{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20260513T222106Z","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062204092?tag=bookfrontier-20","asin":"0062204092","authors":["John Irving"],"book_id":"9780062204097","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/a-prayer-for-owen-meany-0062204092","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780062204097.jpg?v=20260513T222106Z%3A2026-05-13T22%3A21%3A06Z","description":"“A remarkable novel. . . . A Prayer for Owen Meany is a rare creation in the somehow exhausted world of late twentieth-century fiction—it is an amazingly brave piece of work . . . so extraordinary, so original, and so enriching. . . . Readers will come to the end feeling sorry to leave [this] richly textured and carefully wrought world.” — STEPHEN KING, Washington Post A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys—best friends—are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy's mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn't believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul ball is extraordinary. “Roomy, intelligent, exhilarating, and darkly comic . . . Dickensian in scope . . . Quite stunning and very ambitious.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review “Brilliantly cinematic . . . Irving shows considerable skill as scene after scene mounts to its moving climax.\" — ALFRED KAZIN, New York Times","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780062204097","publication_date":"20120403","publisher":"HarperCollins","slug":"a-prayer-for-owen-meany","subtitle":"A Novel","title":"A Prayer for Owen Meany"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"FIC042010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Christian Allegory","score":0.7144,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT025040","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Religion in Literature","score":0.7028,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"REL012170","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Christian Memoirs","score":0.7014,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"FIC042010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Christian Allegory","score":0.7144,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT025040","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Religion in Literature","score":0.7028,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"REL012170","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Christian Memoirs","score":0.7014,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"FIC004000","confidence_band":"high","label":"The Classics","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"FIC019000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Literary Fiction","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"FIC042000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Christian Fiction","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Christian Allegory","score":0.7144,"slug":"christian-allegory"},{"label":"Religion in Literature","score":0.7028,"slug":"religion-in-literature"},{"label":"Christian Memoirs","score":0.7014,"slug":"christian-memoirs"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers interested in Christian allegory and faith-based narratives","Good for fans of richly textured, character-driven stories with a darkly comic tone"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Leo Tolstoy","Peter Sekirin"],"book_id":"9780310223672","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780310223672.jpg?v=20260513T222106Z%3A2026-05-13T22%3A21%3A06Z","score":16.7088,"title":"Divine and Human","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780310223672"},{"authors":["Charles Martin"],"book_id":"9781595540546","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781595540546.jpg?v=20260513T222106Z%3A2026-05-13T22%3A21%3A06Z","score":13.5451,"title":"When Crickets Cry","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781595540546"},{"authors":["Marjorie Holmes"],"book_id":"9780553281002","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780553281002.jpg?v=20260513T222106Z%3A2026-05-13T22%3A21%3A06Z","score":13.427,"title":"Two From Galilee","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780553281002"},{"authors":["Richard Hughes Gibson","Nicole Mazzarella"],"book_id":"9781514013380","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781514013380.jpg?v=20260513T222106Z%3A2026-05-13T22%3A21%3A06Z","score":12.6209,"title":"The Way of Dante","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781514013380"},{"authors":["Paulo Coelho"],"book_id":"9780062315007","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780062315007.jpg?v=20260513T222106Z%3A2026-05-13T22%3A21%3A06Z","score":12.3969,"title":"The Alchemist","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780062315007"},{"authors":["George Eliot"],"book_id":"9781625585820","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781625585820.jpg?v=20260513T222106Z%3A2026-05-13T22%3A21%3A06Z","score":12.3845,"title":"Silas Marner","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781625585820"}],"topics":[{"evidence_refs":["phrase_map_match"],"label":"Book Club","score":0.226,"slug":"book-club"}],"what_you_get":["Themes: faith and belief, friendship, fate and destiny.","Pacing: mixed tempo with quieter and high-intensity stretches.","Story elements: child prodigy, tragic accident, coming of age."]},"llm_signals":{"confidence":0.9,"pacing":"mixed","reader_fit":["Readers interested in Christian allegory and faith-based narratives","Fans of richly textured, character-driven stories with a darkly comic tone"],"themes":["faith and belief","friendship","fate and destiny"],"tropes":["child prodigy","tragic accident","coming of age"]},"source_presence":{"amazon":true,"book_detail":true,"goodreads":true,"llm_signals":true,"similarity_seed":true},"stats":{"amazon_ratings_count":15234,"goodreads_ratings_count":340553,"goodreads_reviews_count":18176,"quality_score":1}}