21 must-read fiction books like Negative Space by Gillian Linden

Cover of Negative Space by Gillian Linden

Negative Space

By: Gillian Linden

3.26

Format: 176 pages, Hardcover

A gem of a debut novel about a young mother navigating the instabilities of teaching, parenting, an…

If you liked the fiction plot in Negative Space by Gillian Linden , here is a list of 21 books like this:

Cover of All Fours by Miranda July

1. All Fours

By: Miranda July

3.81

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

The New York Times–bestselling author of The First Bad Man returns with an irreverently sexy, tende… read more

Similar categories in Miranda July's All Fours book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"But maybe the road split between: a life spent longing vs. a life that was continually surprising"

-Miranda July, All Fours

"Maybe we shouldn't do that," Jordi said. "Flatten ourselves like that. Erratic doesn't have to mean crazy or irresponsible. Shouldn't we be normalizing change?"

-Miranda July, All Fours

"I guess any calling, no mater what it is, is a kind of unresolved ache," I said, giving in to knowing more than him. "It's a problem that you can't fix, but there is some relief in knowing you will c…"

-Miranda July, All Fours

"For me lying created just the right amount of problems and what you saw was just one of my four or five faces- each real, each with different needs. The only dangerous lie was one that asked me to co…"

-Miranda July, All Fours

Cover of Exhibit by R.O. Kwon

2. Exhibit

By: R.O. Kwon

3.24

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

From bestselling author R. O. Kwon, an exhilarating, blazing-hot novel about a woman caught between… read more

Similar categories in R.O. Kwon's Exhibit book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Worry by Alexandra  Tanner

3. Worry

By: Alexandra Tanner

3.36

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

Frances Ha meets No One Is Talking About This in a debut that follows two twenty-something siblings… read more

Similar categories in Alexandra Tanner's Worry book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel

4. 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 Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • literary fiction
  • american
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • 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 Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru

5. 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 Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of We Burn Daylight by Bret Anthony Johnston

6. We Burn Daylight

By: Bret Anthony Johnston

3.95

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

An epic novel of star-crossed lovers set in a doomsday cult on the Texas prairie that asks: what wo… read more

Similar categories in Bret Anthony Johnston's We Burn Daylight book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • audiobook
Cover of The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan

7. The Hearing Test

By: Eliza Barry Callahan

3.40

Format: 162 pages, Hardcover

When the narrator of The Hearing Test, an artist in her late twenties, awakens one morning to a dee… read more

Similar categories in Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • literature
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"He said that... helplessnes could give way to wonderful things, that helplessness looks like a very large net with very large holes and that I must be willing to trail that net in the sea for some be…"

-Eliza Barry Callahan, The Hearing Test

"He said that... helplessness could give way to wonderful things, that helplessness looks like a very large net with very large holes and that I must be willing to trail that net in the sea for some t…"

-Eliza Barry Callahan, The Hearing Test

Cover of Bear by Julia  Phillips

8. 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 Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • literary fiction
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • 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 Bad Animals by Sarah Braunstein

9. Bad Animals

By: Sarah Braunstein

3.49

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

A sexy, propulsive novel that confronts the limits of empathy and the perils of appropriation throu… read more

Similar categories in Sarah Braunstein's Bad Animals book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • literary fiction
  • literature
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
Cover of In Tongues by Thomas Grattan

10. In Tongues

By: Thomas Grattan

4.04

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A young gay man upends the lives of a powerful art-world couple in this steamy novel of self-discov… read more

Similar categories in Thomas Grattan's In Tongues book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of The Skunks by Fiona Warnick

11. The Skunks

By: Fiona Warnick

3.75

Format: 240 pages, Paperback

Reminiscent of Elif Batuman and Sally Rooney, Fiona Warnick’s precise and tender prose captures the… read more

Similar categories in Fiona Warnick's The Skunks book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Mother Doll by Katya Apekina

12. Mother Doll

By: Katya Apekina

3.78

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

A kaleidoscopic novel about the shadow of trauma in Russian history that follows four generations o… read more

Similar categories in Katya Apekina's Mother Doll book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • literary fiction
  • literature
  • family
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Liars by Sarah Manguso

13. 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 Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"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 The Hypocrite by Jo Hamya

14. The Hypocrite

By: Jo Hamya

3.55

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

From a fiercely talented writer poised to be a new generation’s Rachel Cusk or Deborah Levy, a nove… read more

Similar categories in Jo Hamya's The Hypocrite book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
"No stories are entirely imaginary, cherub, he'd said then. Everything is always a little bit real. Sometimes you steal things from other stories and change them until they work how you like."

-Jo Hamya, The Hypocrite

"The contradiction of the time had been the heightened moral obligation to consider other people as a means to keeping one's own self-interest afloat. Showing other people care meant avoiding them."

-Jo Hamya, The Hypocrite

"In the theatre's dark, he weighs up what to do out of love. There have been enough divergences so far for him to believe that Sophia's play is a self-contained thing that may only tangentially concer…"

-Jo Hamya, The Hypocrite

Cover of Negative Space by Gillian Linden

15. Negative Space

By: Gillian Linden

3.26

Format: 176 pages, Hardcover

A gem of a debut novel about a young mother navigating the instabilities of teaching, parenting, an… read more

Similar categories in Gillian Linden's Negative Space book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • literary fiction
  • american
  • parenting
  • literature
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • family
  • audiobook
Cover of The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas

16. The Anthropologists

By: Aysegül Savas

4.05

Format: 192 pages, Hardcover

Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. What should th… read more

Similar categories in Aysegül Savas's The Anthropologists book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • literary fiction
  • literature
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
Cover of Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

17. Catalina

By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

3.65

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

A year in the life of the unforgettable Catalina Ituralde, a wickedly wry and heartbreakingly vulne… read more

Similar categories in Karla Cornejo Villavicencio's Catalina book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of State of Paradise by Laura van den Berg

18. State of Paradise

By: Laura van den Berg

3.51

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

A heart-racing fun house of uncanniness hidden in Florida’s underbelly, from a reality-warping stor… read more

Similar categories in Laura van den Berg's State of Paradise book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Cecilia by K-Ming Chang

19. Cecilia

By: K-Ming Chang

3.32

Format: 145 pages, Paperback

A surreal novella about the intensity and eroticism of girlhood friendships, the ecstasy of desire … read more

Similar categories in K-Ming Chang's Cecilia book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
Cover of Banal Nightmare by Halle Butler

20. Banal Nightmare

By: Halle Butler

3.64

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

A ferocious novel by one of the boldest voices in American fiction and the author of The New Me, th… read more

Similar categories in Halle Butler's Banal Nightmare book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • literary fiction
  • literature
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • audiobook
Cover of The Most by Jessica  Anthony

21. The Most

By: Jessica Anthony

3.37

Format: 144 pages, Paperback

From “one of our most thrilling and singular innovators on the page” (Laura Van Den Berg), a tightl… read more

Similar categories in Jessica Anthony's The Most book and Gillian Linden's Negative Space

  • audiobook
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary

20 must-read contemporary books like Negative Space by Gillian Linden

Transform Your Habits

All Fours

Miranda July

3.81

Transform Your Habits

Exhibit

R.O. Kwon

3.24

Transform Your Habits

Worry

Alexandra Tanner

3.36

Transform Your Habits

Headshot

Rita Bullwinkel

3.63

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20 Best fiction books like Mother Doll by Katya Apekina

Transform Your Habits

Perfume & Pain

Anna Dorn

4.06

Transform Your Habits

The Extinction of Irena Rey

Jennifer Croft

3.26

Transform Your Habits

All Fours

Miranda July

3.81

Transform Your Habits

Exhibit

R.O. Kwon

3.24

View all the books

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