Books like 'Elena Vanishing'
Readers who enjoyed Elena Vanishing by Elena Dunkle & Clare B. Dunkle also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary psychological 20th century family medical realistic coming-of-age friendship sad survival
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Different Seasons by Stephen King
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsFrom the Magical Pen of Stephen King, Four Mesmerizing Novellas…“Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”An unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge…the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award nominee The Shawshank Redemption...Categorized as:
coming-of-age dark friendship realistic 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies -
![The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky]()
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 94 ratingsNow in a special edition to mark the twentieth anniversary of a beloved cult classic! Read the #1 New York Times bestselling coming-of-age story that takes a sometimes heartbreaking, often hysterical, and always honest look at high school in all its glory... -
![A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving]()
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 72 ratingsIn the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys—best friends—are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy’s mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn’t believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God’s instrument. What happens to Owen, after that 1953 foul ball, is extraordinary and terrifying... -
![Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst]()
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsThe perennially popular tale of Alexander's worst day is a storybook that belongs on every child's bookshelf.Alexander knew it was going to be a terrible day when he woke up with gum in this hair.And it got worse...His best friend deserted him. There was no dessert in his lunch bag...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family friendship realistic 20th-century action-adventure book children -
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![After the Fire by Will Hill]()
After the Fire by Will Hill
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe things I've seen are burned into me, like scars that refuse to fade.Before, she lived inside the fence. Before, she was never allowed to leave the property, never allowed to talk to Outsiders, never allowed to speak her mind. Because Father John controlled everything—and Father John liked rules. Disobeying Father John came with terrible consequences... -
![The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy]()
The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsPAT CONROY has created a huge, brash thunderstorm of a novel, stinging with honesty and resounding with drama. Spanning forty years, this is the story of turbulent Tom Wingo, his gifted and troubled twin sister Savannah, and their struggle to triumph over the dark and tragic legacy of the extraordinary family into which they were born... -
![I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb]()
I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsThis powerful, heartwrenching drama draws on the deepest human emotions - the need to know oneself, the responsibility to the family, and the influence of hidden history. The result is a highly acclaimed novel of survival and great sensitivity... -
![Oscar And The Lady In Pink by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt]()
Oscar And The Lady In Pink by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 28 ratings"First published in France as Oscar et la dame rose by Editions Albin Michel, S.A., 2002"--T.p. verso... -
![Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes]()
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsCharlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence--a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon... -
![Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher]()
Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsHer captivating bestseller of loss and the healing power of love now re-issued with a stunning new jacket look. Elfrida Phipps loves her new life in the pretty Hampshire village. She has a tiny cottage, her faithful dog Horace and the friendship of the neighbouring Blundells - particularly Oscar - to ensure that her days include companionship as well as independence... -
![Along Came a Spider by James Patterson]()
Along Came a Spider by James Patterson
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsWhat have we got? A missing little girl named Maggie Rose . . . a family of three brutally murdered in the projects of Washington, D.C. . . . the thrill-killing of a beautiful elementary school teacher . . . a psychopathic serial kidnapper/murderer who is so terrifying that the FBI, the Secret Service, and the police cannot outsmart him - even after he's been captured... -
![The Dilemma by Julia Roberts]()
The Dilemma by Julia Roberts
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsMy child means everything to me. But saving his life means destroying my best friend’s family…I didn’t plan to fall pregnant, but when I found out, I was overjoyed. Even though I’d be going it alone, I swore I’d give my baby everything they needed.But I didn’t know who the man I met on that sweltering summer night, the father of my child, really was... -
![Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee]()
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 35 ratings"Twelve times a week," answered Uta Hagen when asked how often she'd like to play Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In the same way, audiences and critics alike could not get enough of Edward Albee's masterful play. A dark comedy, it portrays husband and wife George and Martha in a searing night of dangerous fun and games... -
![The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas]()
The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWith spare simplicity, Vesaas' novel tells the tale of Mattis, a mentally disabled man cared for by his lonely older sister, Hege. Their routine, isolated existence is interrupted when a lumberjack arrives at their lakeside cottage and falls in love with Hege, leaving Mattis fearful that he will lose his sister... -
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![What's Eating Gilbert Grape by Peter Hedges]()
What's Eating Gilbert Grape by Peter Hedges
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsJust about everything in Endora, Iowa (pop. 1,091 and dwindling) is eating Gilbert Grape, a twenty-four-year-old grocery clerk who dreams only of leaving. His enormous mother, once the town sweetheart, has been eating nonstop ever since her husband's suicide, and the floor beneath her TV chair is threatening to cave in... -
![White Oleander by Janet Fitch]()
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsAlternate cover for this ISBN can be found hereEverywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes--each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned--becomes a redeeming... -
![The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath]()
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 94 ratingsSylvia Plath's shocking, realistic, and intensely emotional novel about a woman falling into the grip of insanityEsther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time... -
![The Client by John Grisham]()
The Client by John Grisham
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 47 ratingsIn a weedy clearing on the outskirts of Memphis, two boys watch a shiny Lincoln pull up to the curb...Eleven-year-old Mark Sway and his younger brother were sharing a forbidden cigarette when a chance encounter with a suicidal lawyer left Mark knowing a bloody and explosive secret: the whereabouts of the most sought-after dead body in America... -
![One Boy's Shadow by Ross A. McCoubrey]()
One Boy's Shadow by Ross A. McCoubrey
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"Fifteen-year-old Caleb Mackenzie doesn’t put up a fight when his father announces the family is moving to Stapeton, Nova Scotia. In fact, Caleb looks forward to a fresh start in the scenic little area. Their new home, Wakefield House, sports large rooms, a big barn where Caleb can work on cars, and acres of forested land for privacy. But it also has a troubling past... -
![Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim]()
Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsAt the age of eight Brian Lackey is found bleeding under the crawl space of his house, having endured something so traumatic that he cannot remember an entire five–hour period of time... -
![The Gift of Numbers by Yōko Ogawa]()
The Gift of Numbers by Yōko Ogawa
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsWinner of the Yomiuri Literature PrizeWinner of the Honya Taisho (The Booksellers Prize)Winner of the Sugaku Shuppan-Sho (from the Japanese Academy of Mathematics)A Japan Foundation Selection A publishing phenomenon in Japan--and a heartwarming story that will change the way we all see math, baseball, memory, and each other She is a housekeeper by trade, a single mom by choice, shy, brilliant,...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family friendship realistic 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure adult -
![The Pact by Jodi Picoult]()
The Pact by Jodi Picoult
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsFor eighteen years the Hartes and the Golds have lived next door to each other, sharing everything from Chinese food to chicken pox to carpool duty—they've grown so close it seems they have always been a part of each other's lives. Parents and children alike have been best friends, so it's no surprise that in high school Chris and Emily's friendship blossoms into something more... -
![There's A Boy In The Girl's Bathroom by Louis Sachar]()
There's A Boy In The Girl's Bathroom by Louis Sachar
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsWith the new school counselor's help, Bradley begins to see himself as less of a monster and more of an individual capable of believing in himself...Categorized as:
coming-of-age family friendship realistic 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book -
![The Summer Guest by Justin Cronin]()
The Summer Guest by Justin Cronin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOn an evening in late summer, the great financier Harry Wainwright, nearing the end of his life, arrives at a rustic fishing camp in a remote area of Maine. He comes bearing two things: his wish for a day of fishing in a place that has brought him solace for thirty years, and an astonishing bequest that will forever change the lives of those around him... -
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![Birdy by William Wharton]()
Birdy by William Wharton
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsHailed upon its publication as "a classic for readers not yet born" (Philadelphia Inquirer), Birdy is an inventive, hypnotic novel about friendship and family, dreaming and surviving, love and war, madness and beauty, and, above all, "birdness... -
![The Reason You're Alive by Matthew Quick]()
The Reason You're Alive by Matthew Quick
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAfter sixty-eight-year-old David Granger crashes his BMW, medical tests reveal a brain tumor that he readily attributes to his wartime Agent Orange exposure. He wakes up from surgery repeating a name no one in his civilian life has ever heard - that of a Native American soldier whom he was once ordered to discipline... -
![The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore]()
The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratings'The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne' launched Brian Moore's distinguished literary career and also – because of his sensitive portrayal of her – enshrined Judith Hearne in the gallery of literature's unforgettable women. A penetrating, comic, tragic tale of a plain woman, it is a novel that occasionally sings with the lilt of the Irish greats... -
![Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes]()
Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes
Rated: 3.98 of 5 stars · 34 ratingsMeet Rachel Walsh. She has a pair of size 8 feet and such a fondness for recreational drugs that her family has forked out the cash for a spell in Cloisters – Dublin’s answer to the Betty Ford Clinic. She’s only agreed to her incarceration because she’s heard that rehab is wall-to-wall jacuzzis, gymnasiums and rock stars going tepid turkey – and it’s about time she had a holiday... -
![Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson]()
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Rated: 3.99 of 5 stars · 83 ratingsMelinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't even know hate her from a distance. The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that's not safe... -
![Another You by Jane Cable]()
Another You by Jane Cable
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA book that will stay with you long after the story ends! Perfect for fans of Diane Chamberlain, Nora Roberts, Lorna Cook and Victoria Connelly. Sometimes the hardest person to save is yourself… Marie Johnson fell in love with The Smugglers pub when she first moved to Dorset with her husband, Stephen... -
![Rabbit at Rest by John Updike]()
Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWinner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In John Updike's fourth and final novel about ex-basketball player Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, the hero has acquired heart trouble, a Florida condo, and a second grandchild. His son and daughter-in-law are acting erratically, his wife Janice wants to work, and Rabbit is searching his soul, looking for reasons to live... -
![Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs]()
Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsAssaulted by the bitter cold of a Montreal winter, the American-born Dr. Temperance Breman, Forensic Anthropologist for the Province of Quebec, digs for a corpse where Sister Elisabeth Nicolet, dead over a century and now a candidate for sainthood, should lie in her grave. A strange, small coffin, buried in the recesses of a decaying church, holds the first clue to the cloistered nun's fate... -
![Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion]()
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsA ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader... -
![Ordinary People by Judith Guest]()
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsCalvin is a determined, successful provider and Beth an organized, efficient wife. They had two sons, Conrad and Buck, but now they have one. This novel inspired Robert Redford’s Oscar-winning film of the same name starring Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore. source: judithguest... -
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![Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike]()
Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsWinner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award The hero of John Updike’s Rabbit, Run, ten years after the events of Rabbit Redux, has come to enjoy considerable prosperity as the chief sales representative of Springer Motors, a Toyota agency in Brewer, Pennsylvania... -
![Junk by Melvin Burgess]()
Junk by Melvin Burgess
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsTwo teens fall in love with each other and heroin. Tar has reasons for running away from home that run deep and sour, whereas Gemma, with her middle-class roots firmly on show, has a deep-rooted lust for adventure. Their first hit brings bliss, the next despair... -
![The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving]()
The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 34 ratings"The first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life lived by human beings, and the second was that human beings could survive a life led in hotels... -
![Angels by Denis Johnson]()
Angels by Denis Johnson
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAngels is the story of two born losers. Jamie is escaping with the two baby girls from a husband who has gone zombie-like on her. Bill is dreaming of making it big in a life of crime so natural to him that any other way would make no sense. They meet on a Greyhound bus, and team up because they have nowhere else to go... -
![The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Tóibín]()
The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Tóibín
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIt is Ireland in the early 1990s. Helen, her mother, Lily, and her grandmother, Dora have come together to tend to Helen's brother, Declan, who is dying of AIDS. With Declan's two friends, the six of them are forced to plumb the shoals of their own histories and to come to terms with each other... -
![The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko by Scott Stambach]()
The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko by Scott Stambach
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko, Scott Stambach presents a hilarious, heart-wrenching, and powerful debut novel about an orphaned boy who finds love and hope in a Russian hospital.Seventeen-year-old Ivan Isaenko is a life-long resident of the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children in Belarus...Categorized as:
coming-of-age friendship medical realistic 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure audiobook -
![The Vanishing Princess: Stories by Jenny Diski]()
The Vanishing Princess: Stories by Jenny Diski
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe only story collection from the beloved Jenny Diski—darkly funny, subversive, sexy, and eccentric tales from one of the most original and intelligent voices of our timeJenny Diski’s prose is as sharp and steely as her imagination is wild and wondrous... -
![Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood]()
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsControversial painter Elaine Risley returns from Vancouver for a retrospective of her work. Here, in Toronto, the city of her youth, she confronts the submerged layers of her past – her unconventional family, her eccentric and brilliant brother, the self-righteous Mrs. Smeath, and the two men Elaine later came to love in diverse and sometimes disastrous ways... -
![Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker]()
Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsCassandra Edwards is a graduate student at Berkeley: gay, brilliant, nerve-wracked, miserable. At the beginning of this novel, she drives back to her family ranch in the foothills of the Sierras to attend the wedding of her identical twin, Judith, to a nice young doctor from Connecticut. Cassandra, however, is hell-bent on sabotaging the wedding... -
![A Simple Plan by Scott Smith]()
A Simple Plan by Scott Smith
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsTwo brothers and their friend stumble upon the wreckage of a plane–the pilot is dead and his duffle bag contains four million dollars in cash. In order to hide, keep, and share the fortune, these ordinary men all agree to a simple plan... -
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![I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Hannah Green, Joanne Greenberg]()
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Hannah Green, Joanne Greenberg
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsI Never Promised You a Rose Garden is the story of a sixteen-year-old who retreats from reality into the bondage of a lushly imagined but threatening kingdom, and her slow and painful journey back to sanity... -
![Glue by Irvine Welsh]()
Glue by Irvine Welsh
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAn epic novel about the bonds of friendship from the author of Trainspotting.The story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh projects, Glue is about the loyalties, the experiences, and the secrets that hold friends together through three decades... -
![Patty Jane's House of Curl by Lorna Landvik]()
Patty Jane's House of Curl by Lorna Landvik
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAfter Patty Jane's husband leaves her, she and her irrepressible sister, Harriett, open a neighborhood beauty parlor--complete with live harp music and Norwegian baked goods. It's a warmhearted place where good friends share laughter, tears and comfort. A funny, poignant first novel about the bonds between women, says the Houston Chronicle... -
![Tully by Paullina Simons]()
Tully by Paullina Simons
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe astonishing debut novel from international number one bestselling author Paullina Simons, now beautifully repackaged Tully Makker is a tough young woman from the wrong side of the tracks and she is not always easy to like. But if Tully gives friendship and loyalty, she gives them for good, and she forms an enduring bond with Jennifer and Julie, school friends from very different backgrounds... -
!['night, Mother by Marsha Norman]()
'night, Mother by Marsha Norman
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 24 ratings'night, Mother is a taut and fluid drama that addresses different emotions and special relations. By one of America's most talented playwrights, this play won the Dramatists Guild's prestigious Hull-Warriner Award, four Tony nominations, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize in 1983... -
![Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen]()
Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsFor eighteen years, Fran Benedetto kept her secret. And hid her bruises. And stayed with Bobby because she wanted her son to have a father. And because, in spite of everything, she loved him. Then one night, when she saw the look on her ten-year-old son's face, Fran finally made a choice--and ran for both their lives.Now she is starting over in a city far from home, far from Bobby...
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