89 books like Cassandra in Reverse

I am not the target audience for this book. But it had gotten some buzz, and it seemed interesting, so I read it. And it just blew me away. I’ve read so many articles that say that the more fiction you read, especially books about people and cultures unlike your own, the more empathetic you become. This book does this so well you can practically see it happen. I’ve seen this book on a lot of banned book lists, and for the life of me, I don’t understand why. 

When I first read it, my thought was, “Everyone should read this book. I understand so much better now.”  It’s about 16-year-old Starr Carter, who is smart and wise beyond her years. She witnesses a police officer shoot her childhood best friend, Khalil. This puts her in the middle of a maelstrom of opinion and gives her inside information on a… show more.

I can’t stop thinking about this book. The setting is Florida in the near future, where climate change has reached a point where the ocean is reclaiming the state. The book spans the entire life of the protagonist, Wanda. Wanda broke my heart. She suffered so much loss, none of which was her own fault. But, smart and curious, she found a way, led primarily by an older woman who took her under her wing. 

I felt for Wanda as she lost her family and friends, dealt with bullies, and lost her home. And I cheered her on when she found ways to survive. Wanda is the light: the message of the book, which could easily have been horribly depressing, was that love will find a way—life will find a way if you give it room to breathe.

I immediately loved this book for its alternate history, detailed folklore, and dark academic vibes. I connected with the complex characters and a strong female protagonist who was fearless of social expectations. The unique combination of folklore and an archaeology background that I share with the author Heather Fawcett was something I found familiarity with instantly.

I enjoyed the alternate history where dark academia met with the more traditional Gaslamp-style fantasy fiction to create something new. This combination of dark academia, marginalized voices, and alternate history is a style I enjoy delving into the past in new, unusual ways and revealing voices that otherwise remain unheard.  

I was utterly charmed by this book. Although the woman who is smart doesn’t get a lot of page time in the book, she is its core. Sayuri Komachi is a librarian in a neighborhood library who is literally larger than life. This book has five overlapping stories, and Ms Komachi is at the center of all of them.  When they come to her reference desk for help, she gives them three things: 1) what they ask for, 2) a ‘bonus’ gift, and 3) what they need. 

What they need is a book they never would have chosen on their own but which contains information that will help them decide which direction to go at a crossroads in their lives. I want a Ms Komachi in my life—someone slightly mysterious, always there, always interesting, and who doesn’t give answers but who gives you the tools to answer questions yourself.

I adored this novella from 2021 and the made-for-TV movie based on it.

Seventeen-year-old Mark is trapped in a Groundhog-day-like time loop with no real desire to break out of a situation that releases him from looming responsibilities. Then he meets evanescent and brilliant fellow time-looper Margaret, and the two set out to discover the wonders of the eternal day in which they’re stuck.

The story is charming, funny, and sweet. It was released during the pandemic at a time when a lot of us felt stuck in our own time loops, and its attention to detail and moving discovery of Margaret’s dark secret prompted me to appreciate the tiny perfect moments of my own seemingly endless and repetitive days. 

With the backdrop of medieval Scotland, this sweeping tale of lairds, kilts, and castles is no ordinary time-travel romance. This carefully-researched tale brings a courageous heroine and a fierce hero together to face enemies neither dreamed existed. My first in a long line of Kurland romances, this story has all the elements of how characters can evolve and love conquers all. 

This is cheating a little bit because it’s about a modern-day American boy who gets whisked back to Shakespeare’s time and befriends the playwright as a young man.

Our young actor has to figure out why he’s been sent back to this time and escape before a terrible plague wipes out much of London. I bought this book at the Globe Theatre gift shop (!) on an overseas trip on the basis of Susan Cooper’s name alone.

She wrote The Dark Is Rising Series and this is a thrilling modern classic by her. 

I am fairly convinced that Grace Burrowes is a time traveler, for I have never seen a modern author get period-specific language so right. Unlike all the other books on my list, the Lady Violet series does not include any murders.

Instead, Lady Violet’s penchant for solving “puzzles” made for a nice break from the more macabre. I got lost in the twisty details and adored the Agatha Christie-style reveal at the end of the book.

This book is a literary novel set in part on the Moon. That’s not a sentence you’ll read often, which is a big part of why I love this novel—it’s not what I expected, even though there’s a big hint in the title.

Like many readers, my introduction to Emily St. John Mandel was her post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven. In that story, the most interesting characters aren’t concerned with simple survival…if they are going to fight to live, they want a culture worth fighting for. When I picked this book up, I deliberately chose not to read the story summary and was completely caught off guard by how the novel unfolded. Typically, stories questioning time and our perception of reality do so by sending the protagonist on a dangerous quest looking for answers.

Like all my favorite novels, the scope is intimate and vast in this one. The story… show more.

I loved this book for its innovative approach to time travel. It’s not concerned with altering history but about time travel on a granular level. Alice travels back to her 16th birthday, which her 40-year-old self knows was a pivotal night. 

In the present day, Alice has remained friends with her high school best friend, Sam. I suspect many authors would have had them lose touch as adults and I loved that the novel is not predictably about Alice revisiting their high school friendship.

I also appreciated how Alice is entranced, at first, by the freedom of being a teenager again, but she’s soon caught up in the same struggles. Sam is her through-line, her confidant, helping her decide what in her life should change and what should not.