16 must-read contemporary books like The Limits by Nell Freudenberger

Cover of The Limits by Nell Freudenberger

The Limits

By: Nell Freudenberger

3.35

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

The most thrilling work yet from the best-selling, prize-winning author of The Newlyweds and Lost a…

If you liked the contemporary plot in The Limits by Nell Freudenberger , here is a list of 16 books like this:

Cover of Last House by Jessica Shattuck

1. Last House

By: Jessica Shattuck

3.64

Format: 321 pages, Hardcover

"An ambitious historical epic that doubles as an intimate family saga. Jessica Shattuck captures an… read more

Similar categories in Jessica Shattuck's Last House book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Memory Piece by Lisa Ko

2. Memory Piece

By: Lisa Ko

3.22

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

In the early 1980s, Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng are three teenagers drawn together by th… read more

Similar categories in Lisa Ko's Memory Piece book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • science fiction
  • audiobook
"The physicality of making things, the performance, temporarily displaced how stuck she felt, in this particular body, family, town, time."

-Lisa Ko, Memory Piece

Cover of Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2) by Colm Tóibín

3. Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2)

By: Colm Tóibín

3.82

Format: 294 pages, Hardcover

From the beloved, critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author comes a spectacularly movi… read more

Similar categories in Colm Tóibín's Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2) book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • new york
  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Real Americans by Rachel Khong

4. Real Americans

By: Rachel Khong

4.04

Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

From the award-winning author of Goodbye, Vitamin: How far would you go to shape your own destiny?… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Khong's Real Americans book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"She wasn't normal and so I wasn't either. I resented that part the most."

-Rachel Khong, Real Americans

"It was a habit, with my parents: omitting information, not wanting to worry them unnecessarily. Though they’d raised me so American, I could never manage the sorts of American relationships my friend…"

-Rachel Khong, Real Americans

"With each other they spoke loudly: Their voices periodically rose to excited shouts, and they laughed raucously. In English they were milder mannered, polite. My mother had always spoken English to m…"

-Rachel Khong, Real Americans

Cover of Lucky by Jane Smiley

5. Lucky

By: Jane Smiley

3.13

Format: 384 pages, Hardcover

From the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer, a soaring, soulful novel about a folk musicia… read more

Similar categories in Jane Smiley's Lucky book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
Cover of The Morningside by Téa Obreht

6. The Morningside

By: Téa Obreht

3.61

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

From the critically beloved, New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger's Wife and Inland, a ma… read more

Similar categories in Téa Obreht's The Morningside book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • science fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
Cover of This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud

7. This Strange Eventful History

By: Claire Messud

3.63

Format: 448 pages, Hardcover

An immersive, masterful story of a family born on the wrong side of history, from one of our finest… read more

Similar categories in Claire Messud's This Strange Eventful History book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Literature... Now, that's a religion I can believe in. That is perhaps my God."

-Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History

"Family life, like playing chess, involved always thinking several steps ahead."

-Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History

"... she'd been a fool, enamored of a figment, had created the soul of a man who never existed -"

-Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History

"All-U-Can Hi-way 4-Sale Thru. This American English thrilled him - its energy, its freedom, its carelessness."

-Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History

Cover of Sandwich by Catherine Newman

8. Sandwich

By: Catherine Newman

3.75

Format: 229 pages, Hardcover

From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family sum… read more

Similar categories in Catherine Newman's Sandwich book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"What does loss look like, in your body? Where is it? It feels like an air bubble stuck in your psyche. It feels like peering down into a deep hole. The vertigo of that. The potential for obliteration…"

-Catherine Newman, Sandwich

"We're just ruined by sex, women---our bodies, our psyches. We're sexually assaulted every five minutes. We're infected with everything. Traumatized by conceiving, by not conceiving. But let's keep at…"

-Catherine Newman, Sandwich

Cover of Women and Children First by Alina Grabowski

9. Women and Children First

By: Alina Grabowski

3.38

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

A gripping literary puzzle that unwinds the private lives of ten women as they confront tragedy in … read more

Similar categories in Alina Grabowski's Women and Children First book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes

10. The Alternatives

By: Caoilinn Hughes

3.48

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

“A tale about sisterhood, a novel of ideas, a chronicle of our collective follies, a requiem for ou… read more

Similar categories in Caoilinn Hughes's The Alternatives book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
Cover of Shanghailanders by Juli Min

11. Shanghailanders

By: Juli Min

3.51

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A dazzling and ambitious debut novel that follows a cosmopolitan Shanghai household backward in tim… read more

Similar categories in Juli Min's Shanghailanders book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • science fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of The Limits by Nell Freudenberger

12. The Limits

By: Nell Freudenberger

3.35

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

The most thrilling work yet from the best-selling, prize-winning author of The Newlyweds and Lost a… read more

Similar categories in Nell Freudenberger's The Limits book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • new york
  • literary fiction
  • race
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • science fiction
  • climate change
  • family
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru

13. Blue Ruin

By: Hari Kunzru

3.86

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

From one of the sharpest voices in fiction today, a profound and enthralling novel about beauty, po… read more

Similar categories in Hari Kunzru's Blue Ruin book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • new york
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Bear by Julia  Phillips

14. Bear

By: Julia Phillips

3.38

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

A mesmerising novel of two sisters on a Pacific Northwest island whose lives are upended by an unex… read more

Similar categories in Julia Phillips's Bear book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"There'd been only three hundred students in the whole school, which made it a tiny, gossipy hellhole, a bucket of crabs snapping at each other and falling over themselves."

-Julia Phillips, Bear

"What was Sam afraid of? Withering away here. Dreaming of chances she'd never be able to take, and shriveling up from that denial, getting poorer and put under more pressure and pushed farther from th…"

-Julia Phillips, Bear

Cover of The Stone Home by Crystal Hana Kim

15. The Stone Home

By: Crystal Hana Kim

3.64

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

A hauntingly poetic family drama and coming-of-age story that reveals a dark corner of South Korean… read more

Similar categories in Crystal Hana Kim's The Stone Home book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo

16. Same As It Ever Was

By: Claire Lombardo

4.00

Format: 498 pages, Hardcover

Julia Ames, after a youth marked by upheaval and emotional turbulence, has found herself on the pla… read more

Similar categories in Claire Lombardo's Same As It Ever Was book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Parenthood was a persistent cruelty, a constant, simultaneous desire to be together and apart."

-Claire Lombardo, Same As It Ever Was

Cover of Reunion by Elise Juska

17. Reunion

By: Elise Juska

3.39

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

From the beloved author of the “uniquely poignant” (Entertainment Weekly) novel The Blessings comes… read more

Similar categories in Elise Juska's Reunion book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of A Great Country by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

18. A Great Country

By: Shilpi Somaya Gowda

3.92

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

From the New York Times bestselling author, a novel in the tradition of Celeste Ng's Little Fires E… read more

Similar categories in Shilpi Somaya Gowda's A Great Country book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • race
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Wait by Gabriella Burnham

19. Wait

By: Gabriella Burnham

3.36

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

A young woman reunites with her teenage sister in their childhood home on Nantucket Island after th… read more

Similar categories in Gabriella Burnham's Wait book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Liars by Sarah Manguso

20. Liars

By: Sarah Manguso

3.89

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

A searing novel about being a wife, a mother, and an artist, and how marriage makes liars out of us… read more

Similar categories in Sarah Manguso's Liars book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"I was in charge of everything and in control of nothing."

-Sarah Manguso, Liars

"I needed my suffering to be acknowledged. After that, maybe I’d think about getting through it."

-Sarah Manguso, Liars

Cover of Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

21. Long Island Compromise

By: Taffy Brodesser-Akner

3.88

Format: 464 pages, Hardcover

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An exhilarating novel about one American family, the dark moment that shatter… read more

Similar categories in Taffy Brodesser-Akner's Long Island Compromise book and Nell Freudenberger's The Limits

  • new york
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook

21 must-read fiction books like The Limits by Nell Freudenberger

Transform Your Habits

Last House

Jessica Shattuck

3.64

Transform Your Habits

Memory Piece

Lisa Ko

3.22

Transform Your Habits

Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2)

Colm Tóibín

3.82

Transform Your Habits

Real Americans

Rachel Khong

4.04

View all the books

21 Top fiction books like Bear by Julia Phillips

Transform Your Habits

James

Percival Everett

4.54

Transform Your Habits

Margo's Got Money Troubles

Rufi Thorpe

3.97

Transform Your Habits

Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2)

Colm Tóibín

3.82

Transform Your Habits

Real Americans

Rachel Khong

4.04

View all the books

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