The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Mengestu, Dinaw. Someone Like Us. Alfred A. Knopf, 2024.

Dinaw Mengestu's novel Someone Like Us is told from the first person point of view of the main character Mamush. Mamush's narrative straddles multiple temporal eras and is set in various international locations. To enact these facets of Mamush's life, Mengestu has distorted the traditional linear plot line and employed the past and present tenses. For the sake of clarity, this guide relies primarily on the present tense and follows a more chronological order of events.

Mamush says goodbye to his wife Hannah and young son in Paris, France before heading to the airport. He is flying back to Washington, DC to visit his mother for Christmas. He also plans to see his biological father Samuel and his wife Elsa, with whom he has been close since he was a boy. At the airport, Mamush gets distracted and misses his flight. Instead of securing another flight to DC, he buys a ticket to Chicago, where he lived for eight years with his mother and Samuel during his childhood.

In Chicago, Mamush gets a taxi to the local courthouse. At the courthouse, he seeks out Samuel's criminal records. Samuel has worked as a taxi driver for years and was arrested multiple times for various petty misdemeanors. Most of Samuel's files are sealed, but Mamush is grateful for those documents the courthouse clerk does offer him. From the courthouse, Mamush walks to his family's old apartment. When he was young, Samuel showed up on his and his mother's doorstep. Mamush's mother insisted that Samuel was just her childhood friend from Ethiopia and that Mamush should regard him as his uncle. Samuel stayed on their couch until the family moved to DC, where Samuel found his own apartment. Via Samuel's stories, Mamush later discovered who Samuel really was to him.

From the old apartment, Mamush travels to a hotel where he books a room for the night. While here, he uses drugs and drinks heavily. Meanwhile, Samuel and Hannah repeatedly try to contact him. They are worried about him, confused why he is in Chicago, and desperate for him to make his way back to DC. Finally, Mamush wakes up from a drunken stupor and accepts his wife's pleas to fly home to see his family. When he arrives at his mother's house, he discovers that Samuel died by suicide the night prior.

Mamush travels to Samuel and Elsa's house. Overcome by despair, he closes himself in Samuel's old room and imagines talking to his late father. In their imagined exchange, Samuel helps Mamush understand why he died by suicide. Back downstairs, Mamush meets Samuel's friend Stephanos. Stephanos insists that Mamush follow him, because he has something to show him. They finally arrive at a halfway house where Stephanos reveals that Mamush sometimes stayed. He leads Mamush inside and shows him to Samuel's old room.

Mamush is overwhelmed and confused by the space. When Stephanos leaves him alone, he discovers that Samuel left a manuscript on the table. Mamush sits in Samuel's bed and reads his father's account of the life he wished he had lived.

Afterwards, Mamush begins to rewrite his and Samuel's story. He manipulates what really happened in the days surrounding Samuel's death to give them both a different ending. In Mamush's iteration, Samuel helps him drive back to DC from Chicago. On their cross-country drive, they have a long conversation that helps Mamush make peace with who Samuel was and the circumstances surrounding his death.