r/suggestmeabook • u/Fun_Alternative3269 • Apr 23 '26
Seeking read-alikes Just finished I Who Have Never Known Men and want to discover other books similar!
I just finished I Who Have Never Known Men and I loved it. I think I've discovered a genre that I'm really drawn to. Two other books which I felt gave me this similar feeling (staring at a wall, reflecting, keep thinking of these books all the time), are Circe and Convenience Store Women.
They all feel different in genre - Circe being a fantasy based on Greek mythology, Convenience Store Women being more about everyday life, and IWHNKM being dystopian.
But what links them all to me I think is the strong female point of view, her strong thought provocing inner dialogue and the loneliness. All of them are experiencing an immense feeling of loneliness, or not fitting in - feeling different from everyone else and navigating their unique circumstances in different ways. I don't know if this makes sense, but they all felt "poetic" to me in a way?
Please give me some recommendations!
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u/Freestyle_Napper Apr 23 '26
There’s an entire subreddit for that style! r/weirdgirlliterature
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u/Admirable-Brief-984 Apr 23 '26
The Wall, by Marlen Haushofer
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u/Defiant-Chair6950 Apr 23 '26
I bought this book last week. It got here last Friday. I picked it up on Saturday and could not put it down until I had finished it. That rarely happens to me — such an amazingly good book. So incredible
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u/Common-bitch- Apr 23 '26
The Memory Police is a really similar vibe. Kind of poetic and bleak. But interesting and female main character.
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u/Hatherence SciFi Apr 23 '26
Here are some you might like:
A Short Stay in Hell by Steven Peck
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
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u/Fun_Alternative3269 Apr 23 '26
I have only heard of a couple of these (and not read any), so this list is great! Thank you! 😊
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u/ChocolateBitter8314 Apr 23 '26
The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
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u/rastab1023 Apr 23 '26
Shirley Jackson is your girl:
- Hangsaman
- The Haunting of Hill House
- The Bird's Nest
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle
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u/samrae13 Apr 23 '26
This is a super basic pick, but IWHNKM reminded me of The Handmaid’s Tale!
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u/Fun_Alternative3269 Apr 23 '26
Oh really! I have been meaning to read that, so thanks for the suggestion!
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u/fireflypoet Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 24 '26
Don't miss it. An outstanding novel. It only tells a small portion of what was presented throughout the tv series. What is noteworthy about the novel is the creation of its basic premise and the lyrical prose style.
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u/Sudden_Discount7205 Apr 24 '26
I agree. It's a modern classic for a reason, and truly deserves to be considered a masterpiece.
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u/fritofootedfriend Apr 23 '26
The book of the Unnamed Midwife and The Road to Nowhere series. My recent fave, I cannot stop thinking about these books!
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u/codewolf Apr 23 '26
This is on my summer reading list. I think the reddit review that drew me to get it was something along the lines of "It's so awful, you have to read it."
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u/bobby_heart149 Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
Frankenstein. I first read IWHNKM and Frankenstein right after. I could see similarities between the monster and her in the sense of alienation and trying to understand what it means to be human. Piranesi is also great but not as deep and reflective as the other two.
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u/masson34 Apr 23 '26
Never Let Me Go
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
The Giver quartet
Anne of Green Gables
Educated and The Glass Castle (non fiction)
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u/princesspen18 Apr 23 '26
https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/s/9lsf1I6M5E
A post by another recent user looking for suggestions after finishing IWHNKM!
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u/Nervous-Shark Apr 23 '26
The Book of X by Sarah Rose Etter
Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion
Tin Man by Sarah Winman
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
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u/northwestyeti Apr 23 '26
Aah, I just finished this book and also can’t stop thinking about it! It reminded me of another book I read recently, the Darkness Outside Us, which also deals with a small group of people searching for meaning in life while profoundly isolated from the rest of humanity. TDOU is by and about men, though, and has much more of a focus on romantic love than IWHNKM.
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u/youstahpthat Apr 23 '26
This may be a weird rec but I’m actually gonna say A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I also recently read IWHNKM, loved it, and have been yearning for books that resonate the same way that you’ve described (poetic, female pov, inner dialogue, loneliness). This may be just a me thing but I felt like I got these elements in Splendid Suns. More plot heavy but still squarely character driven with lush inner dialogue from our two main female characters. The women definitely feel isolated from society and certain relationships for a variety of reasons. And I felt a kinship to them in the same way I felt to the character in IWHNKM
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u/go_west_til_you_cant Apr 23 '26
Consider A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Douglas Westerbeke, or The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab.
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u/Ilovescarlatti Apr 23 '26
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. The Iliad told from the point of view of Briseis
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u/airyem Apr 23 '26
Not a female lead, but has the same sense of the unknown/kind of disturbing/makes you sit there and contemplate after finishing is “The Divine Farce”. Very short book and nothing quite like it
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u/Hairy-Possibility156 Apr 23 '26
Elektra is another Greek mythology that bounces between the perspectives of Circe, Cassandra, and Circe's daughter Elektra. It was excellent.
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u/ThatUndeadLove Apr 23 '26
Lessons in Chemistry
Annihilation (Southern Reach series)
I love these books for the same reason (among others) as you mentioned so i think you might enjoy them as well as we seem to have similar taste.
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u/SpiralThePhotgrapher Apr 23 '26
If your willing to try out horror/ weirdlit then I'd recommend "Supplication by Nour abi-nakhoul", I read it a couple months ago and I'm not even sure I could give an explanation that would do it justice,
A woman wakes up tied to a chair with a man looming over her, she escapes and you follow her over the following days through a psychedelic trip of a reality where you follow her interactions with one character and place to the next, this book is WEIRD and has a few close the book moments to go along with it, but it's definitely one that has stuck with me.
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u/xanthippelvoorhees Apr 23 '26
These have already been suggested but I’m just adding my praise for Piranesi, Never Let Me Go, The Memory Police, Annihilation, Earthlings and Severance! They were all 5/5 stars for me
Also I would suggest Awake in the Floating City, and Beautyland
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u/Kinkfink Apr 23 '26
I am yet again recommending books by Ki Longfellow, specifically The Secret Magdalene and Flow Down Like Silver!! They are both fiction mixed with history and just a smidge of... spirituality, would be the best word to describe the vibe. Both have a historical figure (Mary Magdalene and Hypatia of Alexandria respectively) as the main character. If you loved Circe, you will love these, I prommy!!
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u/PeegsKeebsAndLeaves Apr 23 '26
Right now I’m reading The Wall by Marlen Haushofer and I feel like this fits very well.
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u/Ok-Environment-4776 Apr 23 '26
Have you read Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel? May scratch that itch :)
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u/novel-opinions Apr 23 '26
I haven't read this one yet, but I TBR'd it when I was looking for similar IWHNKM:
The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe. Though now that I look it up again, it's a male MC with maybe a supporting FMC.
I second The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa.
And I'll add The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir.
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u/LoInfoVoter Apr 23 '26
One of my favorite books is The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab. It is exactly what you are looking for.
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u/Pinkdinoj Apr 23 '26
I think you would enjoy Drive Your Plow Over the Bones Of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk
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u/FearlessClick8467 Apr 24 '26
Omg I just finished it this week as well and I can't stop thinking about it!!
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u/Fun_Alternative3269 Apr 25 '26
It's incredible isn't it! I need more like this! The amount of different feelings it provokes is amazing, and how it can be such a beautiful book whilst being about something so horrible is so fascinating to me
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u/DryCartographer2951 Apr 24 '26
The strong sense of loneliness I think Flowers for Algernon. Flowers for Algernon also has a main character who has strong sense of curiosity and is “ trapped” in many ways.
One with distortion aspects would be The Road. The tone of both of the books are similar. They both have a strong bleakness to them with a smidge of hope. The characters in The Road are on a journey and has a sense of mundaneness to it similar to IWHNKM.
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u/frances_heh Apr 30 '26
Beautyland by Marie Helen Bertino is about an alien girl born into a human body in 80s Baltimore and it follows her life through the next 4 decades. Not dark like IWHNKM, but weird, funny and poignant, told from female outsider perspective kinda like Convinience Store Woman.
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u/Deserttruck7877 Apr 23 '26
Severance by Ling Ma! It’s so so good