Recommendations based on A Girl Is a Half-formed Thingby Eimear McBride

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. How to Be Both

    by Ali Smith
    Exploring duality and interconnectedness through the life of a girl and a Renaissance artist.

    Passionate, compassionate, vitally inventive and scrupulously playful, Ali Smith’s novels are like nothing else. A true original, she is a one-of-a-kind literary sensation. Her novels consistently ... (Goodreads)

  2. A Little Life

    by Hanya Yanagihara
    A powerful tale of four friends navigating life's hardships and the devastating effects of trauma.

    The novel follows the lives of four friends in New York City from college through to middle-age. It focuses particularly on Jude, a lawyer with a mysterious past, ambiguous ethnicity, and unexplained ... (Wikipedia)

  3. Station Eleven

    by Emily St. John Mandel
    Post-apocalyptic exploration of a world drastically changed after a pandemic.

    An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse,, Station Eleven, tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of ... (Barnes & Noble)

  4. To the Lighthouse

    by Virginia Woolf
    Exploration of the complexities of human relationships and family life.

    The novel is set in the Ramsays' summer home in the Hebrides , on the Isle of Skye . The section begins with Mrs Ramsay assuring her son James that they should be able to visit the lighthouse on the ... (Wikipedia)

  5. No One Belongs Here More Than You

    by Miranda July
    Short stories of everyday people struggling to find their place in the world.

    Screenwriter, director, and star of the acclaimed film Me and You and Everyone We Know, Miranda July brings her extraordinary talents to the page in a startling, sexy, and tender collection. ... (Goodreads)

  6. Conversations with Friends

    by Sally Rooney
    Two college students explore the complexity of relationships and their place in the world.

    A sharply intelligent novel about two college students and the strange, unexpected connection they forge with a married couple. Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed, and darkly observant. A ... (Goodreads)

  7. The Golden Notebook

    by Doris Lessing
    A woman's journey of self-discovery and reflection, exploring freedom, identity and relationships.

    The Golden Notebook is the story of writer Anna Wulf, the four notebooks in which she records her life, and her attempt to tie them together in a fifth, gold-coloured notebook. The book intersperses ... (Wikipedia)

  8. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

    by Junot Díaz
    An exploration of love, identity, and the power of fate in a family's struggles and triumphs.

    Oscar de León (nicknamed Oscar Wao, a bastardization of Oscar Wilde ) is an overweight Dominican growing up in Paterson, New Jersey. Oscar desperately wants to be successful with women but, from a ... (Wikipedia)

  9. Infinite Jest

    by David Foster Wallace
    A journey through the absurdist world of entertainment, drugs, addiction & death.

    There are four major interwoven narratives: , These narratives are connected via a film, Infinite Jest , also referred to in the novel as "the Entertainment" or "the samizdat ". The film is so ... (Wikipedia)

  10. All the Birds, Singing

    by Evie Wyld
    A woman's journey of self-discovery, dealing with the consequences of her past.

    From one of Granta 's Best Young British Novelists, a stunningly insightful, emotionally powerful new novel about an outsider haunted by an inescapable past: a story of loneliness and survival, guilt ... (Goodreads)

  11. The Waves

    by Virginia Woolf
    Inner musings of six characters in search of individual identity, expressed through the ebb and flow of the sea.

    The novel follows its six narrators from childhood through adulthood. Woolf is concerned with the individual consciousness and the ways in which multiple consciousnesses can weave together. Bernard ... (Wikipedia)

  12. Invisible Man

    by Ralph Ellison
    A black man's journey towards self-actualization in a world of racial oppression.

    The narrator, an unnamed black man, begins by describing his living conditions: an underground room wired with hundreds of electric lights, operated by power stolen from the city's electric grid. He ... (Wikipedia)

  13. The Buried Giant

    by Kazuo Ishiguro
    An elderly couple's journey through a mythical land, confronting the forgotten secrets of the past.

    Following the death of King Arthur , Saxons and Britons live in harmony. Along with everyone else in their community, Axl and Beatrice, an elderly Briton couple, suffer from severe selective amnesia ... (Wikipedia)

  14. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

    by Haruki Murakami
    A surreal journey of self-discovery, exploring the inner and outer worlds.

    The first part, "The Thieving Magpie", begins with the narrator, Toru Okada, a low-key and unemployed lawyer's assistant, being tasked by his wife, Kumiko, to find their missing cat. Kumiko suggests ... (Wikipedia)

  15. The Reader on the 6.27

    by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent
    An unlikely friendship between a book-loving commuter and a mysterious author.

    An irresistible French sensation - Mr Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore meets Amelie - The Reader on the 6.27 explores the power of books through the lives of the people they save. It is sure to capture ... (Goodreads)

  16. The Hours

    by Michael Cunningham
    Interwoven stories of three women and the impact of Virginia Woolf's novel, Mrs. Dalloway.

    Note: This Summary does not contain the whole book, nor end at the ending. The stream-of-consciousness style being so prominent in this work, a summary of the plot based on physical action does not ... (Wikipedia)

  17. The Secret River

    by Kate Grenville
    A convict’s journey for redemption and a new life in the Australian Outback.

    The early life of William Thornhill is one of Dickensian poverty, depredation and criminality. , After a childhood of poverty and petty crime in the slums of London, William Thornhill is sentenced to ... (Wikipedia)

  18. Wide Sargasso Sea

    by Jean Rhys
    A woman's journey of self-discovery in the Caribbean, her story of emancipation from the shadows of colonialism.

    The novel, initially set in Jamaica, opens a short while after the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 ended slavery in the British Empire on 1 August 1834. , The protagonist Antoinette relates the story of ... (Wikipedia)

  19. How Should a Person Be?

    by Sheila Heti
    A young woman navigates her way through life, love, and art in Toronto. A witty and introspective exploration of identity and creativity.

    Chosen as one of fifteen remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write in the 21st century by the book critics of, The New York Times, ,"Funny...odd, original, and nearly ... (Barnes & Noble)

  20. In One Person

    by John Irving
    A coming-of-age story of a bisexual man fighting for acceptance in a world of intolerance.

    A New York Times bestselling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love—tormented, funny, and affecting—and an impassioned embrace of our sexual ... (Goodreads)

  21. How to Build a Girl

    by Caitlin Moran
    A teenage girl reinvents herself as a music journalist in 1990s London, navigating the pitfalls of fame and self-discovery.

    How to Build a Girl follows Johanna Morrigan, a working-class 14-year-old living with her parents and five siblings on a council estate in 1990s Wolverhampton . After revealing to her disapproving ... (Wikipedia)

  22. Giovanni's Room

    by James Baldwin
    A man's struggle for identity and acceptance amidst a tumultuous romantic relationship.

    David, a young American man whose girlfriend has gone off to Spain to contemplate marriage, is left alone in Paris and begins an affair with an Italian man, Giovanni. The entire story is narrated by ... (Wikipedia)

  23. When Will There Be Good News?

    by Kate Atkinson
    A gripping mystery that intertwines the lives of three individuals, each with their own secrets and tragedies, leading to a shocking conclusion.

    In her crime novel When Will There Be Good News?, featuring recurring character Jackson Brodie, Kate Atkinson begins with several seemingly unrelated storylines that slowly resolve into a whole. The ... (Wikipedia)

  24. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

    by Haruki Murakami
    A man's journey of self-reflection to address his past and understand his place in the world.

    A mesmerising mystery story about friendship from the internationally bestselling author of, Norwegian Wood, and, 1Q84, Tsukuru Tazaki had four best friends at school. By chance all of their names ... (Goodreads)

  25. Slammerkin

    by Emma Donoghue
    The turbulent life of a young woman in 18th century England, exploring the consequences of poverty and gender inequality.

    Mary Saunders is a highly intelligent girl living in poverty in 1760 London. She is repelled when her mother Susan encourages her to become a seamstress, wanting nothing to do with the "wretched ... (Wikipedia)

  26. The Piano Teacher

    by Elfriede Jelinek
    A woman's exploration of her sexuality, and its implications on her life.

    The Piano Teacher, the most famous novel of Elfriede Jelinek, who was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature, is a shocking, searing, aching portrait of a woman bound between a repressive society ... (Goodreads)

  27. The Line of Beauty

    by Alan Hollinghurst
    The story of a young gay man in Thatcher's England, navigating his identity and sexuality.

    The novel is set in Britain in three parts, taking place in 1983, 1986 and 1987. The story surrounds the young gay protagonist, Nick Guest. Nick is middle-class and from the fictional market town of ... (Wikipedia)

  28. What I Loved

    by Siri Hustvedt
    A story of two friends, their families, and the art world in New York City. A tale of love, loss, and the complexities of human relationships.

    What I Loved opens with a painting of a woman 'wearing only a man's T-shirt', with the artist's shadow across the canvas. The protagonist , art historian Leon Hertzberg (Leo), purchases the painting ... (Wikipedia)

  29. Leaving the Atocha Station

    by Ben Lerner
    A young poet's journey of self-discovery, struggling to find a sense of purpose in life.

    Adam Gordon is a brilliant, if highly unreliable, young American poet on a prestigious fellowship in Madrid, struggling to establish his sense of self and his relationship to art. What is actual when ... (Goodreads)

  30. What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal]

    by Zoë Heller
    An intriguing tale of a manipulative teacher and a forbidden affair, told through a colleague's perspective.

    Barbara, a veteran history teacher at a comprehensive school in London , is a lonely, unmarried woman in her early sixties, and she is eager to find a close friend. However, she reveals that she has ... (Wikipedia)