Anonymous wrote:I loved The Bee Sting. Here are a few others I liked this year that might interest you:

The Hand That First Held Mine, Maggie O’Farrell
Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan
Long Island, Colm Toibin
The Latecomer, Jean Hanff Korelitz
Benediction, Kent Haruf

I liked the Bee Sting and the Latecomer too but really did not care for Long Island. Try the Rachel Incident from Caroline O’Donoghue or Same as It Ever was from Claire Lombardo.

I loved The Bee Sting. Here are a few others I liked this year that might interest you:

The Hand That First Held Mine, Maggie O’Farrell
Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan
Long Island, Colm Toibin
The Latecomer, Jean Hanff Korelitz
Benediction, Kent Haruf

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did not absolutely love The Bee Sting but I did like it. Books that seem similar to me in some ways—if you haven’t read Skippy Dies by the same author, check it out. It also reminded me of Jonathan Franzen to some degree. In particular, Crossroads, which I think is my favorite Franzen book. I may associate this with The Bee Sting because I read them close in time, but I think it has some similarities to The Nix by Nathan Hill as well, in that it is an untangling of a family story with shifting points of view moving forward and backward in time.

thank you! I’m going to pick up Crossroads, looks great. what novels have you absolutely loved?

That’s a good question. Books I have read in the last few years that I loved: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. (I resisted the hype for a long time because I didn’t think I was that interested in the subject matter—a group of gay men friends in Chicago during the AIDS crisis—but it is really amazing.) I really enjoyed The North Woods, which is really unlike anything I have ever read before and interesting and surprisingly funny and beautiful. Very different is Cloud Cuckoo Land, but I might describe it the same way. I am a sucker for Elizabeth Strout books. I loved The Idiot and Either/Or by Elif Batuman. Those are some of my relatively recent faves.

I also recently really liked Bright Young Women which has a similar cadence to the other recommended books.

I loved Skippy Dies by the same author. I also recently loved another Nathan Hill book so I think pp is steering you well. The Nathan Hill book I loved was Wellness. (Haven’t read The Nix yet.)

Anonymous wrote:I did not absolutely love The Bee Sting but I did like it. Books that seem similar to me in some ways—if you haven’t read Skippy Dies by the same author, check it out. It also reminded me of Jonathan Franzen to some degree. In particular, Crossroads, which I think is my favorite Franzen book. I may associate this with The Bee Sting because I read them close in time, but I think it has some similarities to The Nix by Nathan Hill as well, in that it is an untangling of a family story with shifting points of view moving forward and backward in time.

thank you! I’m going to pick up Crossroads, looks great. what novels have you absolutely loved?

I did not absolutely love The Bee Sting but I did like it. Books that seem similar to me in some ways—if you haven’t read Skippy Dies by the same author, check it out. It also reminded me of Jonathan Franzen to some degree. In particular, Crossroads, which I think is my favorite Franzen book. I may associate this with The Bee Sting because I read them close in time, but I think it has some similarities to The Nix by Nathan Hill as well, in that it is an untangling of a family story with shifting points of view moving forward and backward in time.

I know not everyone loves this book but it was my cup of tea all the way. If you’re like me what other novels have you absolutely loved?