Coming-of-age movies, from Booksmart to Dead Poets Society, give viewers lots to think about even when they’re over. Some movies, like Perks of Being a Wallflower, are based on books of the same title, but others are harder to discern or not even based on a book at all. So, here are 5 books that we think best reproduce the vibes of your favorite coming-of-age movies!
If You Like Booksmart... Late to the Party by Kelly Quindlen
Fans of Booksmart who crave the introverted and nerdy teenagers finally breaking out of their shells in search of one final high school party trope, you MUST pick up Late to the Party. The central character Codi feels reminiscent of Amy and Molly -- bookish and in the margins. Similarly, Quindlen taps into the humorous awkwardness of high school, first parties, and first crushes. Evoking emotional complexity essential to the transformative teenage period, Late to the Party combines sincere vulnerability with witty humor, aptly capturing the nuances of high school. So, although you might be late to the party, you should definitely check this book out!
If You Like Stand By Me… Boy's Life by Robert McCammon
Although it’s based on Stephen King’s The Body, which we also highly recommend you check out, McCammon’s work embodies Stand By Me’s thematic core with a unique setting in Alabama during the mid-'60s. Readers who adore Stand By Me’s blend of nostalgia, loss of innocence, and boyhood friendships will find Boy’s Life to be a larger, more emotionally expansive version of it. Following 11-year-old Cory Mackenson through childhood memories and trauma, from baseball, biking, and late-night adventures to a haunting crime he and his father witness, McCammon’s work employs first-person prose to center the emotional core of a dark event on friendship, family, and awakening from childhood innocence into a far more complex world. Boy’s Life threads themes of racism, violence, and loss through its almost magical reflection on childhood across four seasons. McCammon’s lyrical prose will make you ache for your pre-teen self and a time when miracles still felt possible.
If You Like Lady Bird... The Idiot by Elif Batuman
If you enjoyed Lady Bird’s self-aware, coming-of-age dry humor style, then you will find a kindred spirit in Batuman’s sharp writing and embrace of hilarious awkwardness. Selin, the Turkish-American Harvard narrator, is only a few years older than Lady Bird and shares similar intellectual confidence and emotional confusion. She faces a parallel liminal space as she adapts to adulthood and avoids dramatic plot twists in favor of capturing the texture of young womanhood. Even still, mundane situations subtly turn into absurd points of humor as well as emotional revelations. This book is perfect if you’re looking for a wandering narrative of half-formed identities and late adolescence. Upon its completion, you will appreciate the unrushed pacing, which turns the 400-page novel into a deeply moving and sharply funny totality, just like Lady Bird.
If You Like Moonlight… Real Life by Brandon Taylor
Quietly intense and emotionally precise, Moonlight paints a coming-of-age story over three vignettes: adolescent, teenage, and adult. While Real Life only takes place over the course of one fraught weekend, it manages to softly capture atmosphere and interiority just like Moonlight. Following Wallace, a Black graduate student attending a predominantly white Midwestern university, Taylor traces microaggressions, silences, and small acts of tenderness delicately, so as to capture ordinary life. Desire plays a central role in both these pieces, feeling both dangerous and redemptive at once. Real Life explores themes of how race, class, and sexuality shape a person’s sense of self without overly sentimentalizing it. Mixing beauty with discomfort, Real Life offers the literary equivalent of Moonlight, lingering in still images, slight movements, and acute observations.
If You Like Dead Poets Society… A Separate Peace by John Knowles
An American classic, Knowles’s work follows two roommates, Gene and Finny, and their complicated relationship at an elite all-boys New England boarding school during World War II. Blurring rivalry, admiration, and unspoken longing, the boys of Devon illustrate the costs of conformity and idealism in a rigid institution. Knowles writes with a similar backwards-looking, nostalgic, and almost guilty tone, setting the novel up as an elegy of sorts. With the outside, adult world in a devastating war, and the internal, supposedly idyllic school world following suit, the haunting question of how a singular year can forever mark your life delivers devastating answers. So bring your tissues and read how a friendship, a war, an impulsive act, and a transformative year can turn boys into men.
Go ahead and celebrate the nice weather with one of these books! Before your next cathartic re-watch, let these books expand upon your favorite coming-of-age stories. We promise you will love them!
