Books like “The Time Traveler's Wife”

What to read after “The Time Traveler's Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
They Both Die at the End
Adam Silvera · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Star-Crossed Lovers
On the day they both receive a call saying they will die within twenty-four hours, Mateo and Rufus meet through an app for people facing their last day. The two teenagers spend it together, trying to live a lifetime in the time they have left.
2
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
V. E. Schwab · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism” and “Melancholic”
In 1714 France, Addie LaRue makes a desperate deal to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. For three hundred years she drifts through history unseen, until in a New York bookshop a young man tells her that he remembers her.
3
The Night Circus
Erin Morgenstern · 2011
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism”
- Magical Realism
- Star-Crossed Lovers
A black-and-white circus arrives without warning and opens only at night. Behind its rivalry of illusions stand two young magicians, Celia and Marco, bound by a contest neither chose. As they fall in love, the circus and everyone in it becomes the stakes.
4
Before the Coffee Gets Cold
Toshikazu Kawaguchi · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism” and “Melancholic”
In a small Tokyo cafe, one seat lets a visitor travel to the past. There are rules: you cannot change the present, you must not leave the seat, and you must return before the coffee goes cold. Four customers sit down, each hoping to say what was left unsaid.
5
Me Before You
Jojo Moyes · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Star-Crossed Lovers
Bubbly Lou takes a job caring for Will, a wealthy young man left paralysed after an accident and bitter about the life he has lost. As she tries to show him there is still joy worth living for, the two of them change each other in ways neither expected.
6
The Midnight Library
Matt Haig · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism” and “Melancholic”
- Magical Realism
- Melancholic
Stuck between life and death, Nora Seed finds a library whose shelves hold all the lives she might have lived if she had chosen differently. She tries them one by one, measuring her regrets against what she actually wants from being alive.
7
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
Leslye Walton · 2014
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism” and “Melancholic”
- Magical Realism
- Melancholic
Born with wings she cannot fly, Ava grows up in a Seattle house where the women carry a long history of love that ends badly. As she longs to be an ordinary girl, her family's sorrows keep shaping everyone around her.
8
The Astonishing Color of After
Emily X.R. Pan · 2018
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism” and “Melancholic”
- Magical Realism
- Melancholic
After her mother's death, Leigh travels to Taiwan to meet grandparents she has never known, convinced her mother has returned as a red bird. Grief, a family silence and a friendship she left behind come together as she learns what she can and cannot hold on to.
9
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston · 1937
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Star-Crossed Lovers
Janie Crawford tells her friend the story of her life: three marriages, a long search for love and independence, and the storm that changes everything. Set in the Black towns and farms of Florida, the novel follows her from a silent girl to a woman who speaks for herself.
10
The Lovely Bones
Alice Sebold · 2002
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism” and “Melancholic”
- Magical Realism
- Melancholic
Fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon is murdered near her home and watches from her own heaven as her family and her killer's neighbours try to carry on. From that distance she follows her parents' grief, her sister growing up and a small town's slow reckoning with what happened.
11
The Fault in Our Stars
John Green · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Star-Crossed Lovers
Hazel Grace, a teenager with terminal cancer, meets Augustus Waters at a support group. Their cautious romance grows through shared wit and a planned trip to Amsterdam, while both confront what they can and cannot control.
12
Practical Magic
Alice Hoffman · 1995
Similar atmosphere: “Magical Realism”
- Magical Realism
- Star-Crossed Lovers
Sisters Sally and Gillian Owens grow up in a small Massachusetts town under a family curse that poisons love. Sally swears off magic while Gillian chases trouble, until a dead boyfriend on Gillian's doorstep drags them both back into the spells they tried to leave behind.