Patrick Ness is known for imaginative young adult fiction, notably the acclaimed novel A Monster Calls. He blends realistic emotions with fantasy elements, creating impactful stories that resonate.
If you enjoy reading books by Patrick Ness then you might also like the following authors:
Marcus Sedgwick writes thoughtful, mysterious books. He often explores dark or supernatural themes through character-driven storytelling. Like Patrick Ness's books, his work blends reality with elements of fantasy and mystique.
His novel Midwinterblood weaves together multiple interconnected stories across different time periods, offering rich atmosphere and subtleties that draw readers in.
Maggie Stiefvater crafts stories filled with compelling characters, emotional depth, and a touch of magic. Her writing style is lyrical and beautifully descriptive, creating worlds that seem both familiar and otherworldly.
Like Patrick Ness, she excels at depicting complex relationships and hidden secrets within ordinary life. One of her most loved books, The Raven Boys, brings together friendship, folklore, and the supernatural in an unforgettable way.
David Almond is known for his sensitive, evocative storytelling. His books often explore childhood, memory, and imagination, blending real life with just a hint of wonder.
Fans of Patrick Ness who appreciate emotional journeys and poetic language would connect with Almond's work. A notable example is Skellig, a gentle yet powerful story of friendship, discovery, and the unexplained lurking just out of sight.
John Green creates stories with authentic emotions, witty humor, and thoughtful exploration of life and identity.
While he typically stays grounded in realistic settings rather than fantasy, like Patrick Ness he shines in writing relatable, complex young characters with genuine struggles.
His novel Looking for Alaska vividly captures teen friendships, first love, and loss in a voice that feels sincere and engaging.
Libba Bray brings vibrant settings, sharp humor, and intriguing mysteries to life in her novels. Like Patrick Ness, she doesn't shy away from darker themes and portrays complex characters grappling with challenges in compelling ways.
Her novel A Great and Terrible Beauty blends fantasy, history, and mystery in a gripping tale of friendship, self-discovery, and mysterious power.
If you enjoy the thoughtful storytelling and emotional depth of Patrick Ness, you'll probably appreciate Ransom Riggs. He blends fantasy elements with historical settings and uses authentic, eerie vintage photographs to build strange and relatable worlds.
His book, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, follows a teen discovering a mysterious orphanage filled with unusual kids who have extraordinary powers.
Like Ness, Riggs explores themes of outsider identity, belonging, and accepting differences, all wrapped up in an engaging, imaginative tale.
Neal Shusterman often raises hard ethical questions and isn't afraid to tackle heavy themes in a way fans of Patrick Ness will recognize and appreciate. His gripping storylines encourage readers to think deeply about humanity, survival, and morality.
His novel Scythe imagines a future where death has been eliminated, and the population is controlled by specially chosen "scythes" who must decide who lives and dies.
It's intense, thought-provoking, and emotionally powerful—exactly the kind of book readers of Patrick Ness will enjoy.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz offers heartfelt, realistic stories about young people discovering who they are and navigating challenging emotional territory. His style is emotionally honest, direct, and beautifully simplistic.
In his novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, he explores themes of friendship, self-identity, family, and love through the story of two teenage boys growing up in the 1980s.
Sáenz shares Ness's ability to connect with readers on deep emotional levels through authentic and sensitively drawn characters.
If you enjoy Patrick Ness's darker, more mysterious side, Nova Ren Suma might be a great fit. Her writing has an atmospheric, eerie quality often hovering between fantasy and reality, leaving the reader intentionally uncertain about what's truly happening.
In her haunting novel The Walls Around Us, she tells a suspenseful story about social pressures, justice, guilt, and friendship through the lens of two teenage girls—one imprisoned, the other a ballet dancer.
Suma's creatively ambiguous storytelling, like Ness's, evokes powerful emotions and leaves readers questioning themselves.
Melina Marchetta creates realistic, emotionally resonant novels about young characters facing complicated, often heartbreaking situations. She shares Ness's ability to capture honest teenage experiences and relationships.
Her critically acclaimed book, Jellicoe Road, brilliantly interweaves past and present to explore love, loss, family secrets, and the search for belonging.
Marchetta, like Ness, is not afraid to challenge her readers emotionally, offering stories that stick with you long after you've turned the last page.
If you like Patrick Ness's thoughtful approach to telling difficult stories, you might enjoy Markus Zusak. His writing feels vivid and emotionally honest. Zusak often explores heavy subjects like war and loss, but he's able to balance darkness with kindness and humor.
His novel The Book Thief is a beautiful story told from the unique perspective of Death, following a young girl in Nazi Germany who steals books to protect herself and others from despair.
Mal Peet writes stories that cross genres and avoid easy categories, similar to the imaginative style found in Patrick Ness's books. Peet combines vivid realism with unexpected touches of the supernatural.
His important themes include identity, cultural tension, and the complexity of human kindness. You'll find these compelling themes in his novel Life: An Exploded Diagram, which spans generations and deftly interweaves a love story with the ominous events of the Cold War.
Frances Hardinge creates novels rich in imagination and intricate world-building, something Patrick Ness fans will likely appreciate. Her writing often appears whimsical at first but contains layers of deeper meanings and thought-provoking issues beneath the surface.
In her novel The Lie Tree, Hardinge blends mystery, historical realism, and fantasy into an atmospheric story about truth, society's expectations, and gender inequality.
Daniel Handler is best known for writing under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket, creator of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Like Patrick Ness, Handler mixes dark topics with dry humor, making his work accessible and fun even when tackling serious themes.
His eccentric wit and quirky characters feel refreshingly original, and his books encourage readers to challenge assumptions and conventional wisdom.
If you appreciate the surreal and thought-provoking nature of Patrick Ness's narratives, Shaun Tan might be an ideal read for you. Tan is both writer and illustrator, and his visually stunning stories explore themes of belonging, displacement, and human connection.
A good place to start is The Arrival, a striking tale told entirely through images, which captures the experience of immigration and the search for belonging without using any words.