around the world with his labyrinth-like, Kafkaesque tales of contemporary Europe...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism adult book contemporary fiction hard-sci-fi philosophy -
![Daisy on the Outer Line by Ross Sayers]()
Daisy on the Outer Line by Ross Sayers
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLife, Death & Time Travel on the Glasgow Subway.After selfish student Daisy makes a scene at her stepdad’s funeral, she drunkenly falls asleep on the Glasgow subway and wakes to find she has travelled back in time. And to make matters worse, she's in someone else's body.To make amends for her behaviour, she must save a life—but she doesn’t know who, how, or where to begin... -
![A Spell of Rowans by Byrd Nash]()
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... -
![Eating Fire: Selected Poetry 1965-1995 by Margaret Atwood]()
Eating Fire: Selected Poetry 1965-1995 by Margaret Atwood
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAn omnibus edition of Margaret Atwood's poetry 1965 - 1995 including the latest collection Morning in the Burned... -
![The Untethered by S.W. Southwick]()
The Untethered by S.W. Southwick
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhat Roble wants to create is illegal...if not impossible.And everyone seems determined to stop him from trying. But when a few unrepentant ladies join his fight to live free, the Las Vegas desert is going to light up like the 4th of July. ----------------------- "If you want a cross-breed between an Ayn Rand novel and a techno-thriller, this is the best you'll read...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction action-adventure adult book coming-of-age contemporary fiction -
![The Semplica-Girl Diaries (short story) by George Saunders]()
The Semplica-Girl Diaries (short story) by George Saunders
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNovelette, Free online fiction.From newyorker.com“The Semplica-Girl Diaries” deals with a family in a not-too-distant future (or perhaps an alternate present or past?) that is struggling to keep up with the Joneses—which, in this society, means leasing some unusual garden ornaments... -
![The Good Part by Sophie Cousens]()
The Good Part by Sophie Cousens
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsBy the New York Times bestselling author of Just Haven't Met You Yet, a downtrodden twenty-six-year-old wakes up to the life she's always wanted, but is it really a dream come true?At twenty-six, Lucy Young is tired. Tired of fetching coffees for senior TV producers, tired of going on disastrous dates, and definitely tired of living in a damp flat share with flatmates who never buy toilet roll...Categorized as:
magical-realism literary-fiction female-mc romance contemporary fiction time-travel womens-fiction -
![Isaac and the Egg by Bobby Palmer]()
Isaac and the Egg by Bobby Palmer
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHeartbreaking and heart-stealing, this bestselling modern-day fable is an unforgettable novel about sorrow, joy, friendship and love.When Isaac Addy walks into the woods on the worst day of his life and finds something extraordinary there, he already knows he's going to take it home.A grieving Isaac and his curious new friend are unlikely companions. They don't even speak the same language...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism fiction contemporary fantasy sci-fi audiobook mystery -
![Of Mice and Mooshaber by Ladislav Fuks, Mark Corner]()
Of Mice and Mooshaber by Ladislav Fuks, Mark Corner
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLadislav Fuks (1923-94) was an outstanding Czech writer whose work, consisting primarily of psychological fiction, explores themes of anxiety and life in totalitarian systems... -
![Heading Home by Susan Kiernan-Lewis]()
Heading Home by Susan Kiernan-Lewis
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhat happens when the one thing you’ve been praying for turns out to be the one thing that will destroy you and everything you love? After two years of living and adjusting to life after the bomb, Sarah and her son, John, have discovered that happiness can trump grief and loss... -
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![Last of the Curlews by Fred Bodsworth]()
Last of the Curlews by Fred Bodsworth
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"The story of this migration is magnificent, informative, breathtaking and exotic". Los Angeles TimesMore than three million readers around the world have been touched by this conservation classic, the story of a solitary Eskimo curlew's last perilous migration and search for a mate. The lone survivor comes to stand for the entirety of a lost species...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult animals anthropomorphism book contemporary -
![The Best Christmas Surprise by Brenda Novak]()
The Best Christmas Surprise by Brenda Novak
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsYour Christmas wish come true! Enjoy this touching classic by New York Times bestselling author Brenda Novak, originally published under the title Just Like the Ones We Used to Know in the 2006 anthology Once Upon a Christmas. Angela Forrester’s foster child Kayla has just one wish for Christmas…to meet her real dad... -
![Log of the S.S. The Mrs. Unguentine by Stanley Crawford, Ben Marcus]()
Log of the S.S. The Mrs. Unguentine by Stanley Crawford, Ben Marcus
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsForty years ago I first linked up with Unguentine and we made love on twin-hulled catamarans, sails a-billow, bless the seas . . .So begins the courtship of a certain Unguentine to the woman we know only as “Mrs. Unguentine,” the chronicler of their sad, fantastical tale. For forty years, they sail the seas together, alone on a giant land-covered barge of their own devising... -
![The After Wife by Cass Hunter]()
The After Wife by Cass Hunter
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratings'Grab a box of tissues because this beautiful story will make you cry' Amazon reviewer, 5 starsWhen Rachel and Aidan fell in love, they thought it was forever.She was a brilliant, high-flying scientist. He was her loving and supportive husband.Now she's gone, and Aidan must carry on and raise their daughter alone... -
![Adventures in Immediate Irreality by Max Blecher]()
Adventures in Immediate Irreality by Max Blecher
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsAdventures in Immediate Irreality, the masterwork of the Romanian writer Max Blecher, vividly paints the crises of "irreality" that plagued him in his youth: eerie and unsettling mirages wherein he would glimpse future events...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult book contemporary existentialism -
![Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories by Kevin Wilson]()
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories by Kevin Wilson
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsKevin Wilson's characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. "Grand Stand-In" is narrated by an employee of a Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider—a company that supplies "stand-ins" for families with deceased, ill, or just plain mean grandparents...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism 21st-century anthologies audiobook contemporary fiction humor -
![The Four-Gated City by Doris Lessing]()
The Four-Gated City by Doris Lessing
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsDorris Lessing's classic series of autobiographical novels is the fictional counterpart to Under My Skin. In these five novels, first published in the 1950's and 60s, Doris Lessing transformed her fascinating life into fiction, creating her most complex and compelling character, Martha Quest... -
![2666, Part 1: The Part About The Critics by Roberto Bolaño]()
2666, Part 1: The Part About The Critics by Roberto Bolaño
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsComposed in the last two years of Bolaño's life, 2666 has been greeted as his greatest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness,beauty, and scope. Its throng of unforgettable characters include academics and convicts, an American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student caring for her widowed, mentally unstable father... -
![Aurélia and Other Writings by Gérard de Nerval]()
Aurélia and Other Writings by Gérard de Nerval
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAurelia is French poet and novelist Gerard de Nerval's account of his descent into madness--a condition provoked in part by his unrequited passion for an actress named Jenny Colon...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary -
![The Works of Rudyard Kipling (500+ works) by Rudyard Kipling]()
The Works of Rudyard Kipling (500+ works) by Rudyard Kipling
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWith A to Z Classics, discover or rediscover all the classics of literature... -
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![Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children by Reena Mitra]()
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children by Reena Mitra
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsSalman Rushdies Midnights Children, ever since its publication in 1980, has been considered an ingenious piece of literary art and a trendsetter in the field of Indian fiction in English... -
![The Universe in Miniature in Miniature by Patrick Somerville]()
The Universe in Miniature in Miniature by Patrick Somerville
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn this genre-busting book from award-winning novelist Patrick Somerville characters, stories, and stray thoughts revolve around the "The Machine of Understanding Other People," the story of a Chicago man who is bequeathed a supernatural helmet that allows him to experience the inner worlds of those around him...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism adult anthologies apocalyptic contemporary dark dystopia -
![The Names by Florence Knapp]()
The Names by Florence Knapp
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe extraordinary debut that Can a name change the course of a life?In the wake of a catastrophic storm, Cora sets off with her nine-year-old daughter, Maia, to register her son's birth. Her husband, Gordon, a local doctor, respected in the community but a terrifying and controlling presence at home, intends for her to name the infant after him...Categorized as:
literary-fiction family female-mc fiction historical-fiction contemporary sci-fi female-author -
![Shadows of Death by H.P. Lovecraft]()
Shadows of Death by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsDescend into the nerve-shattering realm of America’s master of horror, H. P. Lovecraft–to a dank place where gloomy maelstroms await the unwary, where the unnatural is surpassed only by the unspeakable, and where all pleasure is perverse. Take a chance. . . . All you can lose is your sanity...Categorized as:
classics family literary-fiction adult anthologies contemporary cosmic-horror fiction -
![Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson, W Morgan Sheppard]()
Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson, W Morgan Sheppard
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsIn six masterly stories, Johnson delves deep into love and loss, natural disasters, the influence of technology, and how the political shapes the personal. “Nirvana" portrays a programmer, whose wife has a rare disease, finding solace in a digital simulacrum of the president of the United States... -
![Ten Little Words by Leah Mercer]()
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...Categorized as:
female-mc family literary-fiction romance fiction womens-fiction audiobook contemporary -
![Meet Me on the Bridge by Sarah J. Harris]()
Meet Me on the Bridge by Sarah J. Harris
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsCan true love ever survive across time?Everyone says falling in love is supposed to be easy. But what happens when you meet the perfect man…in your dreams?Especially when you find out he was real and died one year ago – on the bridge you had agreed to meet on for your first date... -
![Every Version of You by Grace Chan]()
Every Version of You by Grace Chan
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn late twenty-first century Australia, Tao-Yi and her partner Navin spend most of their time inside a hyper-immersive, hyper-consumerist virtual reality called Gaia. They log on, go to work, socialise, and even eat in this digital utopia. Meanwhile their aging bodies lie suspended in pods inside cramped apartments...Categorized as:
literary-fiction female-mc sci-fi fiction dystopia mental-illness lgbtq contemporary -
![This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub]()
This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 7 ratingsNamed a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by Harper's Bazaar, Oprah Daily, Glamour, Entertainment Weekly, Good Housekeeping, Parade, Bustle, Marie Claire, PopSugar, Thrillist, Lit Hub and more! What if you could take a vacation to your past? With her celebrated humor, insight, and heart, beloved New York Times bestseller Emma Straub offers her own twist on traditional time travel tropes, and a... -
![Tenth of December by George Saunders]()
Tenth of December by George Saunders
Rated: 3.97 of 5 stars · 52 ratingsOne of the most important and blazingly original writers of his generation, George Saunders is an undisputed master of the short story, and Tenth of December is his most honest, accessible, and moving collection yet...Categorized as:
classics family literary-fiction magical-realism 21st-century adult anthologies audiobook -
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![Memories of the Future by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky]()
Memories of the Future by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWritten in Soviet Moscow in the 1920s—but considered too subversive even to show to a publisher—the seven tales included here attest to Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s boundless imagination, black humor, and breathtaking irony: a man loses his way in the vast black waste of his own small room; the Eiffel Tower runs amok; a kind soul dreams of selling “everything you need for suicide”; an absentminded...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction magical-realism 20th-century adult anthologies communism contemporary -
![Sky Full of Elephants by Cebo Campbell]()
Sky Full of Elephants by Cebo Campbell
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn this exquisite speculative novel set in a world where white people no longer exist, college professor Charlie Brunton receives a call from his estranged daughter Sidney, setting off a chain of events as they journey across a truly “post-racial” America in search of answers.One day, a cataclysmic event occurs: all of the white people in America walk into the nearest body of water...Categorized as:
literary-fiction family magical-realism fiction sci-fi dystopia audiobook contemporary -
![Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar]()
Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFor years Kitty Hawke has lived alone on Wolfe Island, witness to the island’s erosion and clinging to the ghosts of her past. Her work as a sculptor and her wolfdog Girl are enough. News of mainland turmoil is as distant as myth until refugees from that world arrive: her granddaughter Cat, and Luis and Alejandra, a brother and sister escaping persecution... -
![Vida by Marge Piercy]()
Vida by Marge Piercy
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsOriginally published in 1979, this piece of revolutionary fiction is a bestselling author’s classic paean to the 1960s. At the center of the novel stands Vida Asch, who has lived underground for almost a decade...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult book contemporary female-author feminism -
![One of the Boys by Jayne Cowie]()
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... -
![The Wolves of Eternity by Karl Ove Knausgård, Karl Ove Knausgaard]()
The Wolves of Eternity by Karl Ove Knausgård, Karl Ove Knausgaard
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom the internationally bestselling author Karl Ove Knausgaard, a sprawling and deeply human novel that questions the responsibilities we have toward one another and ourselves—and the limits of what we can understand about life itselfIn 1986, twenty-year-old Syvert Løyning returns from the military to his mother’s home in southern Norway. One evening, his dead father comes to him in a dream...Categorized as:
literary-fiction magical-realism fiction mystery audiobook philosophy contemporary fantasy -
![Mothers & Other Monsters: Stories by Maureen F. McHugh]()
Mothers & Other Monsters: Stories by Maureen F. McHugh
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn her debut collection, Maureen F. McHugh examines the impacts of social and technological shifts on families. Using deceptively simple prose, she illuminates the relationship between parents and children and the expected and unexpected chasms that open between generations...Categorized as:
family literary-fiction magical-realism adult anthologies contemporary dystopia female-author -
![Dance Dance Revolution by Cathy Park Hong]()
Dance Dance Revolution by Cathy Park Hong
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"The Guide" is a former South Korean dissident and tour guide who speaks a fluid fabricated language; "the Historian" interviews the Guide and annotates the commentaries. Cathy Park Hong's passionate and artful poem sequence weaves an ultimately revitalizing dialogue on shared experience in a globalized world, using language as subversion and disguise... -
![Silk Sisters: Pink Chameleon by Fiona Dunbar]()
Silk Sisters: Pink Chameleon by Fiona Dunbar
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn the not too distant future, Rorie and Elsie's parents have disappeared. Just like that. And with only their cruel uncle to look after them, the girls are swept off to his miserable boarding school. But the sisters are determined to escape their uncle's grip - and discover the truth behind their parents' disappearance.. -
![Neon Green by Margaret Wappler]()
Neon Green by Margaret Wappler
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIt's the summer of 1994 in suburban Chicago: Forrest Gump is still in theaters, teens are reeling from the recent death of Kurt Cobain, and you can enter a sweepstakes for a spaceship from Jupiter to land in your backyard. Welcome to Margaret Wappler's slightly altered alternative '90s. Everything's pretty much as you remember it, except for the aliens...Categorized as:
family literary-fiction magical-realism adult alternate-history book contemporary dystopia -
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![Event Factory by Renee Gladman]()
Event Factory by Renee Gladman
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA “linguist-traveler” arrives by plane to Ravicka, a city of yellow air in which an undefined crisis is causing the inhabitants to flee. Although fluent in the native language, she quickly finds herself on the outside of every experience. Things happen to her, events transpire, but it is as if the city itself, the performance of life there, eludes her...Categorized as:
female-mc literary-fiction magical-realism 21st-century adult black-mc book contemporary -
![Vapor by Amanda Filipacchi]()
Vapor by Amanda Filipacchi
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSoon to be a major motion picture directed by Neil LaBute and starring Renee Zellweger, this is a surreal love story from the author of Nude Men. Now in paperback, Amanda Filipacchi's quirky comic romance gives aspiring actress Anna Graham a makeover that no reader will ever forget... -
![How Best to Avoid Dying by Owen Egerton]()
How Best to Avoid Dying by Owen Egerton
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratings[i]Lazarus Dying[/i]: the man Jesus raised from the dead is alive and living in New York City. [i]The Fecalist[/i]: an author whose best selling work is his latest poop. [i]Christmas[/i]: she loves you, you love her, she has a gun in your mouth. Welcome to the award-winning short fiction of Owen Egerton...Categorized as:
female-mc literary-fiction magical-realism adult anthologies comedy contemporary drama -
![The Hall of the Singing Caryatids by Victor Pelevin]()
The Hall of the Singing Caryatids by Victor Pelevin
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAfter auditioning for the part as a singing geisha at a dubious bar, Lena and eleven other “lucky” girls are sent to work at a posh underground nightclub reserved exclusively for Russia’s upper-crust elite. They are to be a sideshow attraction to the rest of the club’s entertainment, and are billed as the “famous singing caryatids.” Things only get weirder from there... -
![Where the Sweet Bird Sings by Ella Joy Olsen]()
Where the Sweet Bird Sings by Ella Joy Olsen
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn this provocative new novel, the author of Root, Petal, Thorn offers a powerful story of resilience, hope, and the secrets that, no matter how deeply hidden, can shape and ultimately unite a family. What connects us to one another? Is it shared history? Is it ancestry? Is it blood? Or is it love? People respond to tragedy in different ways. Some try to move on. Some don’t move at all... -
![The Measure by Nikki Erlick]()
The Measure by Nikki Erlick
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 5 ratingsIt seems like any other day: You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out. But today when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live.From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box...Categorized as:
female-mc literary-fiction magical-realism adult audiobook book contemporary dystopia
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