The Rosie Project
Graeme Simsion
A genetics professor who struggles with social cues sets out to find a wife with a scientific questionnaire, in a warm, laugh-out-loud comedy.
All books-like lists
Books like Lessons in Chemistry
Lessons in Chemistry follows Elizabeth Zott, a brilliant chemist in the early 1960s who ends up hosting a TV cooking show. These six books bring more clever outsiders, dry humor and stubborn determination.
Books to read next
Where'd You Go, Bernadette
Maria Semple
A once-celebrated architect in Seattle vanishes before a family trip, and her teenage daughter pieces together why, in a satire told partly in emails and documents.
A Gentleman in Moscow
Amor Towles
In 1922 a Russian count is sentenced to house arrest in a grand Moscow hotel, where he builds a full life as the world outside changes.
Hidden Figures
Margot Lee Shetterly
The true story of the Black women mathematicians who helped NASA win the space race, working in segregated Virginia, in readable narrative nonfiction.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Taylor Jenkins Reid
An aging movie star finally tells her story to an unknown journalist, in a glossy page-turner about ambition and the price of fame.
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
Gail Honeyman
A Glasgow woman who has built her whole life around routine finds an ally in an awkward, kind colleague, in a book that is funny first and then deeper.
How to choose
Lessons in Chemistry mixes comedy with anger, so choose by which you want more of. For laughs and a clever outsider, try The Rosie Project or Where'd You Go, Bernadette, the second a sharper satire. A Gentleman in Moscow keeps the wit but adds historical sweep and a calm, charming pace. For real women who beat the odds in science, Hidden Figures is nonfiction and covers segregation and discrimination. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine are the more emotional picks, and both deal with painful pasts. Lessons itself includes sexual assault and sexism, and Evelyn Hugo touches on domestic abuse, so check content notes if those are hard for you.
Want something more personal?
Tell Bookworm what you liked and what you didn't, and get a short list chosen for you.
Get picks tailored to youMore books like this
- Books like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn HugoThe Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo has an aging Hollywood icon tell her glamorous, scandalous life story to an unknown journalist.
- Books like A Man Called OveA Man Called Ove is about a grumpy man whose quiet routine is upended when a lively family moves in next door.
- Books like The Midnight LibraryThe Midnight Library follows Nora Seed to a library between life and death, where every book is a different life she could have lived.