BVBook Verdict

If you liked

Books like Things Fall Apart

Loved Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe? Here are 10 books with a similar appeal — drawn mostly from young adult, ranked by how confidently we'd recommend them next.

Young adult fiction is where many readers encounter their most important books. This list spans 1954–2017 and includes 3 marked as essential reading in young adult.

10 books · ranked

  1. 1

    The Hunger Games

    Suzanne Collins · 2008 · Young Adult

    A girl volunteers for a televised fight to the death to save her sister; a propulsive, sharp dystopian thriller.

  2. 2

    The Fault in Our Stars

    John Green · 2012 · Young Adult

    Two teenagers with cancer fall in love; funny and heartbreaking without ever being saccharine.

  3. 3

    The Hate U Give

    Angie Thomas · 2017 · Young Adult

    A teenager witnesses a police shooting and finds her voice; urgent, powerful and humane.

  4. 4

    The Ugly American

    William J. Lederer · 1958 · Young Adult

    This book is a fictionally written depiction of America^s failed foreign policy, tactics and blunders in a country depicted as an area similar to Viet Nam. The journalist author was entrenched in the

  5. 5

    Alanna

    Tamora Pierce · 1954 · Young Adult

    "From now on, I'm Alan of Trebond, the younger twin. I'll be a knight. And so yound Alanna of Trebond begins the journey to knighthood. Though a girl, Alanna has always craved the adventure and daring

  6. 6

    A Bear Called Paddington

    Michael Bond · 1960 · Young Adult

    Mr. and Mrs. Brown first met Paddington, a most endearing bear from Darkest Peru on a railway platform in London. A sign hanging around his neck said, "Please look after this bear. Thank you" So that

  7. 7

    Where the Red Fern Grows

    Wilson Rawls · 1961 · Young Adult

    Where the Red Fern Grows is a 1961 children's novel by Wilson Rawls about a boy who buys two hunting dogs. ---------- Also contained in: Prentice Hall Literature: Bronze

  8. 8

    Flowers for Algernon

    Daniel Keyes · 1966 · Young Adult

    Until he was thirty-two, Charlie Gordon --gentle, amiable, oddly engaging-- had lived in a kind of mental twilight. He knew knowledge was important and had learned to read and write after a fashion, b

  9. 9

    The Magic Finger

    Roald Dahl · 1966 · Young Adult

    Angered by a neighboring family's sport hunting, an eight-year-old girl turns her magic finger on them.

  10. 10

    The Outsiders

    S.E. Hinton · 1967 · Young Adult

    Class warfare among teenagers, written by a teenager; the book that arguably invented modern YA.

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