20 Best contemporary books like Ordinary People by Diana Evans

Cover of Ordinary People by Diana Evans

Ordinary People

By: Diana Evans

3.31

Format: 329 pages, Paperback

‘You can take a leap, do something off the wall, something reckless. It’s your last chance, and mos…

"C'est incroyable ce que la musique peut charpenter une vie, toute une vie, et te la rendre par pans entiers, alors que tu pensais avoir tout oublié."

-Diana Evans, Ordinary People

"C'est incroyable ce que la musique peut charpenter une vie, toute une vie, et te la rendre par pans entiers, alors que tu pensais avoir tout oublié."

-Diana Evans, Ordinary People

"C'est incroyable ce que la musique peut charpenter une vie, toute une vie, et te la rendre par pans entiers, alors que tu pensais avoir tout oublié."

-Diana Evans, Ordinary People

If you liked the contemporary plot in Ordinary People by Diana Evans , here is a list of 20 books like this:

Cover of Promising Young Women by Caroline O'Donoghue

1. Promising Young Women

By: Caroline O'Donoghue

3.74

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

For readers of THE COWS, SWEETBITTER or CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS - as well as for fans of FLEABAG… read more

Similar categories in Caroline O'Donoghue's Promising Young Women book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • romance
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
Cover of Scenes of a Graphic Nature by Caroline O'Donoghue

2. Scenes of a Graphic Nature

By: Caroline O'Donoghue

3.64

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

'Do you know what céad mile fáilte means?' 'A hundred thousand welcomes.' 'Not a hundred thousand… read more

Similar categories in Caroline O'Donoghue's Scenes of a Graphic Nature book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • romance
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
Cover of You Are Here by David Nicholls

3. You Are Here

By: David Nicholls

4.08

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

Sometimes you need to get lost to find your way . . . Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his… read more

Similar categories in David Nicholls's You Are Here book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • romance
  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • british literature
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
"It’s true I do have time and freedom and I love it, sometimes. But the notion that I should be “making the most of it"

-David Nicholls, You Are Here

"You were traumatised.’ ‘I wonder if people use that word too much.’ ‘It’s the right word for something traumatic.’ ‘But it wasn’t war. People get beaten up every Friday night.’ ‘And are traumatised b…"

-David Nicholls, You Are Here

"she went on a solo trip to Italy, role-playing a character in a Forster novel. In Florence, she read performatively in cafés and sat in the cool of exquisite churches, straining for some kind of spir…"

-David Nicholls, You Are Here

"Books saw her through the pupal stage of thirteen to sixteen, frowning at Kafka and Woolf, then tearing through John Irving and Maeve Binchy, widely read in the proper sense, making no distinction be…"

-David Nicholls, You Are Here

Cover of Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

4. Blue Sisters

By: Coco Mellors

4.21

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death… read more

Similar categories in Coco Mellors's Blue Sisters book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
"A sister is not a friend. Who can explain the urge to take a relationship as primal and complex as a sibling and reduce it to something as replaceable, as banal as a friend? Yet this status is used a…"

-Coco Mellors, Blue Sisters

Cover of Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy

5. Soldier Sailor

By: Claire Kilroy

4.10

Format: 256 pages, ebook

Well, Sailor. Here we are once more, you and me in one another's arms. The Earth rotates beneath us… read more

Similar categories in Claire Kilroy's Soldier Sailor book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
"I laughed and then we were doing that thing again, our thing: laughing into one another's eyes. All that time I had thought I was jollying you along when all that time you were jollying along me."

-Claire Kilroy, Soldier Sailor

"I tell my husband about my childhood and he tells me about his but it isn't the same. We can never know each other as we were then. But I know you. I will see the child you were in the man you will b…"

-Claire Kilroy, Soldier Sailor

"Hated cling film. Hated it more than I hated kinetic sand. Defeated by something that lacked a third dimension. While I'd been off tinkering on the cerebral plane, the smart money has been mastering …"

-Claire Kilroy, Soldier Sailor

"I knelt down to pick up the hatchling to . . . . what? Give it back to its mother? Here is your dying chick? Just before I made contact with it, she dive-bombed me. The mother actually dive-bombed me…"

-Claire Kilroy, Soldier Sailor

Cover of Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan

6. Ordinary Human Failings

By: Megan Nolan

3.78

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

When a 10-year-old child is suspected of a violent crime, her family must face the truth about thei… read more

Similar categories in Megan Nolan's Ordinary Human Failings book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"She loved the feeling of doing something on her own, and doing it in a routine. It felt thrillingly adult and affirmed her most cherished hope, the hope that she might have an actual inner life of su…"

-Megan Nolan, Ordinary Human Failings

"He had the sort of bland, agreeable, rosy face which could disappear into whatever context he wished it to. He was blond but not provocatively so. The naturally dull Kent accent could be clipped and …"

-Megan Nolan, Ordinary Human Failings

Cover of I’m Sorry You Feel That Way by Rebecca Wait

7. I’m Sorry You Feel That Way

By: Rebecca Wait

4.03

Format: 400 pages, Hardcover

From the author of the Waterstones Book of the Month Our Fathers comes a compelling domestic comedy… read more

Similar categories in Rebecca Wait's I’m Sorry You Feel That Way book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
Cover of Milk Teeth by Jessica  Andrews

8. Milk Teeth

By: Jessica Andrews

3.68

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

From the author of the award-winning Saltwater comes a beautifully told love story set across Engla… read more

Similar categories in Jessica Andrews's Milk Teeth book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • romance
  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Good Material by Dolly Alderton

9. Good Material

By: Dolly Alderton

3.91

Format: 345 pages, Paperback

From the bestselling author of Ghosts and Everything I Know About Love: a story of heartbreak and f… read more

Similar categories in Dolly Alderton's Good Material book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • romance
  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
"Thirty-five is the youth of middle age."

-Dolly Alderton, Good Material

"Remember, a broken heart is a jester's greatest prop."

-Dolly Alderton, Good Material

"You know how to be along without being lonely. Do you know how rare that is?"

-Dolly Alderton, Good Material

"Why is it that London always seems the most alive and full of possibility on the nights when you've got no plans?"

-Dolly Alderton, Good Material

Cover of Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

10. Cleopatra and Frankenstein

By: Coco Mellors

3.74

Format: 384 pages, Hardcover

For readers of Modern Lovers and Conversations with Friends, an addictive, humorous, and poignant d… read more

Similar categories in Coco Mellors's Cleopatra and Frankenstein book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • romance
  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
"And you’re in love?"

-Coco Mellors, Cleopatra and Frankenstein

"People are like this too, you know,"

-Coco Mellors, Cleopatra and Frankenstein

"When the darkest part of you meets the darkest part of me, it creates light."

-Coco Mellors, Cleopatra and Frankenstein

"Cleo and Frank could not make each other happy, no matter how hard they’d tried."

-Coco Mellors, Cleopatra and Frankenstein

Cover of Green Dot by Madeleine Gray

11. Green Dot

By: Madeleine Gray

3.71

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

An irresistible and messy love story about the terrible allure of wanting something that promises n… read more

Similar categories in Madeleine Gray's Green Dot book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • romance
  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
Cover of Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey

12. Really Good, Actually

By: Monica Heisey

3.16

Format: 370 pages, Hardcover

A hilarious and painfully relatable debut novel about one woman’s messy search for joy and meaning … read more

Similar categories in Monica Heisey's Really Good, Actually book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • romance
  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
"You’ll like dating, everyone eats ass now."

-Monica Heisey, Really Good, Actually

"The truth is, if you start your eating disorder even slightly overweight, no one will notice until things are very much at the ‘what if two meals a day were soup’ stage."

-Monica Heisey, Really Good, Actually

"It seemed impossible that I was supposed to keep loving - even revering - my body as it decomposed in slow motion. Why not give in and have low self-esteem? Maybe I could slay in that way instead."

-Monica Heisey, Really Good, Actually

Cover of The List by Yomi Adegoke

13. The List

By: Yomi Adegoke

3.05

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

Ola Olajide, a celebrated journalist at Womxxxn magazine, is set to marry the love of her life in o… read more

Similar categories in Yomi Adegoke's The List book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
"...but she refused for love to be something that she endured. Something that took from her and made her smaller."

-Yomi Adegoke, The List

Cover of The Mess We’re In by Annie Macmanus

14. The Mess We’re In

By: Annie Macmanus

3.40

Format: 376 pages, Hardcover

I’m a Londoner now. I’m a voice in the noise. I’m ready. It’s the turn of the millennium and, la… read more

Similar categories in Annie Macmanus's The Mess We’re In book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • novels
Cover of Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

15. Small Pleasures

By: Clare Chambers

3.77

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

1957, south-east suburbs of London. Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper, disappointe… read more

Similar categories in Clare Chambers's Small Pleasures book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • romance
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
"The new and threatening would become the old and familiar in due course."

-Clare Chambers, Small Pleasures

"The journey into love was so effortless and graceful; the journey out such a long and laboured climb"

-Clare Chambers, Small Pleasures

"Previous experience taught her that the pain would not be unending - but neither would it subside smoothly, incrementally, but rather in a series of crashing waves, some of which might still knock he…"

-Clare Chambers, Small Pleasures

Cover of Ordinary People by Diana Evans

16. Ordinary People

By: Diana Evans

3.31

Format: 329 pages, Paperback

‘You can take a leap, do something off the wall, something reckless. It’s your last chance, and mos… read more

Similar categories in Diana Evans's Ordinary People book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • romance
  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • unfinished
  • british literature
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • 21st century
  • novels
  • audiobook
"C'est incroyable ce que la musique peut charpenter une vie, toute une vie, et te la rendre par pans entiers, alors que tu pensais avoir tout oublié."

-Diana Evans, Ordinary People

Cover of Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict by Elizabeth Day

17. Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict

By: Elizabeth Day

3.79

Format: 416 pages, Paperback

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BEST SELLING AUTHOR OF HOW TO FAIL‘Bravely revealing.’ Bernardine Evaristo‘Fu… read more

Similar categories in Elizabeth Day's Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • audiobook
  • contemporary
Cover of The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan

18. The Happy Couple

By: Naoise Dolan

3.38

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

An intimate, sharply funny novel about a couple heading toward their wedding, and the three friends… read more

Similar categories in Naoise Dolan's The Happy Couple book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • romance
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
"She'd learned by that point that she couldn't fix people. All she needed to know, really, in any human transaction, was wether it was right for her; wether it fit. That was why she'd dumped Luke when…"

-Naoise Dolan, The Happy Couple

"Celine believed things for exactly as long as she wanted to. Being smart, being logical, didn't help her. It just enabled her baroque self-deceit. Phoebe took the simpler route of putting no consider…"

-Naoise Dolan, The Happy Couple

Cover of Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan

19. Exciting Times

By: Naoise Dolan

3.23

Format: 243 pages, Hardcover

An intimate, bracingly intelligent debut novel about a millennial Irish expat who becomes entangled… read more

Similar categories in Naoise Dolan's Exciting Times book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • romance
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
"Eunice Fong said: “Miss, are you sick?"

-Naoise Dolan, Exciting Times

"My wanting to cry was a reflection mainly of my social conscience"

-Naoise Dolan, Exciting Times

"It's normal to miss your family,' he said. I said that was why I didn't"

-Naoise Dolan, Exciting Times

"I wondered which other phrases he´d plucked. I felt like a bird he kept for quills."

-Naoise Dolan, Exciting Times

Cover of Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

20. Sorrow and Bliss

By: Meg Mason

4.09

Format: 352 pages, Paperback

This novel is about a woman called Martha. She knows there is something wrong with her but she does… read more

Similar categories in Meg Mason's Sorrow and Bliss book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
"We hugged each other like two people who had no practical experience of embracing, had only taught themselves the theory from a poorly worded manual."

-Meg Mason, Sorrow and Bliss

"I have been unbearable but I have never been unloved. I have felt alone but I have never been alone and I've been forgiven for the unforgiveable things I have done."

-Meg Mason, Sorrow and Bliss

"I have never understood why people think of champagne as celebratory rather than medicinal. (...) Surely the only time one needs one's blood effervesced is when life is utterly flat."

-Meg Mason, Sorrow and Bliss

"After Barbara’s Contentious Divorce, Everyone Felt Genuinely Hurt, Including Justifiably Kin Left Melancholically Noting Or Perhaps Questioning Rumours Suggesting That, Unannounced, Vincent’d Wed an …"

-Meg Mason, Sorrow and Bliss

Cover of Millennial Love by Olivia Petter

21. Millennial Love

By: Olivia Petter

3.75

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

In Millennial Love journalist Olivia Petter explores the questions, quirks and anxieties that consu… read more

Similar categories in Olivia Petter's Millennial Love book and Diana Evans's Ordinary People

  • audiobook
  • contemporary

19 best-selling fiction books like Ordinary People by Diana Evans

Transform Your Habits

Promising Young Women

Caroline O'Donoghue

3.74

Transform Your Habits

Scenes of a Graphic Nature

Caroline O'Donoghue

3.64

Transform Your Habits

You Are Here

David Nicholls

4.08

Transform Your Habits

Blue Sisters

Coco Mellors

4.21

View all the books

21 Best fiction books like You Are Here by David Nicholls

Transform Your Habits

Caledonian Road

Andrew O'Hagan

3.96

Transform Your Habits

The List of Suspicious Things

Jennie Godfrey

4.29

Transform Your Habits

You Are Here

David Nicholls

4.08

Transform Your Habits

Earth

John Boyne

4.34

View all the books

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