The Mars Room
By: Rachel Kushner
3.44
Format: 338 pages, Hardcover
It’s 2003 and Romy Hall is at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women’s Corr…
Want to Read $ 13.99"We loved life more than the future."-Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
"Where people are gone the night falls upward, black and unmanned."-Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
"I was assigned a public defender. We were all hopeful things would go differently. They did not go differently. They went this way."-Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
"You would not have gone. I understand that. You would not have gone up to his room. You would not have asked him for help. You would not have been wandering lost at midnight at age eleven. You would have been safe and dry and asleep, at home with your mother and father who cared about you and had rules, curfews, expectations. Everything for you would have been different. But if you were me, you would have done what I did. You would have gone, hopeful and stupid, to get the money for the taxi."-Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
If you liked the contemporary plot in The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner , here is a list of 16 books like this:
1. Eileen
By: Ottessa Moshfegh
3.81
Format: None pages, Hardcover
The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman… read more
Want to ReadSimilar categories in Ottessa Moshfegh's Eileen book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
2. Bright Young Women
By: Jessica Knoll
4.02
Format: 384 pages, Hardcover
An extraordinary novel inspired by the real-life sorority targeted by America's first celebrity ser… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in Jessica Knoll's Bright Young Women book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- crime
- adult
- fiction
- audiobook
"The truth is something people will go to great lengths to keep for themselves. It shouldn't feel like a gift when you get it, but it is."-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women
"Time does not heal all wounds. Grief is just like a sink full of dirty dishes or a pile of soiled laundry. Grief is a chore you have to do, and it's a messy one, at that."-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women
"There were men who cracked their knuckles while divulging to me what they would do to the defendant if they got the chance, thinking this was somehow reassuring for me to hear. But all it did was mak…"-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women
"Her lips are moving silently around words I recognize. 'I carry you like my own personal Time Machine, as I put on my lipstick, smile, and head out to the party.' It's a line by one of her favourite …"-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women
3. Penance
By: Eliza Clark
3.90
Format: 336 pages, ebook
Do you know what happened already? Did you know her? Did you see it on the internet? Did you li… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Eliza Clark's Penance book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- literary fiction
- adult
- fiction
- contemporary
- crime
- audiobook
"Do you know what happened to her already? Did you catch it in the papers? Are you local? Did you know her? Did you see it on the internet? Did some website the trawls local news for the worst details…"-Eliza Clark, Penance
4. The Guest
By: Emma Cline
3.29
Format: 304 pages, Hardcover
A young woman pretends to be someone she isn't in this stunning novel by the New York Times bestsel… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in Emma Cline's The Guest book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- novels
- adult
- audiobook
"Younger men had to make everything mean something, had to turn every choice and preference into a referendum on their personality."-Emma Cline, The Guest
"He assumed her attention when he spoke. He had his insecurities, his anxieties. But underlying it all was the certainty that the world would be generous in its orientation toward him."-Emma Cline, The Guest
"All the women in the show hated each other, hated each other so much, just so they could avoid hating their husbands. Only their little dogs, blinking from their laps, seemed real: they were the wome…"-Emma Cline, The Guest
5. Wandering Stars
By: Tommy Orange
3.89
Format: 315 pages, Hardcover
The eagerly awaited follow-up to Pulitzer Prize-finalist Tommy Orange’s breakout best seller There … read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Tommy Orange's Wandering Stars book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
- audiobook
"And in the year 1924 Indian citizenship will have been granted, even though they will mean to dissolve tribes by giving citizenship, dissolve being another word for disappearance, a kind of chemical …"-Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars
6. Yellowface
By: R.F. Kuang
3.77
Format: 336 pages, Hardcover
White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences… Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in R.F. Kuang's Yellowface book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
- audiobook
"The truth is fluid, there is always another way to spin the story."-R.F. Kuang, Yellowface
"They tell authors never to look at Goodreads, but nobody follows that advice—none of us can resist the urge to know how our work is being received."-R.F. Kuang, Yellowface
"Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, is opening doors to other lands. Writing gives you power to shape your own world when the real one hu…"-R.F. Kuang, Yellowface
7. Chain-Gang All-Stars
By: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
4.14
Format: 367 pages, Hardcover
Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far… read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's Chain-Gang All-Stars book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- literary fiction
- adult
- fiction
- audiobook
"They were all humans, and yet they had completely different ideas about what humanity meant."-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars
"My brother-in-law is an alien. I have a bunch of alien friends. I can't be racist," Randy Mac continued."-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars
"An absurd thing for the murderous state to plead for, but, as always, the massive violence of the state was “justice,"-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars
"...despite how hard it was, she wasn't afraid with love. She knew how to wield it, how to grow it, and how to receive it."-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars
8. The Bee Sting
By: Paul Murray
3.96
Format: 656 pages, Hardcover
From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and … read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Paul Murray's The Bee Sting book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- literary fiction
- literature
- fiction
- contemporary
- novels
- audiobook
"It is for love. You are doing this for love."-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting
"We all have problems. But often instead of accepting the truth about ourselves, we cover it up. We try to make ourselves the way we think we’re expected to be."-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting
"Maybe every era has an atrocity woven into its fabric. Maybe every society is complicit in terrible things and only afterwards gets around to pretending they didn’t know. When the kids ask, tell them…"-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting
"Maybe that’s how it will go – instead of one definitive cataclysm, a series of ‘anomalies’, each time lasting longer, with the stretches of what you call normal life becoming further and further apar…"-Paul Murray, The Bee Sting
9. Martyr!
By: Kaveh Akbar
4.24
Format: 352 pages, Hardcover
Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Kaveh Akbar's Martyr! book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- novels
- audiobook
10. Wild Houses
By: Colin Barrett
3.78
Format: 272 pages, Hardcover
A darkly funny and deeply moving debut novel about crimes of desperation, dreams abandoned, and sma… read more
Want to Read $ 16.14Similar categories in Colin Barrett's Wild Houses book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- novels
- crime
- audiobook
"What you are in, Dev, is a holding pattern, only you're not holding out for anything."-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses
"All boys, all children, are capable of cruelty at the right juncture of opportunity and circumstance, but only a few become committed prodigies of sadism..."-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses
"In the dream, exactly as he had in real life, he sensed the slow, inexorable approach of the shapeless, prospectless days to come, days when there would be no need to get out of bed or brush his teet…"-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses
"He looked around the empty kitchen. A part of him wanted this of course. A part of him had always wanted this, to be alone, away from even the prospect of any demand upon him to talk, to interact, to…"-Colin Barrett, Wild Houses
11. 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
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Claire Kilroy's Soldier Sailor book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- 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
12. The Long Take
By: Robin Robertson
3.83
Format: 237 pages, Hardcover
Walker, a young Canadian recently demobilised after war and his active service in the Normandy land… read more
Want to Read $ 4.99Similar categories in Robin Robertson's The Long Take book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- literary fiction
- fiction
- novels
13. Headshot
By: Rita Bullwinkel
3.63
Format: 224 pages, Hardcover
An electrifying debut novel from an “unusually gifted writer” (Lorrie Moore) about the radical inti… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Rita Bullwinkel's Headshot book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- womens
- novels
- adult
- audiobook
"The desire to please people is the desire to not be singular."-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot
"Tanya Maw's sister is two years older, the perfect age gap for wisdom transmission."-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot
"It can be intoxicating to play a sport that requires one to look in their opponent's eyes."-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot
"It's a warmth that she'll feel again very few times in her life. It's almost like love, but it has a surer, less desperate edge to it."-Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot
14. Enlightenment
By: Sarah Perry
3.70
Format: 384 pages, Hardcover
A dazzling new work of literary fiction from the author of The Essex Serpent, a story of love and a… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Sarah Perry's Enlightenment book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- audiobook
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
"Thomas [Hart] lived where he'd been born, and where (so he often thought without rancor) he'd very likely die; and if he lived alone he was not lonely, that being a condition not of solitude but of l…"-Sarah Perry, Enlightenment
"So I told her this: that it's true I've only rarely been happy, and perhaps more often been sad. But I have been content. I have lived. I have felt everything available to me: I've been faithless, de…"-Sarah Perry, Enlightenment
"I wish I could say, James, that we forgave each other in the end. I wish I could say: she put her head on my shoulder and I welcomed it and we laughed and said all was well. But in fact we were quiet…"-Sarah Perry, Enlightenment
"...in the ordinary way we love because we're loved, and give more or less what we're given. But to love without return is more strange and more wonderful, and not the humiliating thing I'd once taken…"-Sarah Perry, Enlightenment
15. Big Swiss
By: Jen Beagin
3.68
Format: 336 pages, Hardcover
Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is … read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Jen Beagin's Big Swiss book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
- audiobook
"¿Habla más de un idioma?"-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss
"You bullied other bullies,"-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss
"she’d always been less of a shit-talker and more of a shit-thinker"-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss
"At least I know where the hell I am and what’s happening. Which way is north?"-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss
16. 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
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Dolly Alderton's Good Material book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- novels
- adult
- 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
17. 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
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Yomi Adegoke's The List book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- adult
- 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
18. Orbital
By: Samantha Harvey
3.73
Format: 207 pages, Hardcover
A slender novel of epic power, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men … read more
Want to Read $ 11.99Similar categories in Samantha Harvey's Orbital book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- literary fiction
- fiction
- contemporary
- novels
- adult
- audiobook
"Maybe we're the new dinosaurs and need to watch out."-Samantha Harvey, Orbital
"The past comes, the future, the past, the future. It's always now, it's never now."-Samantha Harvey, Orbital
"Raw space is a panther, feral and primal; they dream it stalking through their quarters."-Samantha Harvey, Orbital
"That's all this great human endeavor of space exploration really is, he thinks, an animal migration, a bid for survival. A looping song sent into the open, a territorial animal song."-Samantha Harvey, Orbital
19. Everything Under
By: Daisy Johnson
3.51
Format: 264 pages, Hardcover
The dictionary doesn’t contain every word. Gretel, a lexicographer by trade, knows this better than… read more
Want to Read $ 9.99Similar categories in Daisy Johnson's Everything Under book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- literary fiction
- novels
- fiction
- contemporary
"Death has worn you smooth as a stone."-Daisy Johnson, Everything Under
"The understanding pity of others is a hole."-Daisy Johnson, Everything Under
"Anything can be lost if you try hard enough."-Daisy Johnson, Everything Under
"Forgetting is, I think, a form of protection."-Daisy Johnson, Everything Under
20. The Mars Room
By: Rachel Kushner
3.44
Format: 338 pages, Hardcover
It’s 2003 and Romy Hall is at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women’s Corr… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
- adult fiction
- literary fiction
- literature
- adult
- fiction
- contemporary
- womens
- novels
- crime
- audiobook
"We loved life more than the future."-Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
"Where people are gone the night falls upward, black and unmanned."-Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
"I was assigned a public defender. We were all hopeful things would go differently. They did not go differently. They went this way."-Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
"You would not have gone. I understand that. You would not have gone up to his room. You would not have asked him for help. You would not have been wandering lost at midnight at age eleven. You would …"-Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
21. A Whisper in the Wild (Kingdom of Animalia, #1)
By: Allysa Salena
4.73
Format: 391 pages, Kindle Edition
A prophecy emerges from the ashes of war. Stubborn and downhearted, an unlikely child is suspected … read more
Want to Read $ 4.99Similar categories in Allysa Salena's A Whisper in the Wild (Kingdom of Animalia, #1) book and Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room
