Books like The Raft — picked by fans

This book took me to a twisted, hidden world full of very creepy scenes and characters, and since I worked in a mall for over a decade, showed me what true horror in a mall could be like.

The whole book is like being trapped in a strange nightmare, and the authors went to some twisted places to imagine what it would be like in their horror-mall. This book also kicks off the series, so there’s more to read after it.

I was expecting the quintessential and stereotypical forbidden romance, and instead, what I read was one of the best explorations of humanity (in its various forms) I’ve ever encountered.

The novel explores how AI and androids might impact society in terms of art, politics, personal relationships, and much more. The author also has a way of making music important and beautiful – a difficult thing to do when it comes to being restricted to using text.

One of the best Horror novels I’ve read – very unsettling and creepy, and eminently memorable.

This novel won’t be for everyone; it’s brutal, pulls no punches, and is evocative of the risks writers like Clive Barker take in their writing. Shadows is one of the best examples of South African (that is, written by a South African) horror that I’ve read.

I enjoyed the local setting, the intensity of the novel, and its unflinching exploration of South Africa’s violent crime problems and how crime ties into cultural beliefs.

The novel goes to some dark places, in terms of events and character arcs, and the pacing and well-written scenes keep the reader nailed to the story – you’ll see a side of South Africa which is very real, but perhaps largely unknown to the rest of the world.

This fun story from the 1990s revived my youthful joy in reading at a time when the busy-ness of adulthood had stolen it away. Siri has forgotten who she is and is swept into multiple space adventures as she tries to reconstruct her lost memories and regain the power and place she once held with her people. In the process, she finds friendships (the Drapsk!) and romance (Morgan!), and comes to understand herself better.

In reading this book, I realized that the science fiction stories I like best are ones that deal with relationships, mystery, and discovery and not just complicated technologies and their implications for society. I realized that I could have fun reading again if I had some fun science fiction with adventure, romance, and exploration!

I loved Mary Norton’s book for its narrative hook: size. This is Gulliver’s Lilliput without the satiric political overtones. The main characters are a miniature Edwardian family called the Clocks because they live underneath one. The father, Pod, his wife, Homily, and their daughter, Arietty, are so small they fit under the floorboards of a human-sized house.

All their ingenuity is devoted to adapting their smallness to the world of Big People while preventing them from being “seen” by them. Everything they use must be “borrowed” from the bigger world and adapted to their circumstances. Matchboxes become dressers and chests of drawers; postage stamps serve as wall hangings and pictures; a thimble does duty as a soup tureen, while an actual tureen becomes a bathtub.

The discovery of a fully furnished doll’s house has become an occasion for wholesale redecoration. A crisis comes when Arietty is “seen” by the human… show more.

In the mid-21st century, an alien craft appears just beyond the orbit of Saturn and approaches the planet quickly before coming to a halt within its rings... and departs as fast as it arrived. The event shocks the world into a space race not unlike the Soviets and Americans fighting to be the first to put a man on the moon. As a hard science fiction novel, Saturn Run was an incredible read—an absolute joy. I personally loved every little detail provided of the space-station-turned-spacecraft, from the methods by which heat was radiated away from the ship to how it was designed for a multi-month excursion. Overall, I really enjoyed the story and would highly recommend it if you are a stickler for the kind of technical details that hard sci-fi novels should have.

High school student Kip Morgan wins an internship at an oceanographic institute in Hawaii where he, with help of new friend Julie Scott, overcomes multiple personal and engineering challenges to solve an archaeological mystery and raise a sunken ship from the sea floor. This story from the 1970s was key in guiding me toward a life of science, and the portrayal of a realistic, mentored research experience gave me a vision for what I might do in my own journey through college and into science.

I loved the exotic location, scuba diving, and seafloor exploration, mystery, adventure, and romance!

Although the author is a runner, these stories don’t focus solely on that, but the adventures she can do because she is a runner. Anna speckles her life with adventures she can manage all the time instead of waiting for an epic adventure that you might only get to once or twice a year. She embodies my philosophy that life is meant to be lived. Do what inspires you right now. Sometimes that’s a race with a team number, and sometimes it’s a climb to the top of a mountain. Anna retells her tales of adventure in a collection of fun stories about epic undertakings and colors her stories with personality. 

This is a book I would recommend because it's filled with love and hope. I'm a real fan of books that make you feel good by describing great relationships of all kinds. I especially enjoyed the relationship between the two sisters. The story truly teaches about great romance. When a person is having a bad day, this book will suck you in and leave you with a feeling of happiness.