2 Authors Like Sally Rooney For The Thought Daughter

Books you should read if you liked her writing

“Marianne, he said, I’m not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me.”

– Sally Rooney, Normal People

With the rise of reading and sharing on social media, I’m no stranger to searching for my next favorite read on BookTok- what readers call the reading side of TikTok. Amongst the most popular authors there is Sally Rooney, who has set quite a reputation with titles like Beautiful World Where Are You, Conversations with Friends, and Normal People. If you are able to get past her lack of use of quotation marks (and I mean severe lack), you might enjoy the raw, gut-wrenching nature of her seemingly plotless books. Readers seem obsessed with the simplicity with which she conveys the most troubling human emotions and the complex character relationships that are at the center of all her novels. While waiting for her next release, I dove deep into the world of contemporary literature to find other authors who gave me that same unique feeling I only ever found with Sally Rooney. Here are my top picks.

1. Coco Mellors 

I came across Coco Mellors when her debut novel Cleopatra & Frankenstein blew up on social media (at least in my corner of the online world). Every cool girl I followed was reading or had read the book, and they all had something good to say. Although I never got around to reading Cleopatra & Frankenstein (yet!), I most recently dove into her second book, Blue Sisters. What I’m most often referring to as the modern-age Little Women, Blue Sisters was able to capture the intense and often challenging relationship between sisters. In this novel, Mellors tests the fragile balance of uplifting and criticizing that is the foundation of all sisterhood. Its raw and unafraid use of real-world issues is what made me feel like I was reading Sally Rooney, and the way it reminds me of my own sister is why I will always recommend it to those with siblings.  

Blue Sisters Synopsis 

“The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.
 
But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize the greatest secrets they’ve been keeping might not have been from each other, but from themselves.”
 
 

2. Otessa Moshfegh 

Otessa Moshfegh will unapologetically bring all your deepest and darkest secrets to the page. Given her rather grotesque style of writing, not many would pair her with Sally Rooney in terms of style. I selected Moshfegh for this list because no one does plotless quite like her. I’ve never been so entertained by watching a NYC girl do absolutely nothing the way I was while reading My Year of Rest and Relaxation. She also somehow writes the most disgusting things that one might argue should never have been printed, and she does it all with such grace that makes you wonder why we are so ashamed of such things if they are so inherently human. Rooney and Moshfegh are both unafraid to write about all of the mundane and the weird parts of everyday life. Read with caution. 

My Year of Rest and Relaxation Synopsis

“From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a novel about a young woman’s efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes. 

Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, and lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?” 
 

The world has yet to witness another contemporary writer rise to the spotlight the way Sally Rooney has. While Rooney’s writing is so quintessentially her, Coco Mellors and Ottessa Moshfegh are two other great options if you want to keep reading books with the same sort of vibe.

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