10 Tender Books Like The People We Keep By Allison Larkin

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“If someone changes so much that they’re barely the same person, who are you even missing?”

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If you’re searching for books like The People We Keep, you’re probably looking for another raw, heartfelt story about self-discovery, resilience, and starting afresh. Allison Larkin’s novel resonates so deeply because it blends emotional coming-of-age storytelling with a quiet, character-driven journey about finding a place to belong. Here at What We Reading, you’ll find books similar to The People We Keep that explore themes of found family, healing from the past, and learning to build a life that finally feels like home. Whether you’re looking for what to read after The People We Keep or simply want more emotional contemporary fiction with the same intimate, reflective tone, these novels all deliver. Each recommendation captures that bittersweet mix of heartbreak and hope that makes Larkin’s book so memorable. 

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The People We Keep Summary

April Sawicki is living in a motorless motorhome her father won in a poker game. Failing out of school, she gets a job at Margo’s diner, fending for herself in a town that’s never felt like home. After a fight with her dad, she packs her stuff and leaves for good, setting off on a journey to discover a life that’s all hers.

As April moves through the world, meeting people who feel like home, she chronicles her life in the songs she writes and learns that where she came from doesn’t dictate who she has to be. This lyrical, unflinching tale is for anyone who has yearned for the fierce power of found family or to grasp the profound beauty of choosing to belong.

The Great Alone – Kristin Hannah

First up on our list of the best books like The People We Keep is Kristin Hannah’s acclaimed bestseller, The Great Alone. Ernt Allbright comes home from Vietnam a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision to move to Alaska, where he and his family will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier. Thirteen-year-old Leni hopes that the new land will lead to a better life for her family. 

At first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. But as winter approaches and darkness descends upon the state, the family starts to fracture. Soon, the perils outside pale in comparison to the threats from within. In this unforgettable portrait of human frailty and resilience, Kristin Hannah serves up a daring, beautiful story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature.

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The Perks Of Being A Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky

One of the most famous coming-of-age stories of all time, perfect for anyone who loved The People We Keep, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is the story of what it’s like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie’s letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We might not know where he lives or to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. 

Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it put himself on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixtapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is the perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. 

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The Stationery Shop – Marjan Kamali

Roya, a dreamy, idealistic teenager living amongst the political upheaval of 1953 Tehran, finds a literary oasis in kindly Mr Fakhri’s neighbourhood shop. Then Mr Fakhri introduces Roya to his other favourite customer, handsome Bahman, and she loses her heart at once. Their romance blossoms, and the little stationery shop remains their favourite place in all of Tehran. 

A few short months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square when violence erupts – a result of the coup that forever changes the country’s future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. With a sorrowful heart, Roya learns to move on – to college in California, to another man, and a new life in New England. That is, until six decades later, when an accident of fate leads her back to Bahman and offers a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century. 

Shuggie Bain – Douglas Stuart

Shuggie Bain is another truly unforgettable historical novel similar to The People We Keep, that follows the story of young Hugh “Shuggie” Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow. Thatcher’s policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city’s notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings. 

Shuggie’s mother, Agnes, keeps her pride by looking good. But, under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink. Shuggie is soon left to care for his mother, and is desperate to fit in. Agnes is supportive, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her – even her beloved son. A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely ever seen in fiction. 

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Open Water – Caleb Azumah Nelson

Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, and both are now artists trying to make a mark in the city that, by turns, celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence. 

At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that only sees you as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson has written one of the most essential British debut novels like The People We Keep. 

The Music Of Bees – Eileen Garvin

Forty-four-year-old Alice Holtzman is stuck in a dead-end job, bereft of family, and now reeling from the unexpected death of her husband. Alice has started having panic attacks whenever she thinks about her life. In the grips of one of these, she nearly collides with Jake – a troubled, paraplegic teenager. Charmed by Jake’s sincere interest in her 120,000 honeybees and looking to rescue him from his toxic home life, Alice surprises herself by inviting Jake to her farm. 

And then there’s Harry, a twenty-four-year-old with debilitating social anxiety who is desperate for work. When he applies to Alice’s ad for part-time farm work, he’s shocked to find himself hired. Beautifully moving, warm, and uplifting, The Music of Bees is about the power of friendship, compassion in the face of loss, and finding the courage to start over at any age when things don’t turn out the way you’d hoped. 

This Is How It Always Is – Laurie Frankel

Claude is five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. He also loves wearing a dress and dreams of becoming a princess. When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl. Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. They’re just not sure they’re ready to share that with the world. Soon, the whole family is keeping Claude’s secret. Until one day it explodes. 

This Is How It Always Is is a book similar to The People We Keep about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family. And it’s about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again. Children grow, but not always according to plan. And families with secrets don’t get to keep them forever. 

Ask Again, Yes – Mary Beath Keane

Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, two rookie cops in the NYPD, live next door to each other outside the city. What happens behind closed doors in both their homes – the loneliness of Francis’ wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian’s wife, Anne – sets the stage for explosive events to come. Ask Again, Yes is a moving novel about two families, the bond between their children, a tragedy that reverberates over four decades, the daily intimacies of marriage, and the power of forgiveness. 

Of Women And Salt – Gabriela Garcia

In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction. Daughter of Carmen, a Cuban immigrant, she is determined to learn more about her family’s past, and makes a snap decision to take in the daughter of a neighbour detained by ICE. Carmen, still wrestling with the trauma of displacement, must process her difficult relationship with her own mother while trying to raise the wayward Jeanette. Steadfast in her quest, Jeanette travels to Cuba to see her grandmother and reckon with a secret from the past destined to erupt. 

From nineteenth-century cigar factories to present-day detention centres, Gabriela Garcia’s Of Women and Salt is a kaleidoscope portrait of betrayals that have shaped the lives of these extraordinary women. A haunting meditation on the choices of mothers, the legacy of the memories they carry, and the tenacity of women who choose to tell their stories, it is a tale of America’s most tangled, honest, human roots. 

Anxious People – Fredrik Backman

Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. Each of these strangers carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they claim to be. And all of them – bank robber included – desperately crave some sort of rescue. 

As the authorities and the media surround the premises, these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next. Anxious People by Fredrik Backman is an ingeniously constructed story about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope – perfect for anyone who loved The People We Keep. 

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