35 books like Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty

I should start by saying that Thiong'o has recently been accused, by his son, of beating his former wife, claims I take very seriously (and which has put my reading of Thiong'o’s female characters in a new light).

In this book, I found a sharp, cunning satire of despotic post-colonial governments working with and shaped by international funders and Western policymakers. Having worked in NGOs, I found Thiong'o’s characterization of “development” to be darkly funny and cringe-worthily accurate.

In Odenigbo, the Professor of Statistics at Nsukka University who is a main character in Adichie’s powerful novel, she gives us a mathematician who is both brilliant and flawed, both good and bad.

He is a mass of contradictions, as we all are: a fully-rounded person. Adichie’s parents were caught up in the Biafran-Nigerian civil war – the subject of this book – and her father James Nwoye Adichie was a real-life Nsukka statistician.

There’s a tell-tale gap in his research output: between 1967 and 1974 he published no papers. Call me sentimental, but when Adichie gives to Odenigbo’s lost research articles titles that might fit with her father’s work, I like to think that it’s a tribute to the work he also did not have the chance to complete.

The novel is a portrait of the harsh realities of post-colonial life and a reflection on the complexities of African culture and history. I find that I can relate to the book's exploration of identity and the struggle between tradition and modernity.

Okri's protagonist, Azaro, navigates the physical and spiritual realms in a way that lines up with the Nigerian superstitions which shaped my life from a young age. His journey is believable and familiar in a unique blend of the fantastical with the real.

The lyrical prose and vivid imagery take me home, back to a world where the supernatural is a natural part of life and a cornerstone of the spirituality inherent in Nigerian culture.

The Fishermen is set in Akure, the first town I ever knew intimately, and a town I have fallen in love with once again as an adult. In Akure you will see hills and rivers and green scenery, you will see stories. This gives me rare insight into the childhood adventures of the protagonist, Ben, and his 3 brothers, whose lives were shackled by the rantings of a mentally disturbed man. I love the author’s use of historical figures and events of 1990s Nigeria as a backdrop for this tragic story about a normal Nigerian family.

Sick, Carter’s White House adviser on Iran, offers a cogent, deeply insightful account of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the seizure of American hostages in Tehran, and the Carter Administration’s inadequate response to the unfolding crisis. In a later book, The October Surprise, Sick falls just short of proving that the Reagan campaign conspired with the Iranian government to delay the release of the hostages until after the 1980 election. But he is convincing in his claim that the truth in this sordid affair has never fully come to light.

Firoozeh Dumas’ humor is so natural that it’s effortless on the page. Many immigrant stories are so dark as to simply become glorified moralizing, but here is a genuinely interesting and fun story that teaches a lesson without being so heavy-handed that it’s little more than a treatise.

I identified with Zomorod’s (“Cindy’s”) new kid on the block in California experience. Likewise, I was a nerd who had to move often, so it wasn’t always easy to make new friends, especially when it was the odd ones who were willing to take on the new kid! 

Parents complicated the situation as well, so seeing how Zomorod navigated during the difficult time of the Iran hostage crisis was personally encouraging. I guess all kids worry that they are weird and one mistake away from shunning, so in that respect, Dumas’ story should appeal to all kinds of kids, not just Persian-Americans. 

In this amazingly inventive novel, Rotkowitz creates a world in which a young woman with everything to live for is haunted by imaginary demons – demons that stand for the horrible experiences her family endured during the time of the Holocaust, and which she must exorcise if she is ever to find true happiness in the true world of the living.

For me, Argo is one of those rare finds in spy books. It is a book about an actual intelligence operation that went as planned, written by a living CIA intelligence officer who took part in it.

One of the hallmarks of intelligence operations is making the enemy believe what you want them to think. Misinformation and disinformation comprise a large part of the work, but sometimes, it all comes down to good old-fashioned deception. That's what makes Argo work.

And, hey, any book good enough to be made into a movie that wins an Oscar for Best Picture is worth my time.

I had the wonderful opportunity to read this YA novel as an ARC. It debuts on November 1st 2022, so put your patient pants on for this one. 

It’s 1979, and Jasmine Zumideh, an Iranian American music-journalist-in-the-making, embellishes on her application to NYU. When her coveted acceptance letter arrives, she must win her school’s election for Class President to turn her lie into the truth. 

What I loved about this debut was although it tackled the complications of embracing one’s identity and culture, and how confusing and messy this can be, it was also a fun romp down the halls of the decade without feeling forced or dated. Life-altering events of the time were woven in seamlessly—The Iran Hostage Crisis, making for a heartfelt story about the hidden strength and perseverance of a teenage girl navigating discrimination, family expectations, friendships and a new love. Put this one on your… show more.

I adored this fascinating tale of scientists studying chimpanzees in Africa, intertwined with the story of a failing marriage between one of those scientists, Hope Clearwater, and her mathematician husband back in England.

Reading this book, I was engrossed in the interplay between the people and the chimps, the evocations of African and English landscapes, and the subtle way in which the struggle for power within the chimps’ territory is echoed by human conflict in the same country.

If this all sounds rather complicated, William Boyd is one of the best storytellers around, so I was effortlessly carried along by the gorgeous sentences.