Books like So Big

A sweeping, resilient portrait of a woman's hard-fought journey through poverty and societal barriers in turn-of-the-century Chicago. These 12 books are the closest matches in mood, pace and themes, with what each one shares with So Big.

resilient
nostalgic
determined
reflective

01
Jennie Gerhardt
Theodore Dreiser
A sweeping, melancholic portrait of a gentle soul slowly crushed by the rigid hypocrisies of American society.
Shares:
- earnest
- empathetic
02
Bread givers
Anzia Yezierska · 1925
A fierce, emotionally charged portrait of a young woman's fight to carve out her own identity from beneath the crushing weight of patriarchal tradition.
Shares:
- determined
- earnest
03
Sister Carrie
Theodore Dreiser · 1900
A sweeping, unsentimental portrait of ambition and moral compromise in the bustling, unforgiving cities of the Gilded Age.
Shares:
- earnest
- observant
04
The Good Earth
Pearl S. Buck · 1960
An elemental, sweeping saga of a family's rise from the soil and the heavy, inevitable cost of leaving their roots behind.
Shares:
- earnest
- grounded
05
The home-maker
Dorothy Canfield Fisher · 1924
A quietly radical domestic drama that transforms a stifling household into a space of profound, unexpected joy.
Shares:
- observant
- empathetic
06
The adventures of Augie March
Saul Bellow
A sprawling, street-smart odyssey through Depression-era America, fueled by an insatiable hunger for life and a refusal to be pinned down.
Shares:
- nostalgic
07
Harvesting the heart
Jodi Picoult
An emotionally raw exploration of how the ghosts of our childhoods haunt our attempts at motherhood and marriage.
Shares:
- reflective
- earnest
- empathetic
08
A Girl of the Limberlost
Gene Stratton-Porter
A gentle, nature-steeped classic about a resourceful girl finding her worth and independence among the moths and wetlands.
Shares:
- earnest
09
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy · 1920
A lush, devastating portrait of a woman crushed by the relentless machinery of fate and social hypocrisy.
Shares:
- earnest
10
The Shipping News
Annie Proulx
A bracing, salt-sprayed journey of a broken man finding unexpected grace in a rugged, unforgiving landscape.
Shares:
- observant
11
The Song of the Lark
Willa Cather · 1915
A sweeping, sun-drenched portrait of a young woman's relentless ascent to artistic greatness, rooted in the vastness of the American West.
Shares:
- earnest
- observant
12
The Grapes of Wrath
Boyd Cable · 1939
A sweeping, dust-choked epic of survival that burns with righteous indignation and radical empathy.
Shares:
- resilient
- earnest

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