7 Top family books like Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer

Cover of Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer

Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

By: Maddie Mortimer

3.98

Format: 448 pages, Paperback

This lyrical debut novel is at once a passionate coming-of-age story, a meditation on illness and d…

"the best way to ruin a perfect moment is by letting it continue."

-Maddie Mortimer, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

"the best way to ruin a perfect moment is by letting it continue."

-Maddie Mortimer, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

"For we inherit the haunts of our mothers; we are left with the guests they let in."

-Maddie Mortimer, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

"For we inherit the haunts of our mothers; we are left with the guests they let in."

-Maddie Mortimer, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

If you liked the family plot in Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer , here is a list of 7 books like this:

Cover of Prophet Song by Paul    Lynch

1. Prophet Song

By: Paul Lynch

4.10

Format: 259 pages, Kindle Edition

A fearless portrait of a society on the brink as a mother faces a terrible choice, from an internat… read more

Similar categories in Paul Lynch's Prophet Song book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"people are entitled to some small moment of peace."

-Paul Lynch, Prophet Song

"the child absorbing the mother’s trauma and storing it in his body for later use,"

-Paul Lynch, Prophet Song

"... time is at once addition and subtraction, time adds one day to the next and always takes away from what's left..."

-Paul Lynch, Prophet Song

"...knowing how it is so that all boys grow up and pull away from home to unmake the world in the guise of making it, nature decrees it so."

-Paul Lynch, Prophet Song

Cover of Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet

2. Case Study

By: Graeme Macrae Burnet

3.60

Format: 278 pages, Hardcover

“I have decided to write down everything that happens, because I feel, I suppose, I may be putting … read more

Similar categories in Graeme Macrae Burnet's Case Study book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • literary fiction
  • novels
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"Forget about meaning’, he said. ‘Life’s not about meaning, it’s about experience."

-Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

"It is impossible to walk behind someone on a narrow cliff path without the idea of shoving them over the edge crossing one’s mind."

-Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

"To be in another country, speaking another language, was to be another person, and in being another person I felt for the first time that I was myself."

-Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

"Her handbag, he said, was found on the scene. I made a mental note to carry out a thorough spring clean of contents of my own bag before throwing myself in front of any trains."

-Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

Cover of The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright

3. The Wren, the Wren

By: Anne Enright

3.55

Format: 278 pages, Hardcover

An incandescent novel about the inheritance of trauma, wonder, and love across three generations of… read more

Similar categories in Anne Enright's The Wren, the Wren book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • poetry
  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"It's not that I think about him constantly, he is my way of thinking. His mind is my compass, his eyes my only mirror."

-Anne Enright, The Wren, the Wren

"We don’t walk down the same street as the person walking beside us. All we can do is tell the other person what we see. We can point at things and try to name them. If we do this well, our friend can…"

-Anne Enright, The Wren, the Wren

"We don't walk down the same street as the person walking beside us. All we can do is tell the other person what we see. We can point at things and try to name them. If we do this well, our friend can…"

-Anne Enright, The Wren, the Wren

Cover of The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

4. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

By: Shehan Karunatilaka

3.92

Format: 386 pages, Hardcover

Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida—war photographer, gambler, and closet queen—has woken up dead in what … read more

Similar categories in Shehan Karunatilaka's The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
"Even suicide requires perseverance."

-Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

"Why should a Creator watch over you? Wasn't creating you enough?"

-Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

"You were simply a handsome man who enjoyed beautiful boys. Nothing more, nothing less and no one's business."

-Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

"Despair always begins as a snack that you nibble on when bored and then becomes a meal that you have thrice a day."

-Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

Cover of If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery

5. If I Survive You

By: Jonathan Escoffery

3.69

Format: 260 pages, Hardcover

In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. … read more

Similar categories in Jonathan Escoffery's If I Survive You book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"What does Whiteness feel like?... I imagine it's like walking barefoot…"

-Jonathan Escoffery, If I Survive You

"Why don't stars make any sounds in the winter? What sounds? Ethan said."

-Jonathan Escoffery, If I Survive You

"Every boy deserves to believe him father is good, but if each father were good, we’d be living in a different kind of world."

-Jonathan Escoffery, If I Survive You

"I imagined I could have begged an old girlfriend from college to send money; enough of them had expressed ambivalence about their trust funds that this seemed a plausible path down which I might drag…"

-Jonathan Escoffery, If I Survive You

Cover of Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo

6. Glory

By: NoViolet Bulawayo

3.70

Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

From the award-winning author of the Booker-prize finalist We Need New Names, a blockbuster of a no… read more

Similar categories in NoViolet Bulawayo's Glory book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"The dead are not dead, glory to the ancestors!"

-NoViolet Bulawayo, Glory

"And today they'll call the thing all sort of queer names, I've even heard it called a genocide. But I myself call it service."

-NoViolet Bulawayo, Glory

"Words not only mattered but they were power. Words were muti. Words were weapons. Words were magic. Words were church. Words were wealth. Words were life."

-NoViolet Bulawayo, Glory

"If I don't write, then who will I blame when I wake up one day to find myself in the belly of a crocodile that calls itself History, that devours the stories of everyone else and goes on to speak for…"

-NoViolet Bulawayo, Glory

Cover of Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

7. Treacle Walker

By: Alan Garner

3.13

Format: 152 pages, Hardcover

Treacle Walker is a stunning fusion of myth and folklore and an exploration of the fluidity of time… read more

Similar categories in Alan Garner's Treacle Walker book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • literary fiction
  • british literature
  • fiction
  • novels
  • audiobook
Cover of After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz

8. After Sappho

By: Selby Wynn Schwartz

3.51

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

What did we want? To begin with, we wanted what half the population had got by just being born. … read more

Similar categories in Selby Wynn Schwartz's After Sappho book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • literary fiction
  • adult
  • fiction
"The death of a child makes a barbaric sound, even in print."

-Selby Wynn Schwartz, After Sappho

"We were going to be sappho, but how did Sappho begin to become herself? P.40"

-Selby Wynn Schwartz, After Sappho

"But some of us have always seen the modern world as a sea meant to drown us."

-Selby Wynn Schwartz, After Sappho

"There is always this risk, in life, that we have our parts in a tragedy and we do not know it."

-Selby Wynn Schwartz, After Sappho

Cover of Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy

9. 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 Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • 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

10. 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 Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"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 Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein

11. Study for Obedience

By: Sarah Bernstein

3.05

Format: 192 pages, Hardcover

A haunting, compressed masterwork from an extraordinary new voice in Canadian fiction. A young w… read more

Similar categories in Sarah Bernstein's Study for Obedience book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"I try always to be good."

-Sarah Bernstein, Study for Obedience

"How, I wondered, might a person, a people, take root, roots and rootlessness, the preservation of what little remains of the past, such were thoughts that blew through me on any given morning, standi…"

-Sarah Bernstein, Study for Obedience

"In taking a side, I thought uneasily, perhaps I ought to take the long view, the survival of the species as a whole. That was my problem, I thought, I was always thinking at the level of the individu…"

-Sarah Bernstein, Study for Obedience

"I had hoped that here in the country I would experience the turn of the seasons differently, with less apprehension, I might come to see the form and plan of the world. Not to frame it within systems…"

-Sarah Bernstein, Study for Obedience

Cover of Western Lane by Chetna Maroo

12. Western Lane

By: Chetna Maroo

3.51

Format: 160 pages, Hardcover

Shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize A taut, enthralling first novel about grief, sisterhood, a… read more

Similar categories in Chetna Maroo's Western Lane book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • literary fiction
  • british literature
  • coming of age
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • family
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel

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

Similar categories in Rita Bullwinkel's Headshot book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • 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

Cover of Pearl by Siân Hughes

14. Pearl

By: Siân Hughes

3.91

Format: 220 pages, Paperback

A haunting debut novel inspired by the medieval poem of the same name Marianne is eight years ol… read more

Similar categories in Siân Hughes's Pearl book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • literary fiction
  • british literature
  • family
  • contemporary
  • fiction
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Orbital by Samantha Harvey

15. 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

Similar categories in Samantha Harvey's Orbital book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • 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

Cover of The Trees by Percival Everett

16. The Trees

By: Percival Everett

4.06

Format: 309 pages, Paperback

When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive in Money, Mississippi… read more

Similar categories in Percival Everett's The Trees book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
"Unknown Male is a name,"

-Percival Everett, The Trees

"Goddamnit, I hate murder more than just about anything,"

-Percival Everett, The Trees

"You should know I consider police shootings to be lynchings"

-Percival Everett, The Trees

"People should know, understand that not all Thursdays are the same."

-Percival Everett, The Trees

Cover of Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin

17. Wandering Souls

By: Cecile Pin

4.15

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

A luminous, boldly imagined debut novel about three Vietnamese siblings who seek refuge in the UK, … read more

Similar categories in Cecile Pin's Wandering Souls book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"We tell ourselves stories in order to live. We tell ourselves stories in order to heal."

-Cecile Pin, Wandering Souls

"I didn't know that my culture had fashioned the shape of my mourning; I didn't know that my grief could be improper."

-Cecile Pin, Wandering Souls

Cover of The Colony by Audrey Magee

18. The Colony

By: Audrey Magee

4.11

Format: 376 pages, Hardcover

In 1979, as violence erupts all over Ireland, two outsiders travel to a small island off the west c… read more

Similar categories in Audrey Magee's The Colony book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
Cover of Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer

19. Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

By: Maddie Mortimer

3.98

Format: 448 pages, Paperback

This lyrical debut novel is at once a passionate coming-of-age story, a meditation on illness and d… read more

Similar categories in Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • poetry
  • literary fiction
  • british literature
  • coming of age
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • family
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"the best way to ruin a perfect moment is by letting it continue."

-Maddie Mortimer, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

"For we inherit the haunts of our mothers; we are left with the guests they let in."

-Maddie Mortimer, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

"It is history's only duty, Lia thought: ensuring daughters are brighter than their mothers."

-Maddie Mortimer, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

"Sometimes it takes a lifetime to receive the world in a language different to your own; to let the shape and taste and sense of a thing eclipse its own translation."

-Maddie Mortimer, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

Cover of Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley

20. Nightcrawling

By: Leila Mottley

3.98

Format: 277 pages, Hardcover

Kiara and her brother, Marcus, are scraping by in an East Oakland apartment complex optimistically … read more

Similar categories in Leila Mottley's Nightcrawling book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"We always showing people our hands like it's proof we're human."

-Leila Mottley, Nightcrawling

"She is the bottom of the ocean, where all the magic hides beneath too many layers of dark and water and salt."

-Leila Mottley, Nightcrawling

"Even after everything he's put me through, if he's ready to ask for it instead of just taking it then I will walk to the ends of the earth for him."

-Leila Mottley, Nightcrawling

"That boy is a wonder. He's my autumn rain, my last picture of the sun before it sets. Daytime is not possible without Trevor. Not even sure the sun come out without Trevor."

-Leila Mottley, Nightcrawling

Cover of Held by Anne   Michaels

21. Held

By: Anne Michaels

3.66

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

A breathtaking and mysterious new novel from the beloved Anne Michaels, internationally bestselling… read more

Similar categories in Anne Michaels's Held book and Maddie Mortimer's Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

  • poetry
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
"Who can say what happens when we are remembered?"

-Anne Michaels, Held

"Do we really need our own misery to teach us to be kind?"

-Anne Michaels, Held

"We know life is finite. Why should we believe death lasts forever?"

-Anne Michaels, Held

"Would he know the moment of his death or would it be like night falling."

-Anne Michaels, Held

21 Top fiction books like Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer

Transform Your Habits

Prophet Song

Paul Lynch

4.10

Transform Your Habits

Case Study

Graeme Macrae Burnet

3.60

Transform Your Habits

The Wren, the Wren

Anne Enright

3.55

Transform Your Habits

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

Shehan Karunatilaka

3.92

View all the books

21 must-read fiction books like Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein

Transform Your Habits

Prophet Song

Paul Lynch

4.10

Transform Your Habits

Old God's Time

Sebastian Barry

3.85

Transform Your Habits

The Wren, the Wren

Anne Enright

3.55

Transform Your Habits

If I Survive You

Jonathan Escoffery

3.69

View all the books

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