BVBook Verdict

If you liked

Books like The Bell Jar

Loved The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath? Here are 10 books with a similar appeal — drawn mostly from young adult, ranked by how confidently we'd recommend them next.

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

    I Capture the Castle

    Dodie Smith · 1948 · Young Adult

    Cassandra, the 17-year-old narrator, lives an eccentric existence in a crumbling castle in the English countryside in the 1930s. Her father is a former bestselling novelist now suffering from a chroni

  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

    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

  7. 7

    The Yearling

    Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings · 1938 · Young Adult

    Young Jody adopts an orphaned fawn he calls Flag after a fatal encounter with his mother and makes it a part of his family and his best friend. But life in the Florida backwoods is harsh, and so, as h

  8. 8

    Things Fall Apart

    Chinua Achebe · 1958 · Young Adult

    Things Fall Apart is the debut novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, first published in 1958. It depicts pre-colonial life in the southeastern part of Nigeria and the arrival of Europeans during the

  9. 9

    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

  10. 10

    The box of delights, or When the wolves were running

    John Masefield · 1935 · Young Adult

    Kay finds himself involved in a fantastic adventure when he becomes guardian of the mysterious Box of Delights.

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