Coming-of-Age Stories
List by: Fishers Library Adults Services
“A coming-of-age story is a genre of literature and film that focuses on the growth of a protagonist from youth to adulthood (‘coming of age’). Coming-of-age stories tend to emphasize dialogue or internal monologue over action, and are often set in the past.” -Wikipedia
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A
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi – Purple Hibiscus
Alcott, Louisa May – Little Women
Allison, Dorothy – Bastard Out of Carolina
Alvarez, Julia – How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
B
Baldwin, James – Go Tell it on the Mountain (in Early Novels & Stories)
Bartsch, Jeffrey – Two Across: A Novel
Bechdel, Alison – Fun Home (Graphic Novel)
Bender, Aimee – The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Betancourt, Ingrid – The Blue Line
Blume, Judy – Summer Sisters
Brashares, Ann – The Last Summer (of You & Me)
Bronte, Charlotte – Jane Eyre
Brunt, Carol Rifka – Tell the Wolves I’m Home
Butler, Octavia – Parable of the Sower
C
Campbell, Bonnie Jo – Once Upon a River
Card, Orson Scott – Ender’s Game
Cather, Willa – My Antonia
Chabon, Michael – The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Chicurel, Judy – If I Knew You Were Going to be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go
Christie, Michael – If I Fall, If I Die
Clanchy, Kate – Meeting the English
Crandall, Susan – Whistling Past the Graveyard
D
Dickens, Charles – Great Expectations
DiSclafani, Anton – The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls
Doig, Ivan – Last Bus to Wisdom
E
El Rashidi, Yasmine – Chronicle of a Last Summer
Eugenides, Jeffrey – Middlesex
F
Fitch, Janet – White Oleander
G
Gaiman, Neil – Stardust
Godwin, Gail – Flora
Golding, William – The Lord of the Flies
Greenwald, Lisa – Welcome to Dog Beach
H
Haddad, Saleem – Guapa
Hamilton, Jane – The Excellent Lombards
Harbach, Chad – The Art of Fielding
Hinton, S.E. – The Outsiders
Hoffman Alice – The Story Sisters
Hosseini, Khaled – The Kite Runner
I
Ishiguro, Kazuo – Never Let Me Go
Iweala, Uzodinma – Beasts of No Nation
J
Jackson, Naomi – The Star Side Bird
Jaffe, Sara – Dryland
Joy, David – Where All Light Tends to Go
Joyce, James – Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Joyce, Rachel – Perfect
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K
Kincaid, Jamaica – Annie John
Knowles, John – A Separate Peace
Kushner, Dale – The Conditions of Love
L
Lee, Harper – To Kill a Mockingbird
Lovett, Andrew – Everlasting Lane
M
Maclean, Norman – A River Runs Through it
Maynard, Joyce – Labor Day
McCarthy, Cormac – All the Pretty Horses
McDermott, Alice – After This
McDermott, Alice – Child of My Heart
McNeal,Laura – Dollbaby
McOmber, Adam – The White Forest
Mitford, Nancy – The Pursuit of Love
Morrison, Toni – Sula
Murray, Paul – Skippy Dies
Murakami, Haruki – Norwegian Wood
N
Nayeri, Dina – A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea
O
Oates, Joyce Carol – Foxfire
P
Palaia, Marian – The Given World
Plath, Sylvia – The Bell Jar
Potok, Chaim – The Chosen
R
Rogers, Morgan Callan – Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea
Roth, Phillip – Goodbye, Columbus
S
Salinger, J.D. – The Catcher in the Rye
Scotton, Chris – The Secret Wisdom of the Earth
Slouka, Mark – Brewster: A Novel
Smith, Betty – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Smith, Dodie – I Capture the Castle
Solomon, Asali – Disgruntled
Stratton-Porter, Gene – Girl of the Limberlost
T
Tartt, Donna – The Secret History
Tashjian, Janet – The Gospel According to Larry
Teran, Andi – Ana of California
V
Vann, David – Goat Mountain
W
Walker, Karen Thompson – The Age of Miracles
Wallace, David Foster – Infinite Jest
Wasserman, Robin – Girls on Fire
Waugh, Evelyn – Decline and Fall
Weatherwax, Anne – All We Had
Wolff, Rebecca – The Beginners
Woodrell, Daniel – Winter’s Bone
Wroblewski, David – The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
Z
Zusak, Marcus – The Book Thief
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