Books like 'No'
Readers who enjoyed No by Ocean Vuong also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary lgbtq human-condition classics literary-fiction
-
Olhos d'Água by Conceição Evaristo
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsEm Olhos d’água Conceição Evaristo ajusta o foco de seu interesse na população afro-brasileira abordando, sem meias palavras, a pobreza e a violência urbana que a acometem.Sem sentimentalismos, mas sempre incorporando a tessitura poética à ficção, seus contos apresentam uma significativa galeria de mulheres: Ana Davenga, a mendiga Duzu-Querença, Natalina, Luamanda, Cida, a menina Zaíta... -
Le Fils de Mille Hommes by Valter Hugo Mãe
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsCrisóstomo, un pêcheur solitaire, décide à quarante ans de prendre son destin en main. Il se construit une famille, puisque l’amour est avant tout la volonté d’aimer. Il choisit un fils en apprivoisant le petit orphelin abandonné par le village, puis une femme au passé tourmenté les rejoint, et autour de ce noyau se forme une famille peu commune de laissés-pour-compte et d’éclopés... -
In the End, It Was All About Love by Musa Okwonga
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe narrator arrives in Berlin, a place famed for its hedonism, to find peace and maybe love; only to discover that the problems which have long haunted him have arrived there too, and are more present than ever...Categorized as:
literary-fiction lgbtq fiction contemporary social-commentary family romantic-love book -
Rise of the Machine by Erin Mallon, Joe Arden
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAtticus and Neil are the newly crowned "hottest male narration team" for Mmm-Mmm romance, and they're flying high on the praise.Nothing can get them down.Until Vera and Cameron usher a mysterious voice onto the scene and shake the foundation of the audiobook industry itself... -
-
The Collected Stories of Richard Yates by Richard Yates
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsRichard Yates was acclaimed as one of the most powerful, compassionate and accomplished writers of America's post-war generation...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary -
The Collected Poems, 1957-1987 by Octavio Paz
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsNobel Laureate Octavio Paz is incontestably Latin America's foremost poet. The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz is a landmark bilingual gathering of all the poetry he has published in book form since 1952, the year of his premier long poem, Sunstone (Piedra de Sol)―here translated anew by Eliot Weinberger―made its appearance...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction fiction anthologies 20th-century poc-mc contemporary literary -
The Stories of Raymond Carver by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWill You Please Be Quiet, Please? What We Talk About When We Talk About Love... -
What Work Is by Philip Levine
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWinner of the National Book Award in 1991 “This collection amounts to a hymn of praise for all the workers of America. These proletarian heroes, with names like Lonnie, Loo, Sweet Pea, and Packy, work the furnaces, forges, slag heaps, assembly lines, and loading docks at places with unglamorous names like Brass Craft or Feinberg and Breslin’s First-Rate Plumbing and Plating...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary -
The Essential Tales of Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsOf the two hundred stories that Anton Chekhov wrote, the twenty stories that appear in this extraordinary collection were personally chosen by Richard Ford--an accomplished storyteller in his own right. Included are the familiar masterpieces--"The Kiss," "The Darling," and "The Lady with the Dog"--as well as several brilliant lesser-known tales such as "A Blunder," "Hush!," and "Champagne...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction fiction anthologies female-mc contemporary psychological literary -
Dandelion Daughter: A Novel by Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWinner 2022, Prix des Libraires Rights for TV adaptation purchased by Zone 3 A runaway bestseller in Québec, where it has captured the hearts of readers and pushed trans-identity into the mainstream conversation, Dandelion Daughter is an intimate, courageous portrait of what it’s like to grow up having been assigned the wrong sex at birth...Categorized as:
lgbtq literary-fiction fiction trans-mc contemporary coming-of-age female-author book -
Interpreter of Maladies / The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsJhumpa Lahiri took the literary world by storm when her debut collection, Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. The collection was followed by her best-selling and critically acclaimed novel The Namesake—a finely wrought, deeply moving family drama. Presenting these works together here, this edition displays Lahiri’s enormous talent as a storyteller...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary poc-author -
-
In Youth Is Pleasure: & I Left My Grandfather's House by Denton Welch, William S. Burroughs
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsKeenly observed autobiographical fiction and journal entries from acclaimed writer Denton Welch, featuring an introduction by William S. Burroughs “In Youth Is Pleasure” recounts the summer vacation of Orvil Pym—a sensitive, withdrawn, and deeply unhappy boy of fifteen. Following a trying year at public school, Orvil spends the summer with his father and two older brothers...Categorized as:
classics lgbtq literary-fiction anthologies coming-of-age contemporary fiction literary -
Beyond the Break by Kristen Mae
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"It's just a fantasy, Hazel. It's harmless." Hazel Duval craves an ordinary life free of the pitying looks from those who know about her traumatic past—about what he did to her. About what she had to do to survive... -
-
Crystal Boys by Pai Hsien-yung
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsCrystal Boys is the first Chinese novel on gay themes. A-qing, the adolescent hero, comes from an impoverished family. His father casts him out after learning that his son is gay. A-qing drifts into New Park, a gay hangout in Taipei, and begins his life as a hustler... -
Selected Stories by William Trevor
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"Trevor was our twentieth century Chekov.--Wall Street Journal Selected as one of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year. Four-time winner of the O. Henry Prize, three-time winner of the Whitbread Award, and five-time nominee for the Booker Prize, William Trevor is one of the most acclaimed authors of our era... -
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWhere would I start, and how would it even make sense? How could you understand the year in Shandon Street unless you were there, with us, living it?Rachel Murray is twenty-one years old, platonically infatuated with her housemate James, and less-than-platonically infatuated with her enigmatic, married English professor Dr Byrne... -
At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom: Stories by Amy Hempel
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAmy Hempel's collection of 16 stories seems to ask: "What if people could be just a little more like dogs - -forever loyal, ardent and loving in our... -
The Professional by W.C. Heinz, Elmore Leonard
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsOriginally published in 1958, The Professional is the story of boxer Eddie Brown's quest for the middleweight championship of the world. But it is so much more. W. C... -
Un beso de Dick by Fernando Molano Vargas
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsEsta es la historia de Felipe y Leonardo, dos adolescentes colombianos, compañeros de clase y de equipo de fútbol, que transcurre en Bogotá a fines de los años 80. La novela narra una historia de amor (y sus consecuencias) entre dos amigos... -
Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIt is always "earthquake weather" in Amy Hempel's California, a landscape where everything can change without warning. Traditional resources—home, parents, lovers, friends, even willpower—are not dependable. And so the characters in these short, compelling stories have learned to depend on small triumphs of wit, irony, and spirit...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary female-author fiction -
Padma River Boatman by Manik Bandopadhyay
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFishing life along the coastline of the Padma and its bitsy melancholic account of intense physical, helpless yet illusory tale. Kuber's struggles, Kapila's voluptuous youth like the rainfilled Padma and the presence of a mysterious man, Hasan Mia, make and break the narrative with tweaks that are deep, covert and sudden like hidden currents... -
O rio que me corta por dentro by Raul Damasceno
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"Me leva pra casa..." Em Carrasco, um lugarejo perdido nas entranhas do sertão cearense, corre um rio onde dois meninos gastam suas infâncias em mergulhos. Cícero e Luzimar, amigos inseparáveis, companheiros de aventuras por estas matas acinzentadas... -
Drive Me Crazy by Beth Bolden
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen Tony Blake walks into what might be a blind date, he’s surprisingly intrigued despite his irritation with his meddling brother. But when Lucas turns out to be a new employee for their food truck, Tony’s usual charm deserts him.Lucas might be fantastically creative in the kitchen, but to Tony’s disappointment, he’s not interested in more than a casual hookup... -
-
The Celebrants by Steven Rowley
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA Big Chill for our times, celebrating decades-long friendships and promises--especially to ourselves--by the bestselling and beloved author of The Guncle. It's been a minute--or five years--since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began... -
I Love You, Lola Bloom by Rosy Dee
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSome love stories write themselves.After a series of disastrous relationships, designer Maddison Appleby is fed up with everything love has had to offer, and can’t help but feel she’s destined to be alone forever. That is, until a chance encounter at a local book club sparks an unexpected connection with the beautiful Ruby Wilson - aka renowned lesfic author, Lola Bloom... -
Loved Like a Little by Aria Grace
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBilly never had much self-confidence. Things weren't great growing up in his household, but when his mom died, his dad became even worse. And there was nothing he could do to make his dad like him. When he was at college, it was easier to ignore his dad's drinking and harassment. But when Billy comes home after graduating culinary school, all those old wounds are opened up again... -
Stories in the Worst Way by Gary Lutz
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFiction. Short Stories. Originally released by Knopf in 1996, Lutz's rigorously innovative debut barely made a ripple in the mainstream publishing world. Meanwhile, however, the book attained a cult status, and its influence has grown tremendously in the years since its appearance, disappearance, and reappearance...Categorized as:
lgbtq literary-fiction adult anthologies contemporary fiction philosophical postmodernism -
The Collected Stories by Deborah Eisenberg
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsSince 1986 with the publication of her first story collection, Deborah Eisenberg has devoted herself to writing “exquisitely distilled stories” which “present an unusually distinctive portrait of contemporary American life” to quote the MacArthur Foundation...Categorized as:
literary-fiction classics fiction contemporary 21st-century anthologies female-author literary -
The Foreign Legion by Clarice Lispector
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Foreign Legion is a collection in two parts, gathering both stories and chronicles, and it offers wonderful evidence of Clarice Lispector's unique sensibility and range as an exponent of experimental prose. It opens with thirteen stories and the second part of the book presents newspaper crônicas, which Lispector said she retrieved from a bottom drawer... -
The Weight of a Moment by Michael Bowe
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWinner for Literary Fiction at the American Fiction Awards 2020. On list of “10 Best Indie Books of 2019” at Shelf Unbound Magazine. Finalist for Best Novel at the Next Generation Book Awards 2020, (often referred to as the "Sundance of Books" in the media). Winner of a Bronze Medal at the Readers' Favorite Awards 2020... -
Zenobia by Gellu Naum
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsOne of the best-known novels by prolific Romanian avant-garde writer Gelu Naum, Zenobia is the evocation of the singular quest of a Surrealist knight-errant who strives to be true to the gentle demands of his lady in a landscape of snares, desolation, incipient madness, and material poverty magically interrupted by moments of extreme beauty... -
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute: Stories by Grace Paley
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSeventeen stories written over the past fifteen years reveal the author's vision of human love and tragedy...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary female-author fiction -
Selected Stories by Robert Walser, Susan Sontag
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsHow to place the mysterious Swiss writer Robert Walser, a humble genius who possessed one of the most elusive and surprising sensibilities in modern literature? Walser is many things: a Paul Klee in words, maker of droll, whimsical, tender, and heartbreaking verbal artifacts; an inspiration to such very different writers as Kafka and W.G...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary -
-
Invisible Love by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEric-Emmanuel Schmitt is the author of three luminous collections of short stories published by Europa Editions, including the bestselling Most Beautiful Book in the World, and one novel, Three Women in a Mirror... -
The People Look Like Flowers at Last by Charles Bukowski
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe People Look like Flowers at Last is the last of five collections of never-before published poetry from the late great Dirty Old Man, Charles Bukowski.In it, he speaks on topics ranging from horse racing to military elephants, lost love to the fear of death. He writes extensively about writing, and about talking to people about writers such as Camus, Hemingway, and Stein... -
Speechless by Tom Lanoye, Paul Vincent
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTom Lanoye's mother, an amateur actress, suffered a stroke and lost her ability to speak. With her voice, once so dear to her, gone, she deteriorated, slowly and inevitably. New attacks made her entirely dependent on help.As a grateful and moving homage he reconstructs her life in an abundance of language that used to be hers... -
Short Cuts: Selected Stories by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe nine stories and one poem collected in this volume formed the basis for the astonishingly original film “Short Cuts” directed by Robert Altman. Collected altogether in this volume, these stories form a searing and indelible portrait of American innocence and loss...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies contemporary fiction literary -
Un certain Paul Darrigrand by Philippe Besson
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsCette année-là, j'avais vingt-deux ans et j'allais, au même moment, rencontrer l'insaisissable Paul Darrigrand et flirter dangereusement avec la mort, sans que ces deux événements aient de rapport entre eux.D'un côté, le plaisir et l'insouciance ; de l'autre, la souffrance et l'inquiétude. Le corps qui exulte et le corps meurtri.Aujourd'hui, je me demande si, au fond, tout n'était pas lié... -
Steppe by Oksana Vasyakina
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA visceral, stirring novel following a queer literature student traveling across Russia with her estranged father, a long haul truck driver secretly dying of AIDS, from the acclaimed author of WoundA decade after her father walks out on her family, the narrator of Steppe, now a literature student, decides to spend some time with him on the road as he makes deliveries across the vast plains of... -
The Portable Oscar Wilde by Oscar Wilde
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIncludes the following works: Novels—The Portrait of Dorian Gray; Plays—Salome and The Importance of Being Earnest; Writings—De Profundis, Critic as Artist, and Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Very Young; and selections from Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, and A Woman of No Importance... -
Rabbit Novels: Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe third and fourth novel in John Updike's acclaimed quartet of Rabbit books -- now in one marvelous volume. RABBIT IS RICHWinner of the American Book Award andthe National Book Critics Circle Award"Dazzlingly reaffirms Updike's place as master chronicler of the spiritual maladies and very earthly pleasure of the Middle-American male... -
Donde da la vuelta el aire by Gonzalo Torrente Ballester
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsEl enfrentamiento entre la Galicia feudal, atenazada por la decadencia y representada por la familia de los Churruchaos, y la sociedad moderna que comienza su irresistible ascenso, encarnada en el arrogante y decidido Cayetano Salgado, dueño de los astilleros de Pueblanueva del Conde, prosigue por sus pasos contados en «Donde da la vuelta el aire», segunda parte de las trilogía Los gozos y las... -
The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber & Other Stories by Ernest Hemingway
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" is a short story set in Africa. It was published in the September 1936 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine concurrently with "The Snows of Kilimanjaro... -
-
Los llanos by Federico Falco
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFinalista del 38.º Premio Herralde de NovelaUna novela sutil que aborda el duelo de una ruptura. Un libro sobre el tiempo que pasa y sobre el llano en el que habita un hombre que cultiva una huerta y mira y recuerda y escribe.«En la ciudad se pierde la noción de las horas del día, del paso del tiempo... -
Hallucinating Foucault by Patricia Duncker
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn intricate and self-reflective novel about that most delicate of relationships--meaning the one between writers and readers. The narrator, an anonymous graduate student, sets off on the trail of a French novelist named Paul Michel, who is currently confined to an asylum... -
West of Rome by John Fante
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWest of Rome's two novellas, "My Dog Stupid" and "The Orgy," fulfill the promise of their rousing titles. The latter novella opens with virtuoso description: "His name was Frank Gagliano, and he did not believe in God. He was that most singular and startling craftsman of the building trade-a left-handed bricklayer... -
The Thirtieth Year: Stories by Ingeborg Bachmann
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis is collection of the stories written by a distinguished Austrian author who died in 1973. Reading these stories entails abandoning the terms of one's own comfort. The author's relentless vision demands that readers allows themselves to be hypnotised, taken over by her repetitive cadences and burning images of grief and loss...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction fiction 20th-century contemporary female-author anthologies literary -
The Death of Ivan Ilyich/Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis new edition combines Tolstoy’s most famous short tale, The Death of Ivan Ilyich , with a less well known but equally brilliant gem, Master and Man , both newly translated by Ann Pasternak Slater...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction fiction audiobook anthologies season-winter contemporary literary -
The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction by R. V. Cassil
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsTalking about fictionStory form in our time/ Ernest HemingwayRevenge/ Giraldis CambrensisHeart of darkness/ Joseph ConradThe nightingales sing/ Elizabeth ParsonThe owl who was God/ James ThurberTraveling through the dark/ William StaffordGod's country and my people/ Wright MorrisThe egg/ Sherwood AndersonDeath in the woods/ Sherwood AndersonKarl-Yankel/ Isaac BabelSonny's blues/ Janes BaldwinA...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction fiction anthologies university contemporary literary adult
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.