Books like The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Yale Tishman, development director for a Chicago art gallery, plans to secure a priceless collection of 1920s paintings in 1985. As his career rises, the AIDS crisis escalates—friends die, his partner tests positive, and he confronts the possibility of infection. Forty‑two years later, Fiona, Nico’s sister, journeys to Paris to locate her daughter who vanished into a cult. During her stay, she reconnects with a photographer who documented the Chicago epidemic. Their intertwined stories reveal how the AIDS epidemic reshapes family, friendship, and identity, offering a moving examination of loss and resilience.
First publish date: 1918
Genre: LGBTQ+ Fiction/Gay Fiction
Authors: Rebecca Makkai
★
★
★
★
★
0.0 (0 community ratings)
How are these books recommended?
The books recommended for The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai 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 Great Believers (25 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
A Little Life follows four college friends in New York as they confront trauma, love and the enduring scars of their pasts, weaving themes of friendship, family, and identity into a profound coming‑of‑age story.
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
Middlesex follows a Greek-American family's multigenerational saga, charting the life of its intersex protagonist as they navigate gender identity and the search for belonging.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A luminous twins’ story of love, loss, and family that follows Jude and Noah from carefree adolescence to a painful rift, as each seeks healing and a return to one another.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
In 1983 London, twenty‑year‑old Nick Guest, a recent Oxford graduate, becomes entangled in the lavish, politically charged world of MP Gerald Feddens, his wife Rachel, and their family, discovering love, ambition, and the temptations of an era in sharp, humor‑laden prose.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Twin African American sisters flee their hometown after their father's murder—one chooses to pass as white while the other stays true to her identity, exploring race, family, and the complexities of self through generations.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Celestial and Roy, a young couple embodying the American Dream, are torn apart when Roy is wrongfully convicted and sent to prison. Five years later, his conviction is overturned, forcing Celestial to confront the fractured life she must rebuild.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
After a twenty‑year friendship ends, Arthur Greer is invited to his ex‑boyfriend’s wedding and embarks on a globe‑spanning trip that reconnects him with a past love, tests his courage and forces a fresh start at fifty.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A contemporary family drama in which a mother‑child relationship is complicated by a companion chimpanzee, raising questions of identity, secrecy and moral responsibility.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A heartfelt story about the enduring bonds of women in a Louisiana town, exploring friendship, motherhood, and the generational struggles that shape their lives.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A coming-of-age story about a 14-year-old girl grappling with the loss of her uncle and searching for the truth about her family's past.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A quartet of intimate stories about family bonds and personal reconciliation, showing how ordinary choices shape destinies in the everyday lives of sisters, a school janitor, a stranger on the street, and a long‑absent daughter.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Madeleine Thien’s memoir‑style novel traces an intergenerational Chinese family from Mao’s Cultural Revolution to present‑day Vancouver, exploring how political upheaval reshaped musicians, parents and children across time.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Jende Jonga’s dream of a new life in New York turns into a struggle as his family faces the rigors of immigration law and the hidden dangers of working for a powerful executive.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
After being adopted by a quirky Dublin couple who treat him only as a house‑guest, Cyril embarks on a life‑spanning quest to discover his origins, his place in Ireland, and the meaning of true belonging.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Arjie, the second son of a privileged Sri Lankan family, struggles to reconcile his playful love of staging wedding pageants with the rigid expectations of adulthood, while confronting his emerging sexuality amid a nation torn by Tamil‑Sinhalese conflict.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
When Katie’s world collapses, her estranged grandmother Mary’s dementia forces a family reunion that reveals long‑hidden secrets, forcing Katie to confront her mother’s controlling ways, her own sexuality, and her future as she pieces together Mary’s past.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A bustling Chinese immigrant family’s fortune crashes, forcing them on a cross‑country road trip that tests their bonds and redefines what home means.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A Filipino immigrant’s reunion with her uncle in America opens a quiet exploration of family, identity, and the lingering effects of a turbulent past.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Nell Zink’s debut novel, Mislaid, explores intricate family ties—mothers and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and sons—against a backdrop of historical New York, touching on cultural heritage, race awareness, and identity.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A poignant look at a Kentucky family's history, the book follows two generations and their elderly neighbor, revealing how the youngest son’s AIDS-related death forces confronting loyalty, memory, and the bonds that shape family life.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Set in New York’s East Village, *Christodora* follows Milly and Jared, a young artistic couple, as they confront love, addiction and the legacy of AIDS activism through their neighbor Hector and adopted son Mateo.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
See https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19781733W/Eleanor_Oliphant_Is_Completely_Fine
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Some Other Similar Books
The Queen's Gambit by Walter TevisHave a similar book in mind? Let others know!
Please login to submit books!