100 Books Like Looking for Alaska

Anne Shirley is a perfectly imperfect heroine, and that’s why I love her. She’s creative and imaginative and gets so lost in her daydreams that she can forget the flour in a cake or to cover leftover pudding, leaving easy access for a peckish mouse. Her temper matches her red hair, and she refuses to let anyone insult her dignity. She dreams of meeting kindred spirits—those individuals you just click with.

Although I first discovered Anne as a teen, I’ve returned to her throughout my life, and at each stage, she’s there like an old friend. The best part of knowing Anne has been meeting kindred spirits from all around the globe who share their own stories of reading and loving Anne.  

This is a wonderful blend of magic, history, and romance that completely swept me away. I loved how Harkness created a world where science and magic coexist, and the way she weaves historical references into a modern love story stole my heart.

The relationship between Diana and Matthew feels real, complicated, and deeply emotional, and I found myself fully invested in their journey. What really hooked me was the rich world-building, with its intricate details of witches, vampires, and daemons, making it feel like a universe I could dive into again and again. This is an annual reread for me. Book 1 in a wonderful series.

This book has become so familiar to us through cartoons and movies that we often forget how very weird it is as a piece of writing. The book begins when Alice, bored of her sister’s company, notices a white rabbit muttering to itself “Oh dear! Oh dear!”, and starts to become curious—not, mind you, because talking rabbits are impossible, but only because they are so very intriguing.

The rest of the book shares this bemused tone: Alice will be subjected to all sorts of indignities, including a near-beheading, but as a “good” Victorian girl, she will generally accept the bizarre reality that is presented to her. Carroll’s mastery of language is key to this effect. Nearly every character sounds sensible, turning well-formed logical sentences, but they never make much actual sense, and their speeches are riddled with so many puns, double meanings, and other linguistic tricks that one can never… show more.

The story of Clay Jensen is both beautiful and repelling in that it forced me to consider the unseen impact my insecurities and actions may have had on others when I was a teen. I couldn’t imagine being a shy, bright, and likable California high school student unexpectedly thrust into the center of a girl’s suicide by being named one of the contributors to her death. But that’s the point. Neither can Clay. 

In his case, the only way to discover why he was included is to listen to a set of thirteen tapes made by the victim. These tapes take him on a journey of personal growth and transformation despite his only having the loosest of connections to her. In doing so, he takes us right along with him, considering how our briefest interactions could have profoundly impacted someone else.

This is a story told from dual perspectives. Our male protagonist is Theodore Finch. He’s a rebel type, funny, and spontaneous. He goes after Violet Markey—our female first-person perspective—after discovering that she, too, is grappling with demons from her past. What I love about this book is how alive Theodore is as he walks the tightrope of death. While tragedy abounds in this story, you can sense a shaky joy in Theodore. His punk, fun-chasing exterior hides a vulnerable soul in search of love. 

I knew a lot of teen boys like him when I was in high school. Jennifer Niven did a remarkable job capturing the raw energy that Theodore zaps into the lives of those around him. Sometimes, there are people like Theodore who crash through our lives—people with a magic to them—that we wish we could hold onto. 

Right off the bat, Darius jumps off the page as a real teen with relatable problems.

He’s the quiet kid at school, who the others tease. And he suffers from clinical depression. What I loved was how well Khorram tackled depression’s subtleties.

I think there is a tendency for society to see depression as this overarching dark cloud that keeps us in bed 24/7. But the truth is, many people who are suffering, are functional.

From the outside, we don’t see the building up of little moments that act like a snowball gradually expanding as it rolls down the mountain face.

Be warned – the food descriptions are amazing, so you might get hungry during the read.

This is a unique entry in that the cursed place is a framing device, for this collection of mostly disturbing tales. For his first-ever collection of short stories, Palahniuk brings his wretched cast of characters to a haunted house, where each in turn offers his or her own demented tale. They don’t all work, but a number of the stories really stick with you, and this spooky old house at the center of it ratchets the intensity up another level—it’s not a static situation they are in, there, so the plot progresses to its own warped conclusion on this front as well. 

From the first chapter, as I read Charlie’s letter to a friend, I wished I could meet the man this teenager would become. The magic of this book is that it is related entirely through journal-like letters. Charlie writes with so much authenticity, curiosity, and vulnerability that I’m glad he has three friends who hold him with love as he faces his demons and comes of age.

I found the ways he makes sense of the world fascinating, humourous, and admirable, and at other times heartbreaking. I sincerely admire Charlie’s strength as he manages to sustain vulnerability and a constant rope of connection to himself, even though it gets very thin at times. 

I love this book because although it seems at a casual glance to be written in the mold of 50s and 60s science fiction, with earthmen fighting bug-eyed aliens, it’s, in fact, a profound exploration of the morality of war, of chances, lost and motives misunderstood and of the ruthless use of children as combatants.

The training regimen of the children is gripping, as is the climactic space battle, but it’s the ending of the novel that gives the story its deep spiritual resonance.

Nothing is accidental. Every word that you think is throwaway is part of the character build. Nothing is told. You have to link it. You have diverse characters without commentary. You have an understanding of motivation. You have illicit love. You have a challenging protagonist. What you think is true may not be true. You may glimpse real people, but you cannot say for sure. Unspoken truths. Secrets. Sex. Glamor.

Written from alternative viewpoints, it rounds out the real-life aspect that there is no truth because everyone’s truth is colored by their own bias. Again, it's unexpected and a fast read–and just like with my last recommendation–you don’t like her, then you do.