Guest post written by Guy’s Girl author Emma Noyes
Emma Noyes told her mother she wanted to be an author when she was six. She grew up in a suburb outside Chicago and attended Harvard University, where she studied history & literature. She started her career at a beer company, but left because she wanted to write about mermaids and witches—eventually publishing her first YA fantasy series, The Sunken City. She now lives in Chicago with her Swedish boyfriend and miniature Pomeranian. Guy’s Girl is her adult debut. Learn more online at emmavrnoyes.com.
If I say the words coming-of-age story, what do you think of? Probably one of the classics, right? Catcher in the Rye, Little Women, To Kill a Mockingbird… As a kid, I thought that only books focused on children and teenagers could be classified as stories of growing up, because, once you reach the ripe ol’ age of twenty, you’re already a full-fledged adult. You’re mature. You’ve been in love once or twice. You know how to pay taxes.
Ha.
Now, at 28 years old, I know how wrong I was. A person can “come of age” at any age. Growing up isn’t about living for a certain number of days; it’s about figuring out who you are and what you want to do with the life you’ve been given. My upcoming novel, GUY’S GIRL, focuses on exactly those themes. And in anticipation of its release, I’m sharing my list of all-time favorite coming-of-age books. I hope you enjoy.
NORMAL PEOPLE by Sally Rooney
To me, the best books are the ones that articulate emotions you didn’t even know you had until you saw them laid out for you on the page. In NORMAL PEOPLE, Sally Rooney does that with bone-dry, deceptively simple prose, the result of which is a coming-of-age story that made me cry for twelve hours straight while reading it—not because it was tragic, but because reading it felt like holding up a mirror to some of the most difficult parts of myself, then being hugged and told that everything is going to be okay. It’s one of my favorite books ever, and I will never stop recommending it.
TALKING AT NIGHT by Claire Daverley
Written in a similar style to NORMAL PEOPLE (no quotation marks, shifting perspectives, told over a long stretch of time), TALKING AT NIGHT is another gorgeous, lyrically-written love story that begins at high school age and continues long after. Will and Rosie couldn’t be more different, but they are drawn together in an almost fated way, often drifting apart but always coming back together. Over the years, we watch them explore themselves and each other, weathering loss, illness, and much more before they get their happily ever after.
SUCH A FUN AGE by Kiley Reid
Based on this list so far, can you tell I love a good love story? Of course, coming-of-age is about far more than just romance. It’s also about wrestling with questions of identity, race, roots, privilege. One of my favorite novels that explores all these themes and more is SUCH A FUN AGE by Kiley Reid. The story follows Emira Tucker, a young, black college graduate who works part-time babysitting for an affluent white family. An incident where Emira is accused of kidnapping the white child she babysits sets off a fast-paced book that I absolutely couldn’t put down.
THE IMMORTALISTS by Chloe Benjamin
I remember so clearly the day that my old roommate handed me this book. Chloe Benjamin’s captivating novel follows four siblings who, early on in life, learn the dates of their eventual death. THE IMMORTALISTS takes a very unique spin on the coming-of-age trope, as we follow not one but four different stories: Las Vegas magician Klara; artistic Simon who moves to San Francisco just before the start of the AIDs epidemic; serious military physician Daniel; and Varya, whose section was one of the most accurate depictions of living with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder that I’ve ever seen. Together, these stories do an incredible job of showing how those who start in the same place can still grow into vastly different lives.
THE SONG OF ACHILLES by Madeline Miller
I would be remiss without mentioning the novel that blew up BookTok. Madeline Miller’s stunning work of mythology/historical fiction/romance-guaranteed-to-make-you-ugly-cry (I don’t even know how to categorize it) is the doomed story of Achilles (of the heel) and his best friend, Patroclus. Though it’s set against a sweeping backdrop of war, gods, and monsters, THE SONG OF ACHILLES is, at its heart, a queer love story about two young men who find solace in each other inside a tumultuous world.