Books Like Remarkably Bright Creatures

Why Each Pick

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

The closest match in heart. Ove, a grieving, rule-bound widower, has no interest in his new neighbors until they refuse to leave him alone. Like Tova, he is set in his ways and slowly opens up to people half his age. Backman's humor is broader and the book is set in a Swedish suburb rather than a seaside town. Content note: Ove's suicide attempts, handled with dark humor.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

For a solitary heroine with fixed routines and a lot she isn't saying. Eleanor keeps the same lunch, the same weekend and almost no company until helping an elderly stranger with a coworker draws her out. Like Remarkably Bright Creatures, it is funny, tender and about loneliness and second chances. Eleanor is much younger than Tova, and her story goes darker. Content note: childhood trauma.

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

More Backman, for a story that seems to be about one thing and turns out to be about grief and kindness. A failed bank robber takes a group of strangers hostage at an apartment viewing, and their stories slowly connect. It shares Remarkably Bright Creatures' gentle mystery and its cast of lonely people. It is more of an ensemble comedy. Content note: suicide is part of the story.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

For older characters who are sharper than everyone assumes. Four residents of an English retirement village solve cold cases for fun until a real murder arrives. Like Tova, they are underestimated and stubbornly independent, and the book is warm and funny. It is a proper whodunit, with more plot and a bigger cast, and it starts a series.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

For a sharp, independent woman and an animal who understands more than the humans do. In the 1960s, chemist Elizabeth Zott ends up teaching science on a TV cooking show, and her dog Six-Thirty gets chapters of his own, much as Marcellus does. It is funnier and angrier about sexism, with a younger heroine. Content note: sexual assault in the early chapters.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

For a non-human narrator watching people and trying to understand love and loss. Klara, an Artificial Friend, observes the family who buys her with patient attention, much as Marcellus studies Tova from his tank. Ishiguro's novel is quieter, sadder and set in an unsettling near future, with none of Marcellus's salty jokes. It is a short, literary read at 307 pages.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

For pure comfort. A by-the-book caseworker is sent to evaluate an island orphanage of magical children and finds a family he didn't know he needed. Like Remarkably Bright Creatures, it is about a lonely, orderly person letting others in, with a seaside setting. It is a fantasy, sweeter and lighter, with a gentle romance at its center.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

For a small coastal town, a lot of nature writing and a mystery at the heart of it. Kya, abandoned as a child, raises herself in the North Carolina marshes and becomes the suspect in a local man's death. It shares Remarkably Bright Creatures' sense of place and its outsider who sees more than the town does, but it is moodier and more of a crime story. Content note: abandonment and attempted sexual assault.