25 Top adult fiction books like Small World by Laura Zigman

Cover of Small World by Laura Zigman

Small World

By: Laura Zigman

3.47

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

“[A] brave and heartfelt book of truths.”—New York Times Book Review (A Group Text Pick and Editors…

"Yet no one is really alone; those who live no more echo still within our thoughts and words, and what they did is part of what we have become — Blessing of Memory, Mediations Before Kaddish"

-Laura Zigman, Small World

"Yet no one is really alone; those who live no more echo still within our thoughts and words, and what they did is part of what we have become — Blessing of Memory, Mediations Before Kaddish"

-Laura Zigman, Small World

"Yet no one is really alone; those who live no more echo still within our thoughts and words, and what they did is part of what we have become — Blessing of Memory, Mediations Before Kaddish"

-Laura Zigman, Small World

If you liked the adult fiction plot in Small World by Laura Zigman , here is a list of 25 books like this:

Cover of The Princess of Las Vegas by Chris Bohjalian

1. The Princess of Las Vegas

By: Chris Bohjalian

3.53

Format: 400 pages, Hardcover

A Princess Diana impersonator and her estranged sister find themselves drawn into a dangerous game … read more

Similar categories in Chris Bohjalian's The Princess of Las Vegas book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • audiobook
  • adult
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of After Annie by Anna Quindlen

2. After Annie

By: Anna Quindlen

4.03

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her four young children and her closest friend are lef… read more

Similar categories in Anna Quindlen's After Annie book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • realistic fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • family
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Happiness Falls by Angie  Kim

3. Happiness Falls

By: Angie Kim

3.75

Format: 387 pages, Hardcover

When a father goes missing, his family's desperate search leads them to question everything they kn… read more

Similar categories in Angie Kim's Happiness Falls book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"I lost a World - the other day! Has Anybody found? - Emily Dickinson, 1896"

-Angie Kim, Happiness Falls

Cover of Commitment by Mona Simpson

4. Commitment

By: Mona Simpson

3.62

Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

A masterful and engrossing novel about a single mother's collapse and the fate of her family after … read more

Similar categories in Mona Simpson's Commitment book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
"He respected architecture less than he once had. Some buildings were true art. A few more worked like machines for living. But when he looked at most new buildings, what he saw was ego. So many peopl…"

-Mona Simpson, Commitment

Cover of Leaving by Roxana Robinson

5. Leaving

By: Roxana Robinson

3.87

Format: 344 pages, Hardcover

What risks would you be willing to take to fall in love again? “I never thought I’d see you her… read more

Similar categories in Roxana Robinson's Leaving book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
"Being a mother is paying it forward, sending that energy and feeling to someone who needed it at first to survive, but who, the older she becomes, needs you less. The older you become, the more irrel…"

-Roxana Robinson, Leaving

"The justification for leaving a marriage was that you were increasing the sum of happiness in the world. You were ending your own unhappiness, and your spouse’s (if you weren’t happy, your spouse cou…"

-Roxana Robinson, Leaving

Cover of Day by Michael Cunningham

6. Day

By: Michael Cunningham

3.57

Format: 273 pages, Hardcover

As the world changes around them, a family weathers the storms of growing up, growing older, fallin… read more

Similar categories in Michael Cunningham's Day book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Here, then, is the answer. A degree of cruelty is necessary because Garth, like most men, can only deposit his needs at her feet, can only declare his love—that romantic hallucination, which would be…"

-Michael Cunningham, Day

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

7. 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 Laura Zigman's Small World

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

8. 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 Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • 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 Community Board by Tara Conklin

9. Community Board

By: Tara Conklin

3.34

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

The New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics delivers a wise, timely, big-hearted no… read more

Similar categories in Tara Conklin's Community Board book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Family Family by Laurie Frankel

10. Family Family

By: Laurie Frankel

4.00

Format: 400 pages, Hardcover

“Not all stories of adoption are stories of pain and regret. Not even most of them. Why don’t we ev… read more

Similar categories in Laurie Frankel's Family Family book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • realistic fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • family
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"When people thought of mothers, they smelled cookies baking and chocolate melting. But actual mothers got shit for giving their kids too much sugar. When people thought of mothers, they thought soft …"

-Laurie Frankel, Family Family

Cover of Come and Get It by Kiley Reid

11. Come and Get It

By: Kiley Reid

3.38

Format: 400 pages, Hardcover

A fresh and provocative story about a residential assistant and her messy entanglement with a profe… read more

Similar categories in Kiley Reid's Come and Get It book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Kennedy hadn't considered it before, that to write something beautiful you just do it regular, and then you pull out a red pen."

-Kiley Reid, Come and Get It

"Washing her sheets was another thing she'd failed to do. She washed her clothes—every weekend—but when it came to the bedsheets, she'd get stressed out or she'd forget. And then there was too much ti…"

-Kiley Reid, Come and Get It

"Okay, sometimes—just being honest— Millie can be . . . a little ghetto." On the word little, Tyler held two fingers an inch apart. "Nooo. Don't say that. Ah love Millie." "But I'm not saying it like …"

-Kiley Reid, Come and Get It

Cover of Absolution by Alice McDermott

12. Absolution

By: Alice McDermott

3.81

Format: 324 pages, Hardcover

A riveting account of women’s lives on the margins of the Vietnam War. In Saigon in 1963, two yo… read more

Similar categories in Alice McDermott's Absolution book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • novels
  • audiobook
Cover of Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

13. Help Wanted

By: Adelle Waldman

3.62

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

In Help Wanted, Adelle Waldman brings her unparalleled wit and knack for social observation to the … read more

Similar categories in Adelle Waldman's Help Wanted book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • realistic fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Flight by Lynn Steger Strong

14. Flight

By: Lynn Steger Strong

3.43

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

"Arresting and powerful,  Flight  examines the possibility and pain of fierce love and hope in our … read more

Similar categories in Lynn Steger Strong's Flight book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"You must be active in your own life. You must engage. Interact in order to create."

-Lynn Steger Strong, Flight

"[T]hey'll all celebrate and toast each other, toast the small ways they can still care for and love one another, no matter how awful at it all of them are."

-Lynn Steger Strong, Flight

"When we're young we think we'll just choose the lives we'll have, the people we're becoming, but so much of it just happens. You can live a whole life without choosing anything at all."

-Lynn Steger Strong, Flight

"...she's the only person in the world who ever saw me the way she saw me, who loved me like that, who remembered me as all the things I'd ever been and also thought of me as all the things she still …"

-Lynn Steger Strong, Flight

Cover of Welcome Home, Stranger by Kate Christensen

15. Welcome Home, Stranger

By: Kate Christensen

3.44

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

From the PEN-Faulkner Award-winning author of The Great Man comes a novel about grief, love, growin… read more

Similar categories in Kate Christensen's Welcome Home, Stranger book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Within Arm's Reach by Ann Napolitano

16. Within Arm's Reach

By: Ann Napolitano

3.48

Format: 352 pages, Paperback

A tender and perceptive debut novel about three generations of an Irish American family jarred into… read more

Similar categories in Ann Napolitano's Within Arm's Reach book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Lucky by Jane Smiley

17. 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 Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
Cover of The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane

18. The Half Moon

By: Mary Beth Keane

3.40

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

From the bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes, a masterful novel about a couple in a small town who… read more

Similar categories in Mary Beth Keane's The Half Moon book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur

19. Little Monsters

By: Adrienne Brodeur

3.70

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

From the author of the bestselling memoir Wild Game comes a riveting novel about Cape Cod, complica… read more

Similar categories in Adrienne Brodeur's Little Monsters book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Our scars are what make us unique. Nothing broken is ever lost."

-Adrienne Brodeur, Little Monsters

"Whenever I paint the truth, no matter how strange, people see themselves in it."

-Adrienne Brodeur, Little Monsters

"To stare into the spiral of a shell was to see the swirl of a galaxy, the logarithmic spiral of life itself, the intertwined miracle of art and science."

-Adrienne Brodeur, Little Monsters

Cover of Sandwich by Catherine Newman

20. 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 Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • 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 How to Read a Book by Monica Wood

21. How to Read a Book

By: Monica Wood

4.29

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A charming, deeply moving novel about second chances, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing p… read more

Similar categories in Monica Wood's How to Read a Book book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • realistic fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Perhaps it's an oddity of human nature to judge women more harshly, or maybe we expect so little of men their transgressions don't register the same."

-Monica Wood, How to Read a Book

Cover of The Limits by Nell Freudenberger

22. 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 Laura Zigman's Small World

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Sam by Allegra Goodman

23. Sam

By: Allegra Goodman

3.77

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

What happens to a girl’s exuberance and wonder as she becomes a woman? This unforgettable portrait … read more

Similar categories in Allegra Goodman's Sam book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • realistic fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • family
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Small World by Laura Zigman

24. Small World

By: Laura Zigman

3.47

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

“[A] brave and heartfelt book of truths.”—New York Times Book Review (A Group Text Pick and Editors… read more

Similar categories in Laura Zigman's Small World book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • realistic fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • family
  • novels
  • adult
  • disability
  • audiobook
"Yet no one is really alone; those who live no more echo still within our thoughts and words, and what they did is part of what we have become — Blessing of Memory, Mediations Before Kaddish"

-Laura Zigman, Small World

Cover of Bear by Julia  Phillips

25. 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 Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • 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 Ms. Demeanor by Elinor Lipman

26. Ms. Demeanor

By: Elinor Lipman

3.46

Format: 304 pages, Paperback

From one of America's most beloved contemporary novelists, a delicious and witty story about love u… read more

Similar categories in Elinor Lipman's Ms. Demeanor book and Laura Zigman's Small World

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

27. 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 Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • 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

28. 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 Laura Zigman's Small World

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan

29. The Cliffs

By: J. Courtney Sullivan

3.66

Format: 384 pages, Hardcover

A novel of family, secrets, ghosts, and homecoming set on the seaside cliffs of Maine, by the New Y… read more

Similar categories in J. Courtney Sullivan's The Cliffs book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
Cover of Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

30. 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 Laura Zigman's Small World

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • audiobook
Cover of How the Light Gets In by Joyce Maynard

31. How the Light Gets In

By: Joyce Maynard

4.27

Format: 432 pages, Hardcover

From New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard comes the eagerly anticipated follow-up to her… read more

Similar categories in Joyce Maynard's How the Light Gets In book and Laura Zigman's Small World

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook

31 must-read fiction books like Small World by Laura Zigman

Transform Your Habits

The Princess of Las Vegas

Chris Bohjalian

3.53

Transform Your Habits

After Annie

Anna Quindlen

4.03

Transform Your Habits

Happiness Falls

Angie Kim

3.75

Transform Your Habits

Commitment

Mona Simpson

3.62

View all the books

21 best-selling fiction books like Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur

Transform Your Habits

After Annie

Anna Quindlen

4.03

Transform Your Habits

The Berry Pickers

Amanda Peters

4.14

Transform Your Habits

Happiness Falls

Angie Kim

3.75

Transform Your Habits

Tom Lake

Ann Patchett

3.99

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