20 coming of age novels Archives

Piecing Me Together

by Renee Watson

Engaging coming-of-age story about a 16-year-old African American girl struggling to find her place in the world. This is a nuanced but easy read about feeling out of place, coming into your own, and the perils of good intentions.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith

I’ve heard my mom gush about this book for pretty much my whole life, and finally read it in January explicitly for this category in the Reading Challenge. Of course, my only regret was that I’d waited so long: I loved this story from page 1. No description I ever heard before made me want to read it, so I'll spare you the plot synopsis. I'll just say: read it. Wistful, haunting, satisfying. I listened to the audio version, which—barring some infrequent random jazz music—was quite good.

Go Tell It on the Mountain

by James Baldwin

Baldwin was the son of a preacher and the grandson of an enslaved person, and his life experiences heavily inform this semi-autobiographical 1953 novel, which tells the story of one day in the life of a 14-year-old boy in Harlem in the late 1930s. The boy, John Grimes, struggles with hypocrisy in the Pentecostal church while also finding comfort in the community. Baldwin powerfully writes about John's spiritual and sexual awakening as a young, gay Black man and a person of faith.

My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Novels Book 1)

by Elena Ferrante

This is the first installment of Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet, which revolves around the friendship between Elena and Lila. This book begins when the girls are in first grade and carries them through adolescence. I picked this up from my local bookstore's blind date with a book shelf: the bookseller had described it as "a masterpiece you probably haven’t read yet. (Three and a half years later, booksellers can no longer say that with confidence!) Originally written in Italian and beautifully translated by Ann Goldstein. (Hot tip: I LOVED this series on audio.)

The Great Alone

by Kristin Hannah

A MINIMALIST SUMMER PICK. One of the best books I’ll read all year; my husband loved it, too. It’s 1974, and Leni Allbright’s father Ernt, a former Vietnam POW, suffers from terrifying PTSD. The family moves to Alaska in search of a fresh start, but they're utterly unprepared for the harsh reality that greets them. As Large Marge says, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next…. Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” But she doesn’t yet know Leni fears the violence in her home more than the landscape. As winter draws near and darkness closes in, Ernt’s mental health deteriorates, with disastrous consequences for the family and community. Yet Leni will survive—and maybe even thrive. A riveting coming of age story featuring a fabulous setting, amazing female leads, and ultimate redemption. But wow, is it tense in the meantime.

I Capture the Castle

by Dodie Smith

Claims to fame: this is the “original YA novel,” with one of the best narrators in English literature. We hear the story of this eccentric 1930s English family—struggling to make ends meet in a tumbledown castle—through the eyes of 17-year-old Cassandra—bright, witty, and wise beyond her years. Replete with love, magic, writer’s block, and bear costumes.

The House on Mango Street

by Sandra Cisneros

This modern classic is a coming-of-age almost-memoir of a young Latina girl, Esperanza Cordero, who is inventing the woman she will grow up to be. The story unfolds as a series of vignettes—some joyful, some heartbreaking—that draw the reader deep into the Hispanic Chicago neighborhood. Esperanza's observations feel at once highly specific and incredibly universal, as she reflects on growing up on Mango Street, and how she eventually wants to leave.

A Prayer for Owen Meany

by John Irving

Irving is a masterful storyteller, and has a knack for drawing compelling characters. This novel, which gently addresses heavy themes of fate and faith, is widely believed to be his finest. Read it and see why it’s on so many readers’ desert island lists.

American Street

by Ibi Zoboi

From the author of Pride from yesterday's 3 imaginative Pride and Prejudice retellings, Ibi Zoboi. Her first book won a ton of prizes and has great ratings. American Street is $7.55 on hardcover today.

The Age of Miracles: A Novel

by Karen Thompson Walker

The writing is okay and the plot gets a little muddy in the middle, but the concept of this YA almost-apocalyptic novel is brilliant: the rotation of the earth is slowing down, and the wheels are coming off. A little science fiction + a little coming-of-age make for a good read, if not a must-read.

This Tender Land

by William Kent Krueger

This tough and tender coming-of–age story is Part Grapes of Wrath and part Huckleberry Finn, while mirroring The Odyssey’s narrative. The tale centers on four Minnesota kids during the Great Depression, whose respective situations become ever more impossible due to human cruelty and circumstance. After a tornado demolishes the last of life as they know it, they realize no one is going to save them—and so they make a plan to save themselves that starts with escaping down the river in a canoe. Their little band by turns encounters kind strangers and others all too willing to exploit vulnerable children. For those of you who say my husband Will is your book twin: he loved this. An epic story, beautifully told, and one that contains perhaps the finest setup-and-payoff sequence I’ve read in years. Content warnings apply. For fans of Krueger’s Ordinary Grace and Jess Walter’s The Cold Millions.

Chirp

Silver Sparrow

by Tayari Jones

Opening line: "My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist." In her third novel, Jones writes about the link between two African-American half sisters, one legitimate and one secret, only one of whom knows the other exists. That is, until the secret of their father's second marriage starts to force its way into the open. Rather than writing back-and-forth between two perspectives, the reader encounters almost all of one sister's point of view in the first half, followed by the other's. The result is an absorbing coming-of-age narrative wrapped in a complicated family novel. I already loved this book, but when we discussed it with author Tayari Jones in the MMD Book Club, my appreciation and enjoyment skyrocketed, as so often happens. I love to peel back all the layers of a good book.

The Poet X

by Elizabeth Acevedo

Acevedo's first novel-in-verse won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. Xiomara finds her voice as she pours her soul into her notebook. Every frustration, every harassment, every triumph and every secret is turned into a poem. When she gets invited to share her work in slam poetry club, Xiomara isn't sure if she can keep her passion secret from her strict family. But she soon learns that speaking up and living her truth is the only way to be fully herself.

Purple Hibiscus

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I love Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, and I loved this one. Set in postcolonial Nigeria, Purple Hibiscus is a coming of age story about family, religion, and freedom. This would make a perfect book club pick.

Red at the Bone

by Jacqueline Woodson

From the publisher: "As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody's mother, for her own ceremony-- a celebration that ultimately never took place. Unfurling the history of Melody's parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they've paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history. As it explores sexual desire and identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, Red at the Bone most strikingly looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions about their lives--even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be." Add the audio Whispersync narration, read by Jacqueline Woodson, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Peter Francis James, Shayna Small, and Bahni Turpin.

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

by Julia Alvarez

Alvarez tells a fictionalized version of her biography in fifteen interconnected stories. The Garcia girls, four sisters, arrive in New York in 1960—a huge change from their cushioned, wealthy lives in the Dominican Republic. As they acclimate to their new home, mourn what's lost, and find themselves, the sisters share a close bond. The chapters alternate with each sister's perspective, giving the reader a vivid glimpse at four different coming-of-age stories.

Never Let Me Go

by Kazuo Ishiguro

An eerie take on the coming-of-age theme. Ishiguro expertly combines speculative fiction and literary fiction to great effect. I talked about my love for this one in Volume III of One Great Book. Haunting and atmospheric, with a sad truth that dawns on you gradually. Ishiguro slowly introduces the reader to three teens in a 1990s British boarding school. His prose says so much while revealing so little, as it slowly dawns on the reader what is not-quite-right about these children's lives.

Bastard Out of Carolina

by Dorothy Allison

This modern classic is often compared to The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird, and lately to J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy. The New York Times calls it "as close to flawless as any reader could ask for."

Tuck Everlasting

by Natalie Babbit

When an overprotected ten-year-old stumbles upon a boy her age drinking furtively from a spring near her home, she discovers what he's trying to keep secret: since his family began drinking the water, they haven't aged a day. There are so many middle grade stories that wrestle with death these days; in this novel, Babbit wrestles with the decidedly mixed blessing of living forever. The prose in this is really lovely (which is not a code word for boring).

Emily of New Moon

by L.M. Montgomery

If you come to Montgomery's later, darker series expecting to find a second Anne, you're bound to be disappointed. Luckily, my grade school self had no such preconceived notions. These were the first books that I finished under the covers with a flashlight at 2:00 a.m. because I had to know where Emily's hopes, dreams, and disappointments led her.

20 coming of age novels