What other authors, books, and series do you like, and which are most and least similar to LH?
Least similar: Jane Austen. Austen wrote about the gentry, characters who had wealth and status. They had to worry about losing both, but they never faced dangers like the Hard Winter or grasshopper plagues. Without existential threats to worry about, Austen had leisure to snark about gentry-class foibles through her characters and her own narrative voice. Most of her main characters have a process of self-examination and correction, but none are tormented by the why-can’t-I-be-good concerns that Laura agonizes over. If Laura and Elizabeth Bennet met, they’d have trouble understanding each other’s concerns at first, but they would probably be fascinated at how different their worlds are.
Most similar: Thomas Hardy. Hardy challenges 19th century morals and religion in ways that would shock the Ingalls, but he understood the precariousness of farm life. Gabriel Oak, Pa, and Almanzo could emphasize with each other’s heartbreak over lost crops.