Books like The House in the Cerulean Sea, according to Reddit

The read-alike list

Ranked by co-mention strength — how often each book shares a thread with The House in the Cerulean Sea, normalized so ubiquitous books don't dominate.

#1

Mort

Terry Pratchett

Death hires a gawky teenage apprentice to swing the scythe for him, then discovers he would rather be fishing, farming, and not being the Grim Reaper.

3 shared threads

#2

Legends & Lattes

Travis Baldree

An orc mercenary quits the road for good and opens a coffee shop in a city that has never seen one.

3 shared threads

#3

The Goblin Emperor

Katherine Addison

An airship explosion kills every relative ahead of him in line, and the half-goblin son nobody wanted becomes emperor overnight.

5 shared threads

#4

Piranesi

Susanna Clarke

A man alone in an endless house of statues and tides slowly realizes he used to have a different name.

8 shared threads

#5

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Becky Chambers

A ragtag crew tunnels a hole through space for a living, and the alien passenger they're ferrying turns the trip into a slow-burn found-family story.

12 shared threads

#6

The Fifth Season

N. K. Jemisin

An orogene comes home to find her son beaten to death and her daughter gone, the same day a continent starts splitting apart.

10 shared threads

#7

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries)

Martha Wells

A security android with no interest in gender, romance, or heroics just wants to watch its shows, and ends up saving its clients from a conspiracy anyway.

15 shared threads

#8

The Left Hand of Darkness

Ursula K. Le Guin

A human envoy crosses a glacier on foot with the one alien on the planet capable of ambisexuality, and neither of them trusts the other yet.

11 shared threads

#9

Blood Meridian

Cormac McCarthy

A teenage drifter joins a scalp-hunting militia across the Texas-Mexico borderlands, led by a hairless giant who may not be entirely human.

3 shared threads

#10

The Way of Kings

Brandon Sanderson

A bridgeman slave carries spears through a warzone he's not allowed to fight in, until he decides to become the soldier no one will follow.

4 shared threads

#11

The Blade Itself

Joe Abercrombie

A crippled torturer, a vain swordsman, and a berserker haunted by his own alter ego get pulled into a war none of them understand yet.

4 shared threads

#12

The Name of the Wind

Patrick Rothfuss

A legendary hero narrates his own rise from orphaned street kid to feared arcanist over three days, except Rothfuss never wrote day three.

3 shared threads

The overlap, in numbers

Where each pairing actually shows up. Click through for the full Reddit verdict on each book.

1. #1 Mort by Terry Pratchett — 3 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
2. #2 Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree — 3 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
3. #3 The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison — 5 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
4. #4 Piranesi by Susanna Clarke — 8 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
5. #5 The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers — 12 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
6. #6 The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin — 10 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
7. #7 All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells — 15 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
8. #8 The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin — 11 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
9. #9 Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy — 3 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
10. #10 The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson — 4 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
11. #11 The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie — 4 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF
12. #12 The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss — 3 shared threads , mostly in r/printSF