6 Read-Alikes for Books You Loved

It’s hard to find another book that captures the essence of a story you couldn’t put down – but some come close. Here are 6 read-alikes whose characters and plots are similar to books you loved.

Harry Potter → Carry On

The Harry Potter series follows a young wizard in his adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Throughout the series, he gets closer to facing the Wizarding World’s greatest villain, Voldemort. Carry On, which is rumored to be derived from a Harry Potter fanfic that the author imagined, follows a boy called Simon Snow, a mage (magician) attending the Watford School of Magicks. Simon’s story follows the love-hate relationship between him and his mysterious roommate and the ultimately evil being that keeps him on his toes: the Insidious Humdrum.

Both young, magical boarding school students strive to defeat beings that they don’t completely understand yet, with the help of a mentor, best friends, and in the case of Carry On, maybe even an enemy.

Since You’ve Been Gone → The F– It List

Since You’ve Been Gone is the story of Emily Hughes, whose summer is spent trying to do out-of-her-box things off of a list her best friend left her before disappearing from her life. The F– It List is the story of Alex Buckley’s attempts at helping her old friend complete a compiled bucket list after she learns her friend has gotten cancer.

These read-alikes similarly take readers on adventures where characters do things they never thought they’d do, all because of some items on two insane checklists, while building relationships along the way.

Red Queen → Dorothy Must Die

Red Queen follows Mare Barrow, a Red-blooded girl with surprising abilities that get her taken away from her family to live in a castle among the royal Silver family, pretending to be a long-lost princess. Dorothy Must Die follows Amy Gumm, a girl whose mobile home is whisked off by a tornado that eventually brings her to the new Oz, where Dorothy’s power and success from the original story has gone to her head. Amy eventually ends up working as a maid in the Emerald Palace with a hidden agenda. Read Bookstacked’s review of Dorothy Must Die here.

Both female protagonists find themselves placed in palaces unlike their homes while secretly working with revolutionary groups to take their monarchs down; in Red Queen, it’s the Silver-blooded elite and in Dorothy Must Die, it’s the tyrant princess of Oz herself.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children → Asylum

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children follows a boy named Jacob who explores the depths of an island’s abandoned asylum that was formerly home to children with unnatural abilities. Asylum follows Dan, a participant in a summer college prep program that brings him to a dorm with an unusual past. The dorm was previously an asylum and Dan, along with his friends, seeks to uncover the secrets the asylum held about its imprisoned inhabitants.

Similarly, these two books (and their accompanying series) use in-book photography and haunting mystery to tell the stories behind two very peculiar sanatoriums.

Thirteen Reasons Why → Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls

In Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why, Hannah Baker is found to have committed suicide. After this news, the main character Clay receives a package of tapes that Hannah recorded before her death, explaining all the tantalizing occasions that made her want to kill herself. Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls follows June, whose ex-best friend Delia’s recent death is blamed on suicide. But June knows something is up and seeks to figure out exactly what might’ve caused her possible murder.

Both read-alikes follow the plot of characters piecing together the actual events that led to the death of two teens they used to know.

Life As We Knew It → We All Looked Up

Life As We Knew It is the first book is the Last Survivors series, following a sophomore named Miranda as she documents the events of her life after learning that an outer space collision between an asteroid and the moon is causing destruction on earth. Similarly, We All Looked Up follow the lives of four very different high school students in the two months before a potential asteroid crashes into the planet. See Bookstacked’s review here.

Both read-alikes divulge into the effects of future meteoric chaos on the way that these unique teenagers spend their remaining time before disaster strikes.