18 must-read contemporary books like Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro

If you liked the contemporary plot in Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro , here is a list of 18 books like this:

Similar categories in Claire Keegan's Foster book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

Similar categories in Ros Schwartz's I Who Have Never Known Men book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• feminism
• literary fiction
• fiction

"Survival is never more than putting off the moment of death."

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

"I thought it was unfair, and then I understood that, alone and terrified, anger was my only weapon against the horror"

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

"Look at them. They’re pretending, they behave as though they still have some control over their lives and make momentous decisions about which vegetable to cook first."

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

"Only now, I tell myself that what I'd felt for her, the trust that slowly built up, the constant preference for her company and the joy each time I was reunited with her after an expedition were prob…"

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

Similar categories in Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• literary fiction
• fiction

"Always, Christmas brought out the best and the worst in people."

-Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

"for people were bound, he knew, to reveal not only themselves, but what they knew, in conversation"

-Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

"And then the nights came on and the frosts took hold again, and blades of cold slid under doors and cut the knees off those who still knelt to say the rosary."

-Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

"When he reached the yard gate and found the padlock seized with frost, he felt the strain of being alive and wished he had stayed in bed, but he made himself carry on and crossed to a neighbour’s hou…"

-Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

Similar categories in Paul Lynch's Prophet Song book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• 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

Similar categories in Eva Baltasar's Boulder book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• spanish literature
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary

"Los niños pequeños tienen ese poder, imponen su alegría al malestar ordinario de los adultos."

-Eva Baltasar, Boulder

"Y sin embargo he descubierto que no se puede columpiar a un hijo sin sonreír. Lo he intentado y es imposible. Los niños pequeños tienen ese poder, imponen su alegría al malestar ordinario de los adul…"

-Eva Baltasar, Boulder

"I listen with all five senses, I listen to her with my entire body, with everything but my heart, which feels like it wants to thrash the hell out of me. This wasn't part of our plan. The truth is we…"

-Eva Baltasar, Boulder

"But all this tunneling has opened rifts through which the captive parts of me have started to emerge. I realize that I am smoke, that the things that define me rise as they would up a chimney, probin…"

-Eva Baltasar, Boulder

Similar categories in Mieko Kawakami's All the Lovers in the Night book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary

"It only took me a couple of hours to realise that she was a woman of talents beyond anything I could imagine - even though I was a stranger to such talents myself."

-Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night

"The light at night is special because the overwhelming light of day has left us, and the remaining half draws on everything it has to keep the world around us bright."

-Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night

"When I felt sleepy I slept, and when I opened my eyes I got up, letting hunger dictate when to head to the fridge or kitchen cabinet to eat some of the things that I'd stocked up on. When supplies ra…"

-Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night

"When I felt sleepy I slept, and when I opened my eyes I got up, letting hunger dictate when to head to the fridge or kitchen cabinet to eat some of the things that I'd stocked up on. When supplies ra…"

-Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night

Similar categories in Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary

"El océano profundo es una casa embrujada: un lugar donde se mueven en la oscuridad cosas que no deberían existir."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

"She refused almost every aspect of my help, the way women will when they've been bred to accept little more than the baset civility."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

"I don't know why I expected you to read my mind,' I say, when I call back to leave her a message, 'I was just doing what I always do, assuming the world revolves around me."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

"The space around us is a claw half grasped, holding tight without quite crushing, and I wish, in the idle way I always wish these days, that I felt more confident in my ability to breathe."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

Similar categories in Eliza Clark's Penance book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• mystery thriller
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• mystery
• thriller
• crime

"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

Similar categories in Bora Chung's Cursed Bunny book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• fiction
• contemporary

"Her husband had pursued an “alternative lifestyle"

-Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny

"One can break the curse, but it is impossible to cure their blindness from greed. They were always ready to wage another war"

-Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny

"But there I remained, standing in the bathroom, waiting for someone to miraculously find me, to release me from my ties to this life."

-Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny

"Once you experience a terrible trauma and understand the world from an extreme perspective, it is difficult to overcome this perspective. Because your very survival depends on it."

-Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny

Similar categories in Coco Mellors's Blue Sisters book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary

"A sister is not a friend. Who can explain the urge to take a relationship as primal and complex as a sibling and reduce it to something as replaceable, as banal as a friend? Yet this status is used a…"

-Coco Mellors, Blue Sisters

Similar categories in Fernanda Melchor's Paradais book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• literary fiction
• latin american
• spanish literature
• fiction
• contemporary

"It was fatboy's fault, that's what he would tell them"

-Fernanda Melchor, Paradais

Similar categories in Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• mystery thriller
• literary fiction
• feminism
• latin american
• spanish literature
• fiction
• contemporary
• mystery
• thriller
• crime

"¿Seguirá siendo madre ahora que no tiene hija?"

-Claudia Piñeiro, Elena Knows

Similar categories in Ia Genberg's The Details book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary

"La fiducia resta lettera morta, se non la si sente nelle ossa."

-Ia Genberg, The Details

"L'io , o meglio, il cosidetto "io", non è altro che questo: ciò che resta delle persone a cui ci siamo stretti."

-Ia Genberg, The Details

"La vita mi ha regalato la mia buona dose di magia, e il più delle volte è successo all'incontro con gli altri. Lì c'è qualcosa. Lì, soltanto lì."

-Ia Genberg, The Details

"Per i morti la successione del tempo non ha importanza, l'unica cosa che conta sono i dettagli, la densità, il come e il cosa e tutto ciò che riguarda il chi."

-Ia Genberg, The Details

Similar categories in Selva Almada's No es un río book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• literary fiction
• latin american
• spanish literature
• fiction
• contemporary

Similar categories in Adania Shibli's Minor Detail book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary

"Man, not the tank, shall prevail."

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

"Não há como descartar a probabilidade de uma conexão entre os dois fatos, ou alguma ligação oculta entre eles, por analogia às relações que os seres humanos encontram entre as plantas, por exemplo, q…"

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

"Desde que tive ciência da minha incapacidade consumada de me mover de acordo com os limites, resolvi, finalmente, permanecer dentro dos limites da minha casa, tanto quanto possível. Agora, uma vez qu…"

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

"Toch zijn er mensen die in die logica − dus dat je je concentreert op de meest futiele details zoals stof op een bureau of vliegenpoepjes op een schilderij − de enige manier zien om de waarheid te do…"

-Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

Similar categories in Guadalupe Nettel's Still Born book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• literary fiction
• feminism
• latin american
• spanish literature
• fiction
• contemporary

"Thoughts are like clouds moving in the sky, you know? Before you know it, they change shape or they just aren't there anymore."

-Guadalupe Nettel, Still Born

"There is a word to describe someone who loses their spouse, and a word for children who are left without parents. There is no word, however, for a parent who loses their child."

-Guadalupe Nettel, Still Born

"A mí me intrigan más las aves a las que parasitan. Según yo, saben que no son sus crías y aun así las cuidan y las atienden. Yo pienso que llega un punto en que todas las madres nos damos cuenta de e…"

-Guadalupe Nettel, Still Born

"A mí me intrigan más las aves a las que parasitan. Según yo, saben que no son sus crías y aun así las cuidan y las atienden. Yo pienso que llega un punto en que todas las madres nos damos cuenta de e…"

-Guadalupe Nettel, Still Born

Similar categories in Lisa Tuttle's My Death book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• mystery
• thriller

Similar categories in Samantha Harvey's Orbital book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary

"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

Similar categories in Caleb Azumah Nelson's Open Water book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary

"Trauma makes you considerate."

-Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water

"You are more than the sum of your traumas"

-Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water

"You do not want to die before you can live"

-Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water

"...love was not always synonymous with care."

-Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water

Similar categories in Matthieu Simard's The Country Will Bring Us No Peace book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• mystery thriller
• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary
• mystery
• thriller

Similar categories in Ronan Hession's Panenka book and Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows

• literary fiction
• fiction
• contemporary

"But isn't that what allowing yourself be loved is all about -- letting something greater than fear into your life?"

-Ronan Hession, Panenka

"To him love was no union between two otherwise incomplete halves, but more like the gravity that locked two bodies into the same orbit"

-Ronan Hession, Panenka

"Life should always be like that. Resting safely, with someone looking over you, attending to the little indulgences that loved people enjoy"

-Ronan Hession, Panenka

"Aren't you afraid of failing? Letting everyone down?' Esther thought about it. 'Maybe it's important that other people learn how to handle disappointment."

-Ronan Hession, Panenka