Books like A List of Cages

A tender continuation following Ari and Dante through senior year as first love deepens against the weight of sudden loss.

A tender, self-deprecating first-person coming-of-age set against a first trip to Iran, where a new friendship gently cracks open questions of identity, depression, and belonging.

Shares the hopeful + foundfamily thread

A deadpan, socially-oblivious narrator whose precise, formal voice hides deep trauma, so the comedy of her literal-mindedness slowly gives way to real heartbreak and tentative healing.

An episodic, affectionate portrait of a Depression-era street and its drifters, shopkeepers, and dreamers — plot takes a back seat to community texture and small human moments.

A contemporary YA narrated by a Black trans teen navigating identity and first love — emotionally resonant and hopeful in register.

A gentle, episodic Edwardian childhood idyll where small country adventures by the railway line accumulate into real emotional warmth, culminating in one of children's literature's most quietly cathartic reunions.