Learned about a week ago that there's a genre name for the type of books I like! For any that might not know, it's essentially a book that follows the psychological growth of the protagonist (typically from childhood but not necessarily).
I've liked both The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett and The End of Loneliness by Benedict Wells (I would recommend both to anyone interested in the genre) recently. I was curious if anyone in here had any recommendations for bildungsroman books that particularly stuck with or moved them!
TIA
by az_babyy
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Here are some I have liked:
* Glory Season by David Brin. Sci fi
* The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. Sci fi
* Chrysanthe by Yves Meynard. Fantasy
* Singularity by William Sleator. This is for younger or middle grade readers, which is when I read it, but it really stuck with me in the 10+ years since I read it. Sci fi.
Here’s some I’ve liked!
**The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini**
1970s Afghanistan: Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what would happen to Hassan that afternoon, an event that is to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade and the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realizes that one day he must return to an Afghanistan under Taliban rule to find the one thing that his new world cannot grant him: redemption.
**A Separate Peace – John Knowles**
Set at a boys boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, *A Separate Peace* is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.
**Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte**
The story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane’s natural independence and spirit – which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester.
***A*****bout A Boy – Nick Hornby**
Will is thirty-six but acts like a teenager. Single, child-free and still feeling cool, he reads the right magazines, goes to the right clubs and knows which trainers to wear. He’s also discovered a great way to score with women at single parents’ groups, full of available (and grateful) mothers, all waiting for Mr Nice Guy. That’s where he meets Marcus, the oldest twelve-year-old in the world. Marcus is a bit strange: he listens to Joni Mitchell and Mozart, he looks after his Mum and he’s never even owned a pair of trainers. Perhaps if Will can teach Marcus how to be a kid, Marcus can help Will grow up and they can both start to act their age.
**Cold Sassy Tree – Olive Ann Burns (not sure if this is** ***technically*** **a bildungsroman)**
On July 5, 1906, scandal breaks in the small town of Cold Sassy, Georgia, when the proprietor of the general store, E. Rucker Blakeslee, elopes with Miss Love Simpson. He is barely three weeks a widower, and she is only half his age and a Yankee to boot. As their marriage inspires a whirlwind of local gossip, fourteen-year-old Will Tweedy suddenly finds himself eyewitness to a family scandal, and that’s where his adventures begin.
One of my favorites this year has been *Demon Copperhead* by Barbara Kingsolver. It’s about a young boy growing up in a small, Appalachian Virginian town during the opioids crisis. It sounds like it would be depressing as hell (and there are plenty of heartbreaking scenes) but the main character, Demon, is so likeable the book avoids being misery/poverty porn.