Books like 'The El'
Readers who enjoyed The El by Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary sc-fi north-america urban indigenous-mc usa historical-fiction illinois poc-mc dark
-
A Page in Your Diary by Keith A. Pearson
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsTen insane days. One miraculous opportunity to re-write the past."If you lived through the 1980s and love time travel novels, you'll struggle to find a more addictive read than Pearson's latest gem." - Joanna JamesIn May 1987 Jackie Benton received a heartbreaking phone call from her boyfriend, Sean Hardy, bringing an end to their five-year relationship...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction adult book contemporary fiction paranormal time-travel -
![Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace]()
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 60 ratingsA gargantuan, mind-altering tragi-comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America... -
![Poison Hearts by Jennifer Cody]()
Poison Hearts by Jennifer Cody
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsOrlando:No one intentionally starts out life trying to become a hired unaliver. Weeellllll, most people don’t. I come from a legacy of unalivers, though I think I might be the first one to make a career out of it. Accidentally... -
![The Strangest Forms by Gregory Ashe]()
The Strangest Forms by Gregory Ashe
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWatson is dead. Holmes is alone. And Jack is desperate.Sixteen-year-old Jack Moreno is managing to hold his life together. Barely. After a terrible car accident leaves his father unable to work, Jack makes ends meet by dropping out of school and covering his dad’s custodial shifts at a school for troubled teens, high in the Wasatch Mountains... -
-
![Unbreakable by K.A. Knight]()
Unbreakable by K.A. Knight
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWe thought it was over. We were wrong. My father is alive, and he wants his research back—me. However, I am not a scared little girl anymore, and he will learn to fear the person he created with his twisted experiments.He thought he won. He believed he ruined us. He should know better...because I’m Unbreakable.*Unbreakable is the second and final book in the Pretty Liars duet...Categorized as:
dark lgbtq crime romance reverse-harem found-family contemporary genetic-engineering -
![One Giant Leap by Kay Simone]()
One Giant Leap by Kay Simone
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsHouston we have so many problems...Curtis "Launchpad" Larkin's career as an astronaut has had its share of ups and downs.Alternately lauded as the single-handed savior of NASA and condemned as a reckless, hot-headed bully, Curt has been through the wringer of public opinion and come out on top... -
![Hot & Heavy by Sandra Hill]()
Hot & Heavy by Sandra Hill
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIN AND OUT...That's the goal as Lieutenant Ian MacLean prepares for his special ops mission in Northern Iraq, and he sees no reason the insertion should not go down as planned.He leads a team of highly trained Navy SEALs, the toughest, buffest fighting men in the world. As a 34-year-old bachelor he has nothing to lose and the adrenaline high of a HALO jump singing in his blood...Categorized as:
historical-fiction humor north-america urban usa 21st-century action-adventure adult -
![The Blur by Minh Lê]()
The Blur by Minh Lê
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsMeet a child with superhero-like abilities . . . and the parents who are racing to keep up with her in this sweetly funny picturebook about the blur of childhood, from the award-winning creators of Drawn Together.From the very beginning, there was something different about this child...An ultrasonic voice. Fantastically elastic limbs. Super-magnetic powers... -
![Secrets of the Highlander by Janet Chapman]()
Secrets of the Highlander by Janet Chapman
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsHe is the father of her child, but the secrets they are hiding are tearing them apart.... Megan MacKeage escaped the smothering protectiveness of the Highland MacKeage clan to work as a scientist on the Canadian tundra. But when fellow researcher Wayne Ferris breaks her heart by rejecting her, Megan returns to Maine alone... -
![It's Not Unusual To Be Loved by an Alien by Chloe Archer]()
It's Not Unusual To Be Loved by an Alien by Chloe Archer
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA sexy alien living incognito on Earth meets a sci-fi loving nerd who wants to rock his universe. What could possibly go wrong? Besides the unexpected tentacles and the accidental Mating Courtship Ritual, that is....RIVER SULLIVANAs a bona fide sci-fi nerd and total X-phile—the truth is out there—I’ve always believed in aliens. Duh... -
![A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava]()
A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA Naked Singularity tells the story of Casi, a child of Colombian immigrants who lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan as a public defender--one who tellingly has never lost a trial. Never. In the book, we watch what happens when his sense of justice and even his sense of self begin to crack--and how his world then slowly devolves... -
![Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah]()
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn the stories of Adjei-Brenyah’s debut, an amusement park lets players enter augmented reality to hunt terrorists or shoot intruders played by minority actors, a school shooting results in both the victim and gunman stuck in a shared purgatory, and an author sells his soul to a many-tongued god.Adjei-Brenyah's writing will grab you, haunt you, enrage, and invigorate you... -
![Love in the Time of Bertie by Alexander McCall Smith]()
Love in the Time of Bertie by Alexander McCall Smith
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe latest installment in the delightful 44 Scotland Street series finds all our favorite residents up to their usual hilarious hijinks. In the microcosm of 44 Scotland Street, all of life's richness is found in the glorious goings-on of its residents... -
![Over the Edge/An Edge in My Voice by Harlan Ellison]()
Over the Edge/An Edge in My Voice by Harlan Ellison
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"Razor Sharp Beyond the Edge. Harlan Ellison's stories and essays have been on the cutting edge of contemporary American Literature for over 40 years, but he stubbornly refuses to abandon the use of a manual typewriter. He's involved in every medium from television drama to comic books, and his works have been translated into 26 languages... -
-
![Mr. Melancholy Wants to Live a Peaceful Life 忧郁先生想过平静生活 by Cyan Wings, 青色羽翼]()
Mr. Melancholy Wants to Live a Peaceful Life 忧郁先生想过平静生活 by Cyan Wings, 青色羽翼
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsYu Hua loses his job, and the weight of the household falls on the shoulders of his partner, You Zhengping. His husband is a temporary employee at the subdistrict office, with a monthly salary of only 2500; this troubles Yu Hua exceedingly.You Zhengping is secretly engaged in the work of protecting the world from Destroyers, with a rather liberal subsidy... -
![Ada Twist and the Perilous Pants by Andrea Beaty, Bahni Turpin]()
Ada Twist and the Perilous Pants by Andrea Beaty, Bahni Turpin
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAda Twist is full of questions. A scientist to her very core, Ada asks why again and again. One question always leads to another until she’s off on a journey of discovery! When Rosie Revere’s Uncle Ned gets a little carried away wearing his famous helium pants, it’s up to Ada and friends to chase him down... -
![Life on Mars by Jennifer Brown]()
Life on Mars by Jennifer Brown
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsTwelve-year-old Arcturus Betelgeuse Chambers' quest to find life on other planets seems at an end when his parents decide to move to Las Vegas, but while they look for a house he stays with his neighbor, an astronaut who soon becomes a friend... -
![Czarne oceany by Jacek Dukaj]()
Czarne oceany by Jacek Dukaj
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsDukaj od nowa skonfigurował klasyczną twardą fantastykę naukową.Mroczna, sugestywna, boleśnie realistyczna wizja społeczeństwa posthumanistycznego.Czarne oceany – przerażająca otchłań myśli ludzkiej.Nicolas Hunt kieruje tajnym projektem rządowym, badającym komercyjne zastosowania telepatii. Rezultaty tych badań zmienią nieodwracalnie nie tylko jego życie, ale także losy całego świata... -
![Unexpected Hero by Willow Summers]()
Unexpected Hero by Willow Summers
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom USA Today Bestselling author, Willow Summers, comes an action packed romance you won't want to put down. "Peppered with Summers' brand of humor, the Skyline Trilogy makes for an exquisite read." MarKat ★★★★★ "I love that Jenna is such a strong heroine and Josh is the strong and deadly silent type... -
![Class Reunions Are Murder by Libby Klein]()
Class Reunions Are Murder by Libby Klein
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsNewly widowed and stuck in a middle-aged funk, Poppy has been running on cookies, infomercials, and one-sided chats with her cat for months. There's no way on earth she's attending her twenty-five-year class reunion--especially after receiving a very bizarre letter from Barbie, the popular cheerleader who taunted her all through high school... -
![See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng]()
See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratings"I haven't read anything that has moved me this much since Wonder." --Jennifer Niven, author of All the Bright Places A space-obsessed boy and his dog, Carl Sagan, take a journey toward family, love, hope, and awe in this funny and moving novel for fans of Counting by 7s, Walk Two Moons, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time... -
![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:
humor lgbtq literary-fiction 21st-century anthologies audiobook contemporary fiction -
![Rosie Revere and the Raucous Riveters by Andrea Beaty]()
Rosie Revere and the Raucous Riveters by Andrea Beaty
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsRosie Revere is no stranger to flops and fails, kerfuffles and catastrophes. After all, engineering is all about perseverance! But this time, Rosie has a really important project to tackle—one that feels much bigger than herself. Rosie’s beloved Aunt Rose and her friends, the Raucous Riveters—a group of fun-loving gals who built airplanes during World War II—need help inventing something new... -
![Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury]()
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 53 ratingsRay Bradbury's moving recollection of a vanished golden era remains one of his most enchanting novels. Dandelion Wine stands out in the Bradbury literary canon as the author's most deeply personal work, a semi-autobiographical recollection of a magical small-town summer in 1928... -
-
![Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders]()
Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsMacArthur genius and Booker Prize winner George Saunders returns with a collection of short stories that make sense of our increasingly troubled world, his first since the New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist Tenth of DecemberThe "best short story writer in English" (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the... -
![Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen]()
Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAnother instant classic from Carl Hiaasen—laugh-out-loud funny, tackling the current chaotic and polarized American culture (following in the path of Squeeze Me), with two wonderful new Hiaasen heroes“The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Falls, Florida... -
![Sleeping With Anemone by Kate Collins]()
Sleeping With Anemone by Kate Collins
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsI, Abby Knight, hometown florist, refuse to be cowed into giving up my stance against the unfair treatment of dairy animals... -
![Zombie by Chuck Palahniuk]()
Zombie by Chuck Palahniuk
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn 'Zombies', the absurdity of both life and death are on full display as the best and brightest of a high school prep school become tragically addicted to the latest drug craze - electronic shocks from cardiac defibrillators.Funny, caustic, bizarre, poignant - this story represents everything listeners have come to love and expect from Chuck Palahniuk.©2015 Chuck Palahniuk (P)2016 W.F. Howes Ltd... -
![Not Fade Away by Jim Dodge]()
Not Fade Away by Jim Dodge
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsGeorge Gastin is a Bay Area tow-truck operator who wrecks cars as part of an insurance scam. One of the cars he is hired to demolish is a snow-white Cadillac that was supposed to be a present for the Big Bopper, who died in the Iowa plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens. Gastin has a change of heart and takes off in the car, heading for Texas where the Bopper is buried...Categorized as:
historical-fiction humor literary-fiction realistic action-adventure adult book contemporary -
![Attack of the Killer Dust Bunnies by J.L. Langley]()
Attack of the Killer Dust Bunnies by J.L. Langley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsShort Story from the With or Without series.I have Aubrey and Matt on the brain, so of course I chose to use them. This is related to their book, but not. I sort of wrote this scene as if it would go in their story after the Epilogue. I don’t think I’m giving anything away because of course ya’ll know they get a Happily Ever After. And I don’t think you have to know them well to enjoy this scene... -
![Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow]()
Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNew York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow returns to the world of Red Team Blues to bring us the origin story of Martin Hench and the most powerful new tool for crime ever the personal computer.The year is 1986. The city is San Francisco... -
![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... -
![氣球人 by Chan Ho-Kei, 陳浩基]()
-
![Portable Curiosities by Julie Koh]()
Portable Curiosities by Julie Koh
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA biting collection of stories from a bold new voice. A young girl sees ghosts from her third eye, located where her belly button should be. A corporate lawyer feels increasingly disconnected from his job in a soulless 1200-storey skyscraper... -
-
![Timeless by Rachel Spangler]()
Timeless by Rachel Spangler
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhat would you change about your past if you had the chance? What if you didn't have a choice? Stevie Geller doesn't do conflict. She likes her job as a successful novelist and playwright because it allows her to peacefully ensconce herself in her New York City loft, avoid human interactions, and leave personal drama for the page and stage... -
![EVER by Blake Butler]()
EVER by Blake Butler
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFiction. Within the psychic architecture that is EVER, Blake Butler explores the way bodies swell and contract, going from skin to house and back again. And the way houses too shrink to fit us first like clothing and then like skin and then tighter still. The result is a strange, visionary ontological dismemberment that takes you well beyond what you'd ever expect--Brian Evenson... -
![A&B by J.C. Lillis]()
A&B by J.C. Lillis
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsEighteen-year-old Barrie Krumholtz is a super-tall optimist hell-bent on a single goal: securing a slot on Pop University, a reality show for singer-songwriters helmed by her #1 musical idol. When she humiliates herself on national TV and loses a spot in the finals to smug balladeer Ava Alvarez, the door to Barrie’s well-hidden dark side swings open... -
![Cool. Awkward. Black. by Amerie, Kalynn Bayron]()
Cool. Awkward. Black. by Amerie, Kalynn Bayron
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA multi-genre YA anthology of bestselling, critically acclaimed Black authors challenging the concept of the geek, featuring contributions from Amerie, Kalynn Bayron, Terry J. Benton-Walker, Roseanne A. Brown, Elise Bryant, Tracy Deonn, Desiree S. Evans, Isaac Fitzsimons, Lamar Giles, Jordan Ifueko, Leah Johnson, Amanda Joy, Kwame Mbalia, Tochi Onyebuchi, Shari B. Pennant, K... -
![Pay As You Go by Eskor David Johnson]()
Pay As You Go by Eskor David Johnson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsNew to town and delusionally confident, Slide imagined himself living in a glossy building with doormen and sweeping views of the skyline. Instead he's landed in a creaking, stuffy apartment with two roommates: a loping giant who hardly leaves his room, and a weight-obsessed neurotic who keeps no fewer than forty-seven lamps throughout the house, blazing at all hours... -
![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... -
![Seeking Justice by T.L. Payne]()
Seeking Justice by T.L. Payne
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsRaine Caldwell and the other survivors from St. Louis thought getting out of the city would be the answer to their problems. They quickly learn that violence and winter’s fury aren’t exclusive to the city.The group is tested far beyond anything they could imagine as they begin to settle in and survive life without modern conveniences... -
![Tumbled Graves by Brenda Chapman]()
Tumbled Graves by Brenda Chapman
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA missing child. A dead mother. Kala Stonechild is about to discover what one betrayal can lead to.When Adele Delaney and her daughter, Violet, go missing, Jacques Rouleau is called upon to investigate. However, struggling with the impending death of his ill ex-wife, he sends Kala Stonechild and Paul Gundersund instead... -
![The Last Survivor by Andy McDermott]()
The Last Survivor by Andy McDermott
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsJoin Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase in a digital exclusive short story from the international bestseller Andy McDermott. Also contains an exclusive extract from THE REVELATION CODE, the next in the Wilde & Chase seriesNina Wilde is pregnant and feeling very alone... -
![Shallow End by Brenda Chapman]()
Shallow End by Brenda Chapman
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsStill waters run deep.Teacher, mother, wife, and convicted child molester Jane Thompson makes parole after losing everything — her husband, her children, her career, and her reputation. But just as she begins trying to build a life out of the public eye, the bludgeoned body of the student she abused four years earlier is found on the shores of Lake Ontario... -
-
![American Girl on Saturn by Nikki Chartier]()
American Girl on Saturn by Nikki Chartier
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe summer after graduation is supposed to be that first real taste of freedom - but not for eighteen-year-old Chloe Branson. Just as that breeze of freedom is making its way into her galaxy, her secret-service-agent dad drops a meteor-sized bomb of bad news on her and her sisters... -
![A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar]()
A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsOPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD“Wondering if there’s a novel out there that gives Cormac McCarthy’s The Road a run for its money? Here you go. [A Guardian and a Thief is] an indelible piece of writing, in equal parts dazzling and devastating...Categorized as:
literary-fiction historical-fiction fiction sci-fi dystopia contemporary mystery book -
![Quicksilver by R.J. Anderson]()
Quicksilver by R.J. Anderson
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsBack in her hometown, Tori Beaugrand had everything a teenaged girl could want—popularity, money, beauty. But she also had a secret. A secret that could change her life in an instant, or destroy it.Now she’s left everything from her old life behind, including her real name and Alison, the one friend who truly understood her. She can’t escape who and what she is... -
![Gonzalez & Daughter Trucking Co.: A Road Novel with Literary License by María Amparo Escandón]()
Gonzalez & Daughter Trucking Co.: A Road Novel with Literary License by María Amparo Escandón
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom the author of L.A. Weather comes “a whimsical, humorous, and passionate mystery that explores the love and hurt of a father and daughter on the run” (Jorge Ramos, News Anchor for Univision).“1,001 nights in a Mexicali women’s prison . . . González and Daughter Trucking Co. is about our compulsion to make events into stories and stories into bridges of understanding...Categorized as:
poc-mc literary-fiction realistic historical-fiction crime fiction contemporary young-adult -
![Underworld by Don DeLillo]()
Underworld by Don DeLillo
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA finalist for the National Book Award, Underworld is Don DeLillo’s most powerful and riveting novel—“a great American novel, a masterpiece, a thrilling page-turner” (San Francisco Chronicle).Underworld is a story of men and women together and apart, seen in deep, clear detail and in stadium-sized panoramas, shadowed throughout by the overarching conflict of the Cold War...Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction literary-fiction north-america realistic urban usa 20th-century -
![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...
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
