If American Fantasy gave you permission to laugh at aspirational neuroses while feeling deeply seen, Claire Lombardo's sprawling debut delivers the same wry therapy—only this time across four daughters, two parents, and decades of passive-aggressive holiday dinners. The Sorenson family's lovable dysfunction hums with the same laser-focused prose on interpersonal awkwardness, turning unspoken resentments and midlife dissatisfactions into bingeable emotional payoff.

...the same wry therapy—only this time across four daughters, two parents, and decades...

Lombardo matches Straub's gift for cultural minutiae—domestic rituals, indie Midwestern textures—and deploys family secrets with the satisfying precision of a perfectly timed inheritance twist. It's whip-smart relational comedy that validates your quiet dissatisfactions without judgment.

Pick this up if you need your upper-middle-class ensemble fix served with surgical insight.

What to read after American Fantasy

Readers searching for adult books like or similar to American Fantasy by Emma Straub usually want adult literary fiction with qualities like wry family humor, sibling rivalries, emotional depth, and flawed relationships.

If your search is specifically for books similar to American Fantasy for adults, this match keeps the grown-up stakes, voice, and reader payoff central rather than drifting into younger or purely genre-adjacent suggestions.

If you like American Fantasy and want to know what to read next, start with The Most Fun We Ever Had. It is the closest NextBookAfter match for readers who want a book like American Fantasy with the same core appeal.

The Most Fun We Ever Had is a similar next read for fans of American Fantasy by Emma Straub because it shares wry family humor, sibling rivalries, emotional depth, and flawed relationships while moving through family saga and domestic drama.

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