John Updike 1968
- What it is
-
A small town hiding secrets · comedy with teeth
- Genre
- Literary Classics
Everything below shares at least two of these traits, or sits with it in some reader's stack. We tell you why as you go.
Books similar to Couples
Coming from Couples? Start with Conversations with Friends, Beartown, Pride and Prejudice. 45 more below, each with why it fits.
1 book
The closest to yours
Peyton Place
Grace Metalious 1900
You end up rooting for the wrong people · it tells it straight
2 books
Morally grey and small-town secrets
Snow Falling on Cedars
David Guterson 1997
In common with yours: small-town secrets · it stays with you
19 books
Morally grey and wry
The age of innocence
Edith Wharton 1920
Like yours: slow-burn romance · love hurts sometimes
Shipping News
Annie Proulx 1993
Funny, and it bites · a love that builds slowly
The House of Mirth
Edith Wharton 1905
No clean hands here · sad, and in no hurry
Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov 1777
You end up rooting for the wrong people · a narrator who doesn't tell you the truth
Romantic Comedy
Curtis Sittenfeld 2023
Comedy with teeth · a tender love story
Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad 1985
No clean hands here · it tells it with no filter
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoyevsky 1941
Nobody is entirely good · it leaves you shaken
Prater Violet
Christopher Isherwood 1945
Sharp and very funny · funny and sad at once
the leopard
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 1995
Comforting, like coming home · sad, and in no hurry
Bonjour tristesse
Françoise Sagan 1954
Funny and sad at once · melancholic and unhurried
We Need to Talk about Kevin
Lionel Shriver 2003
Nobody is entirely good · it tells it straight
Lucky Jim
Kingsley Amis 1998
Comedy with teeth · within the walls of a school
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson 1962
It gets under your skin · pitch-black comedy
Bridget Jones's Diary
Helen Fielding 1996
Comedy with teeth · a love story that hurts
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Ken Kesey 2005
Nobody is entirely good · fierce and defiant
Mezzanine
Nicholson Baker 1988
Sharp and very funny · odd and endearing
A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess 1972
No clean hands here · it tells it with no filter
1 book
Small-town secrets and wry
Empire Falls
Richard Russo 2001
In common with yours: small-town secrets · tender and sad at once
5 books · Alike in just one
Only morally grey
The secret history
Donna Tartt 1992
Readers put them together in Friendship novels where the group falls apart
The quiet American
Graham Greene 1955
Nobody is entirely good · it changes how you see things
North and south
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 1855
Like yours: slow-burn romance · it leaves you with a warm feeling
Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel 2009
Nobody is entirely good · it changes how you see things
The Blind Assassin
Margaret Atwood 2005
Sad, and in no hurry · a mystery you want to solve
4 books · Alike in just one
Only small-town secrets
Small Things Like These
Claire Keegan 2021
Like yours: small-town secrets · you come out liking people more
Aunque llueva en primavera
Cherry Chic 2024
Like yours: slow-burn romance · odd and endearing
The God of the Woods
Liz Moore 2024
Like yours: small-town secrets · it leaves you thinking
Pedro Páramo
Juan Rulfo 1955
Like yours: small-town secrets · properly strange
12 books · Alike in just one
Only wry
Conversations with Friends
Sally Rooney 2017
Readers put them together in Friendship novels where the group falls apart
The Emperor's Children
Claire Messud 2006
Grouped with yours in Friendship novels where the group falls apart
The Group
Mary McCarthy 1968
Readers put them together in Friendship novels where the group falls apart
Possession
A. S. Byatt 1890
In common with yours: slow-burn romance · a love story that makes you laugh
Seize the day
Saul Bellow 1956
Melancholic and unhurried · it tells it with no filter
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Helen Simonson 2010
In common with yours: slow-burn romance · a love story that hurts
The great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald 2011
A love story that hurts · a love story that makes you laugh
Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel García Márquez 1997
In common with yours: slow-burn romance · it raises the temperature
The Interestings
Meg Wolitzer 2013
A reader shelved it with yours in Friendship novels where the group falls apart
A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole 1982
Sharp and very funny · odd and endearing
The Shampoo Effect
Jenny Jackson 2026
Readers put them together in Friendship novels where the group falls apart
4 books
More similar books
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Gabrielle Zevin 2022
Readers put them together in Friendship novels where the group falls apart
Normal People
Sally Rooney 2018
In common with yours: slow-burn romance · a love story that hurts
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