Books like The calligrapher's daughter by Eugenia Kim
Najin Han, the intelligent and headstrong daughter of a respected Korean calligrapher, grows up during a tumultuous era when Japan steadily gains control over Korea. While her mother encourages Najin’s desire for independence, her stern father remains committed to preserving traditional values and family honor. Under the shadow of foreign occupation, Najin navigates the tensions between personal aspirations, cultural expectations, and the political upheaval that shapes her destiny.
First publish date: 2010
Genre: Coming of Age/Young Adult Coming of Age
Authors: Eugenia Kim
★
★
★
★
★
0.0 (0 community ratings)
How are these books recommended?
The books recommended for The calligrapher's daughter by Eugenia Kim are shaped by reader interaction. Votes on how closely books relate, user ratings, and community comments all help refine these recommendations and highlight books readers genuinely find similar in theme, ideas, and overall reading experience.
Have you read any of these books?
Your votes, ratings, and comments help improve recommendations and make it easier
for other readers to discover books they’ll enjoy.
Books similar to The calligrapher's daughter (23 similar books)
The beloved classic of American literature, Little Women, narrates the adventures of four March sisters as they grow up during the Civil War era.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens’s 1837-39 social novel, follows an orphan raised in a workhouse who flees to London, joins a gang of pickpockets, and uncovers family secrets while exposing child labour and exploitation.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
The Goldfinch chronicles the life of thirteen‑year‑old Theo Decker, who survives a museum attack that kills his mother and carries an art piece that becomes a lifelong obsession, exploring loss, identity, and art in contemporary America.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A novel about Emma Woodhouse, a young woman's struggles with matchmaking, misplaced pride, and the dangers of meddling in others' lives in 18th-century England.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks follows the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer whose cancer cells were taken in 1951 without her consent and later became the first immortal human cell line, HeLa, driving major scientific breakthroughs while raising questions of ethics, race, and medical exploitation.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Tsukuru Tazaki, a quiet railway engineer, embarks on a lonely journey to reunite with high‑school friends, seeking answers for his sudden ostracism and the shadowed past that still haunts him.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A magical summer of childhood adventures and philosophical pondering.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Pachinko follows a Korean family’s generations, from Sunja’s departure to Korea to her descendants’ struggles in Japan’s shifting social landscape, exploring love, sacrifice, and resilience.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Twelve-year‑old Nao in Tokyo wrestles with loneliness and bullying and, before she ends it all, writes a diary about her great‑grandmother, a Buddhist nun who has lived a century. Across the Pacific a novelist on a remote island discovers objects from Nao’s life and is drawn into her mystery.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Nick Hornby's second bestselling novel about sex, manliness, and fatherhood, about Will, a 36-year-old man child-free, discovering a way to meet women through single-parent groups, and Marcus, a 12-year-old boy dealing with a mother who makes him listen to Joni Mitchell rather than Nirvana.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Six talented teens bond at an arts summer camp amid Nixon's resignation and follow them into adulthood, exploring how friendship, talent, and life choices shape their destinies.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
D. H. Lawrence’s 1933 novel follows the Morel family in a Nottinghamshire coal town, exploring love, ambition, and the Oedipal tension that shapes a working‑class mother‑son relationship.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Christy is a nineteen-year-old teacher from North Carolina who moves to a poverty-stricken mountain community in Tennessee, struggling to adapt and find acceptance while her faith is tested by conflicting views on child rearing.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
During his last summer before college, Dade Hamilton wrestles with job insecurity, a secretive boyfriend, and family turmoil, until a chance meeting with Alex Kincaid sparks love and self‑acceptance, setting him on a path of coming out and new beginnings.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Eleven-year-old Deming Guo’s life shifts when his undocumented mother disappears, leaving him to be adopted by white college professors and uprooted from the Bronx to upstate New York, where he confronts loss and discovers his own identity.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A Hong Kong immigrant teenager in Brooklyn balances school, a night shift in a Chinatown sweatshop, and family expectations, while learning to translate both language and identity across cultural divides.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Two sisters separated by war: one raised in the United States, the other in South Korea, their family stories weave through the backdrop of the Korean War, revealing bonds that endure beyond distance.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A poignant coming-of-age novel set in California, featuring a Bosnian American protagonist who grapples with the trauma of war and the challenges of adapting to a new life.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
After Maribel’s life‑saving recovery, the Rivera family seeks a new life in Delaware, but cultural and linguistic hurdles threaten to derail their hopes for the American Dream.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Some Other Similar Books
A Thousand Roads to Home by Thea LimThe Beautiful Bureaucrat by Hong Kingston
Have a similar book in mind? Let others know!
Please login to submit books!