8 Coming-of-Age Books That Take Place in Adulthood

8 months ago 71

This contented contains affiliate links. When you bargain done these links, we whitethorn gain an affiliate commission.

Steph Auteri is simply a writer who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her much originative enactment has appeared successful Creative Nonfiction, nether the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published successful Southwest Review, was listed arsenic a Notable Essay successful Best American Essays 2021. She besides writes bookish worldly present and astatine the Feminist Book Club, is the writer of A Dirty Word, and is the laminitis of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, feline snuggling, and staring astatine the birds successful her backyard feeder. You tin larn much astatine stephauteri.com and travel her connected Insta/Threads astatine @stephauteri.

View All posts by Steph Auteri

Steph Auteri is simply a writer who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her much originative enactment has appeared successful Creative Nonfiction, nether the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published successful Southwest Review, was listed arsenic a Notable Essay successful Best American Essays 2021. She besides writes bookish worldly present and astatine the Feminist Book Club, is the writer of A Dirty Word, and is the laminitis of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, feline snuggling, and staring astatine the birds successful her backyard feeder. You tin larn much astatine stephauteri.com and travel her connected Insta/Threads astatine @stephauteri.

View All posts by Steph Auteri

Steph Auteri is simply a writer who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her much originative enactment has appeared successful Creative Nonfiction, nether the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published successful Southwest Review, was listed arsenic a Notable Essay successful Best American Essays 2021. She besides writes bookish worldly present and astatine the Feminist Book Club, is the writer of A Dirty Word, and is the laminitis of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, feline snuggling, and staring astatine the birds successful her backyard feeder. You tin larn much astatine stephauteri.com and travel her connected Insta/Threads astatine @stephauteri.

View All posts by Steph Auteri

Steph Auteri is simply a writer who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her much originative enactment has appeared successful Creative Nonfiction, nether the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published successful Southwest Review, was listed arsenic a Notable Essay successful Best American Essays 2021. She besides writes bookish worldly present and astatine the Feminist Book Club, is the writer of A Dirty Word, and is the laminitis of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, feline snuggling, and staring astatine the birds successful her backyard feeder. You tin larn much astatine stephauteri.com and travel her connected Insta/Threads astatine @stephauteri.

View All posts by Steph Auteri

Steph Auteri is simply a writer who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her much originative enactment has appeared successful Creative Nonfiction, nether the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published successful Southwest Review, was listed arsenic a Notable Essay successful Best American Essays 2021. She besides writes bookish worldly present and astatine the Feminist Book Club, is the writer of A Dirty Word, and is the laminitis of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, feline snuggling, and staring astatine the birds successful her backyard feeder. You tin larn much astatine stephauteri.com and travel her connected Insta/Threads astatine @stephauteri.

View All posts by Steph Auteri

Steph Auteri is simply a writer who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her much originative enactment has appeared successful Creative Nonfiction, nether the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published successful Southwest Review, was listed arsenic a Notable Essay successful Best American Essays 2021. She besides writes bookish worldly present and astatine the Feminist Book Club, is the writer of A Dirty Word, and is the laminitis of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, feline snuggling, and staring astatine the birds successful her backyard feeder. You tin larn much astatine stephauteri.com and travel her connected Insta/Threads astatine @stephauteri.

View All posts by Steph Auteri

Steph Auteri is simply a writer who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her much originative enactment has appeared successful Creative Nonfiction, nether the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published successful Southwest Review, was listed arsenic a Notable Essay successful Best American Essays 2021. She besides writes bookish worldly present and astatine the Feminist Book Club, is the writer of A Dirty Word, and is the laminitis of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, feline snuggling, and staring astatine the birds successful her backyard feeder. You tin larn much astatine stephauteri.com and travel her connected Insta/Threads astatine @stephauteri.

View All posts by Steph Auteri

Steph Auteri is simply a writer who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her much originative enactment has appeared successful Creative Nonfiction, nether the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published successful Southwest Review, was listed arsenic a Notable Essay successful Best American Essays 2021. She besides writes bookish worldly present and astatine the Feminist Book Club, is the writer of A Dirty Word, and is the laminitis of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, feline snuggling, and staring astatine the birds successful her backyard feeder. You tin larn much astatine stephauteri.com and travel her connected Insta/Threads astatine @stephauteri.

View All posts by Steph Auteri

Steph Auteri is simply a writer who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her much originative enactment has appeared successful Creative Nonfiction, nether the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published successful Southwest Review, was listed arsenic a Notable Essay successful Best American Essays 2021. She besides writes bookish worldly present and astatine the Feminist Book Club, is the writer of A Dirty Word, and is the laminitis of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, feline snuggling, and staring astatine the birds successful her backyard feeder. You tin larn much astatine stephauteri.com and travel her connected Insta/Threads astatine @stephauteri.

View All posts by Steph Auteri

Steph Auteri is simply a writer who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her much originative enactment has appeared successful Creative Nonfiction, nether the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published successful Southwest Review, was listed arsenic a Notable Essay successful Best American Essays 2021. She besides writes bookish worldly present and astatine the Feminist Book Club, is the writer of A Dirty Word, and is the laminitis of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, feline snuggling, and staring astatine the birds successful her backyard feeder. You tin larn much astatine stephauteri.com and travel her connected Insta/Threads astatine @stephauteri.

View All posts by Steph Auteri

Steph Auteri is simply a writer who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her much originative enactment has appeared successful Creative Nonfiction, nether the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published successful Southwest Review, was listed arsenic a Notable Essay successful Best American Essays 2021. She besides writes bookish worldly present and astatine the Feminist Book Club, is the writer of A Dirty Word, and is the laminitis of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, feline snuggling, and staring astatine the birds successful her backyard feeder. You tin larn much astatine stephauteri.com and travel her connected Insta/Threads astatine @stephauteri.

View All posts by Steph Auteri

Steph Auteri is simply a writer who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her much originative enactment has appeared successful Creative Nonfiction, nether the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published successful Southwest Review, was listed arsenic a Notable Essay successful Best American Essays 2021. She besides writes bookish worldly present and astatine the Feminist Book Club, is the writer of A Dirty Word, and is the laminitis of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, feline snuggling, and staring astatine the birds successful her backyard feeder. You tin larn much astatine stephauteri.com and travel her connected Insta/Threads astatine @stephauteri.

View All posts by Steph Auteri

Steph Auteri is simply a writer who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her much originative enactment has appeared successful Creative Nonfiction, nether the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and different publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published successful Southwest Review, was listed arsenic a Notable Essay successful Best American Essays 2021. She besides writes bookish worldly present and astatine the Feminist Book Club, is the writer of A Dirty Word, and is the laminitis of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, feline snuggling, and staring astatine the birds successful her backyard feeder. You tin larn much astatine stephauteri.com and travel her connected Insta/Threads astatine @stephauteri.

View All posts by Steph Auteri

As a genre, coming-of-age books thin to absorption connected adolescents, those young radical who are inactive successful the process of processing from puerility into adulthood. The reasoning goes that adolescents are inactive processing arsenic humans, learning who they are and who they mightiness become. Rich fodder for bully literature.

By extension, 1 past presumes that erstwhile idiosyncratic has reached adulthood, they person go themselves.

They yet person their crap together.

As idiosyncratic who spent the entirety of her 20s and 30s wondering whether oregon not she was inactive experiencing a quarter-life crisis, I tin safely accidental that having my crap unneurotic has ne'er felt similar a imperishable authorities of being. At the property of 42, I americium inactive changing. All of beingness is simply a crisis, and we ne'er halt processing and becoming.

Enter coming-of-age tales that instrumentality spot successful adulthood, narratives that admit that we are ever evolving successful a myriad of ways.

While immoderate of the titles beneath bash glimpse backmost astatine the protagonists’ teen and preteen selves, showing the shaky foundations upon which their adulthoods were built, the superior absorption of these stories is connected their grown-up lives, lives successful which they are flailing oregon drifting and inactive looking for their futures.

woman, eating publication  cover

Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda

I’ve recommended this publication successful the past, penning astir however its supernatural elements are beside the point, and astir however it explores hunger and belonging successful an particularly fascinating way. But much than thing else, Kohda’s communicative astir a young vampire pulling distant from her parent is an big coming-of-age story. Lydia — the protagonist of Woman, Eating — is simply a young vampire who struggles to provender herself erstwhile chopped disconnected from her accustomed nutrient source. Through this premise, readers travel Lydia arsenic she strikes retired connected her own, seeking independency arsenic an artist, belonging and emotion among humans, and a consciousness of identity.

cover of This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

I picked up this publication due to the fact that of its Sliding Doors vibes. I conscionable emotion narratives that question the choices we marque and amusement however they mightiness reverberate passim our lives. In this clip question book, Alice, a pistillate underwhelmed by the authorities of her life, falls dormant connected the eve of her 40th day and wakes up connected her saccharine 16. Instead of utilizing this newfound time-traveling quality to spell connected an escapade oregon reclaim mislaid romance oregon prevention the world, Alice starts to spot her begetter and their narration and the choices she’s made successful beingness successful a full caller light. When she yet settles backmost into her present, she does truthful with a caller consciousness of bid astir however things are, and however other they mightiness someday be.

Book Deals Newsletter

Sign up for our Book Deals newsletter and get up to 80% disconnected books you really privation to read.

Thank you for signing up! Keep an oculus connected your inbox.

By signing up you hold to our terms of use

In by Will McPhail - publication  screen  - enactment     drafting  of a beige young antheral   against a beige inheritance  peering done  a doorway filled with vivid greenery. Title is successful  a matching green, each  caps, successful  the precocious    near  country   of the cover.

In by Will McPhail

In this semi-autobiographical graphic novel, McPhail’s protagonist Nick has occupation connecting with others. As helium embarks upon a caller relationship, experiencing tiny bursts of intimacy and vulnerability, helium begins to spot that erstwhile helium speaks from the heart, the satellite astir him is capable to travel alive. As helium develops his quality to beryllium unfastened and unguarded and existent with the radical successful his life, some helium and his intimate relationships are transformed. This publication legit made maine cry.

Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades publication  cover

Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades

This stunning book, written successful the archetypal idiosyncratic plural, is built astir a Greek chorus of Brown girls who are increasing up successful Queens, New York. While it does statesman by moving done their childhood, it yet travels each the mode done their varying adulthoods, exploring friendship, ambition, loyalty, and much — successful summation to the ways successful which they inevitably diverge. What astir drives this book, however, is the question of what it means to beryllium a Brown miss who is struggling to find her mode successful the world.

cover of Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho; coating  of 2  young Asian women done successful  pinkish  and yellowish  against a greenish  background

Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho

This publication seesaws backmost and distant betwixt the perspectives of its 2 main protagonists, circling astir the relationship betwixt Fiona and Jane, 2 Taiwanese American women increasing up successful Los Angeles. Like Brown Girls, we statesman pursuing our main characters successful childhood, but we yet travel them done an full lifetime, with each of its ups and downs, its silences and estrangements, its tiny betrayals, and its moments of intimacy. What’s absorbing astir this coming-of-age communicative (and, again, it has this successful communal with Brown Girls) is however each woman’s beingness contrasts against the beingness of the other, truly emphasizing however the process of increasing up and gathering a beingness looks antithetic for everyone.

cover of Sea Change by Gina Chung

Sea Change by Gina Chung

In this novel, we travel Ro, a 30-year-old who feels frozen successful spot arsenic those successful her beingness look to determination and turn past her. Her fellow leaves her to articulation a ngo to Mars. Her champion friend, who is getting joined and who is thriving astatine work, grows ever much distant. Ro, meanwhile, has been moving the aforesaid menial occupation astatine an aquarium for what feels similar forever, and spending her nights drinking. Feeling progressively isolated, she doesn’t instrumentality it good erstwhile the elephantine octopus that’s been astatine the aquarium her full beingness is purchased by an extracurricular investor. At this point, she tin either drown successful stasis oregon find a mode to determination forward.

the screen  of White Horse

White Horse by Erika T. Wurth

Kari James, an Urban Native, tries not to deliberation astir her childhood. After all, erstwhile Kari was conscionable 2, her parent abandoned her, and erstwhile she was older, her champion person died of a cause overdose. Instead, Kari spends astir of her clip astatine her favourite dive bar, the White Horse, and cares for her father, who was permanently disabled successful a car crash. She’s adjacent to her relative Debby, too, but Debby’s hubby doesn’t o.k. of their friendship. He considers the aimless Kari a atrocious influence, though her wildest years are down her. But erstwhile Kari starts seeing disturbing visions of her mother, coupled with visions of a horrifying creature, she’s forced to face the past. As she delves deeper into what happened to her mom, and begins to travel to presumption with the nonaccomplishment of her friend, she finds herself moving cautiously toward a healthier, happier future.

Cover of Mimosa

Mimosa by Archie Bongiovanni

This graphic caller revolves astir 4 queer thirtysomethings, champion friends who are sick of being “the oldest gays astatine the party.” They determine to motorboat a caller queer lawsuit called Grind, a task that allows each of them to debar reasoning astir their existent problems, which tally the gamut from messy divorces and azygous motherhood to inappropriate workplace relationships and soiled secrets. The 4 of them person ever been determination for each different but, arsenic it becomes tougher to disregard their problems and adjacent tougher to afloat enactment each other, they find that the unthinkable happens: they turn apart. But friendships can’t ever past forever, particularly arsenic we turn and change. I loved this queer coming-of-age for adults.


If you emotion all coming-of-age titles, from YA to adult, you mightiness privation to cheque retired this database of 24 coming-of-age novels next.

Read Entire Article