We culled over 180 books amongst our writers as their best of the decade. There were quite a few that only had one passionate vote, so we dedicate third and final part of our retrospective on these gems.
The list below is ordered by ascending year of release.
A singular, much-loved vote
Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin, 2010
This book made me so infuriated! But I was enraged in the best way - because I sided with one of the characters, and the other was written so well that the frustration I felt towards her was very real. (Melissa Weirick)
Buy it here.
HOW A PERSON SHOULD BE by Sheila Heti, 2010
Sheila Heti's autofiction either meshes into your brain so seamlessly that you feel like you've already read it, or it doesn't. I am the former. (Victoria Storm)
Buy it here.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, 2010
A book that provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. I recommend this book to every person I meet. (Maggie Chidester)
Buy it here.
Orange Is The New Black by Piper Kerman, 2010
A fascinating book that led me to binge one of Netflix's first and most successful original stories. (Maggie Chidester)
Buy it here.
The Passage Trilogy by Justin Cronin, 2010
A trilogy that is under-appreciated and I can see why when it is best described as a post-apocalyptic world where vampires have taken over North America. The experience of reading this trilogy is best compared to that of The Lord of the Rings. These novels have the grand epic feel of high fantasy and a complex and intricate plot that deals with themes of ethics, the role of the military, fate, religion, friendship, and love. Set over a large time and place, this trilogy takes the reader on a journey with unforgettable characters that develop and grow across the three novels. (Michaela O'Keefe)
Buy it here.
Room by Emma Donoghue, 2010
I read this long before the movie was made, and it was truly jarring. I recommended it to my mom after I was done, and it was so intense that she couldn’t get through it. A must-read. (And a must-see. The movie is impressive.) (Melissa Weirick)
Buy it here.
Sick City by Tony O’Neill, 2010
I’m not sure exactly what is it that just completely and utterly tantalises me about O’Neill’s writing, whether it’s the use of his prose and narration or just how it reads. This is nitty gritty down right dirty writing. It is as sordid as it is sophisticated. It is dark, very dark. Brutally beautiful, repulsive, outrageous, scandalous, shameless and shocking. Get yourself a comfy armchair, a rainy day and a bottle of whiskey and go on one hell of a trip. (The Book Slut)
Buy it here.
SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY by Gary Shteyngart, 2010
As prophetic as it is hilarious, this book predates Black Mirror by several months but teaches similar lessons. Retrospectively, this book prepared me more for the decade ahead more than any other. (Jessica Riches)
Buy it here.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson, 2010
A richly detailed history of the migration of African American citizens from America’s South to western and northern cities from 1915-1970. Wilkerson cleverly helps readers to connect with this complicated and extensive history by focusing on the personal migration stories of three individuals—Ida Mae Gladney, George Starling, and Robert Foster. This is a moving and informative work history told beautifully. (Cat Hoffman)
Buy it here.
Ayiti by Roxane Gay, 2011
A short story collection that makes your heart throb. (Maggie Chidester)
Buy it here.
Divergent by Veronica Roth, 2011
This series started it all for me. I was always a reader but this is was one of my first big bookish obsessions. (Courtney Dyer)
Buy it here.
One Day I will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina, 2011
Wainaina perfectly captures the aches and thrills of living in another country. He writes beautifully and honestly about depression. I defy anyone to not be moved by this book, it came out right at the beginning of the decade and has stayed with me. (Seonaid Weightman Murray)
Buy it here.
TEACHING MY MOTHER HOW TO GIVE BIRTH by Warsan Shire, 2011
This is a beautiful and harrowing collection of poems. I read it in 2011, and I haven't read anything like it since. (Victoria Storm)
Buy it here.
THE MAGICIAN KING by Lev Grossman, 2011
Including this because the first installment in the trilogy, The Magicians, came out just at the close of the previous decade. That, this, and the final tome (The Magician’s Land) are amongst the best fantasy to come out in recent memory; they’re bold, they’re original, and they made me feel a twinkle of that nostalgic Harry Potter magic. (Nikki Michaels)
Buy it here.
The Neopolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante, 2011
Probably my favorite novels of all time. Ferrante creates a vivid portrait of two friends growing up in Naples, Italy. The four books span most of their lives, from their impoverished childhoods to where relationships, world events, society, and they themselves direct as they get older. A fascinating series taking on Ferrante’s signature simmering rage, and creating a masterpiece about being a woman and being a friend. (Jessica Maria Johnson)
Buy it here.
THE NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgenstern, 2011
I’m pretty sure most everyone knows about The Night Circus by now — but suffice it to say that this magically rendered fantasy is just as enchanting as every review says it is. It’s also a beautiful and bewitching love story that fully deserves a spot on this ‘Best of’ list. (NM)
Buy it here.
Dare Me by Megan Abbott, 2012
It’s literally Bring It On meets Heathers… how can we deny it? (HM)
Buy it here.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews, 2012
A laugh out loud book that was adapted into a movie that made me SOB. (MC)
Buy it here.
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, 2012
Who doesn’t love a tearjerker? The book is definitely way better than the movie (aren’t they always?) and it definitely tugged at my heartstrings. Especially the end. (MW)
Buy it here.
The Miseducation Of Cameron Post by Emily M Danforth, 2012
A beautiful depiction of queer girlhood, Miseducation is a coming-of-age novel following Cameron throughout her teens as she comes to terms with the death of her parents and her feelings for her best friend. A note of warning to potential readers: does depict heavy homophobia including conversion therapy and other issues such as self harm. This book shaped my adolescence, inspired my love for writing, reignited my passion for reading, and helped me reflect on my own experiences as a young LGBT person. (LW)
Buy it here.
Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore, 2012
Historical fiction (?), unlike anything you have ever read. Hilarious, beware reading it in public. (The Book Slut)
Buy it here.
Wonder by R.J. Palacio, 2012
This sweet, sweet book about a boy who has a facial deformity and starts mainstream school for the first time. Made my heart soar. (MC)
Buy it here.
FANGIRL by Rainbow Rowell, 2013
Just made me feel so good while reading. I couldn’t help but wish to jump into the pages and befriend Cath for real. She was such a wholesome kind of character, who I just wanted to hug and discuss books with. (MR)
Buy it here.
A GIRL IS A HALF-FORMED THING by Eimear McBride, 2013
This book is so, so cool and SO affecting. Written in stream-of-consciousness from the point of view of the main character, A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing tells the story of a sister’s relationship with her brother in a completely immersive, propulsive way that makes you feel you’re hurtling headlong through a dark tunnel. One of the most inventive and memorable books I’ve read. (NM)
Buy it here.
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, 2013
The premise is a well-used gimmick: a woman (girl, baby!) dies and is born again and each life is lived a little longer. It was always sad to read this character dying, but gleeful in knowing she would return on the next page. I thought it might be simply a fun gimmick, but Atkinson truly creates a work of art. (JMJ)
Buy it here.
THE LUMINARIES by Eleanor Catton, 2013
Reading the massive 848-page The Luminaries is a true labor of love — but one you should absolutely undertake. There’s a reason this won the Man Booker Prize in 2013; it’s staggeringly ambitious, expertly plotted, and utterly absorbing. It’s one of those books that you’re convinced you won’t get through, only to find yourself 500 pages in, completely captivated, and flipping pages like mad. (NM)
Buy it here.
NIGHT FILM by Marisha Pessl, 2013
This book reminds me why I read—because I so enjoy seeing how authors can reimagine storytelling. AND this is an example of how aptly a writer can own the genre, in this case, scaring me while encouraging my curiosity with the book’s unique format. Very cool. (MR)
Buy it here.
The Sad Passions by Veronica Gonzalez Peña, 2013
The Sad Passions spoke to me as a Latinx woman, as someone who felt untethered from a definition of 'home' growing up, and whose lyrical, atmospheric prose and artistic observations seem uniquely contemporary. The book is about Claudia, a teenager in Mexico City who births a daughter, and then four more, with a captivating but wandering husband. Claudia and the daughters have POV chapters through the book, shining light on how they grew together and apart into adulthood. They are varying witnesses to their mother's illness and how absences have the power to affect everything. It's a bleak read (could you tell from the title?), but one I felt profoundly. Peña weaves a story between cities and deserts in Mexico and the US, with characters that sometimes feel like specters. Peña also uses photographs and artwork as part of the character Julia's chapters. (JMJ)
Buy it here.
TWO BOYS KISSING by David Levithan, 2013
A beautiful story from when five points of view merge into one. People who share one thing in common are united by two boys trying to achieve the impossible. (Brianna Addamo)
Buy it here.
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay, 2014
Yes, I am a Roxane Gay fan account basically. This book entails being a feminist while loving things that could seem at odds with feminist ideology. (MC)
Buy it here.
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, 2014
I am not ashamed to say that I was addicted to this book. Nor am I ashamed to say that, for once, the tv show was so much better. (CD)
Buy it here.
The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez, 2014
A quietly charged and beautifully sad story tracing a family’s journey from Mexico to an apartment complex in Delaware filled with other Latinx immigrants. Henríquez's lyrical prose brought me to tears more than once. (JMJ)
Buy it here.
CAN'T AND WON'T by Lydia Davis, 2014
This book was the beginning of my adult reading journey in a lot of ways. I didn't know books could be like this. Lydia Davis's flash fiction and short stories are funny, relatable, and so very real. They'll shift the lens through which you read everything. (VS)
Buy it here.
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, 2014
A blistering, opaque journey into sickness and death brought on by the environment—or is it? The original Spanish title of this slim Argentinian novel translates to The Rescue Distance, and its use and concept in the book have not left my mind since first reading it. Sometimes I think of its horror during otherwise boring moments as I watch my kid play. It still gives me shivers. (JMJ)
Buy it here.
THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS by M. R. Carey, 2014
I was so caught off guard by Carey’s skill as he dropped in painterly descriptions alongside palpable emotions which contributed to strong, realistic characters despite the pandemic which has led to a worldwide zombie infestation because the book is full of science to back up how it all went down. I was terrified and rapt. (MR)
Buy it here.
Lovely, Dark, Deep by Joyce Carol Oates, 2014
Joyce Carol Oates is an icon and this collection is her at her best. (HM)
Buy it here.
The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami, 2014
This book written by Laila Lalami is a masterful work of historical fiction depicting the experience of Mustafa ibn Muhammad ibn Abdussalam al-Zamori, a Muslim slave from Morocco who journeyed with Spanish conquistadores on the fated Narvaez expedition in 1527-1528 to La Florida. Lalami has imagined al-Zamori’s history as a Muslim experience, although he has been thoroughly Hispanicized in Cabeza de Vaca’s chronicle, La Relacion published in 1542. I have read many history textbooks and historical monographs that scarcely reference the actual person as “Esteban,” the first black slave brought to the Americas, but Lalami offers a corrective, albeit a fictionalized imagined narrative of Mustafa, to that conspicuous gap in history. (MP)
Buy it here.
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert, 2014
A terrifying look into climate change and the extinction of our planet. (MC)
Buy it here.
The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan, 2014
I bought this as my first 'airplane book' - a book you buy in the airport because you forgot to pack one and read it all on your flight. It's written by Marina, a woman who graduated and wanted to be a writer and she died in a car accident and her family and professors helped publish her work posthumously. It is amazing. (MC)
Buy it here.
An Untamed State by Roxane Gay, 2014
The best book I have ever read in my entire life. A woman is kidnapped in Haiti and then must overcome her trauma back with her family who wouldn't pay her ransom and her white husband who doesn't understand her. (MC)
Buy it here.
You by Caroline Kepnes, 2014
Talk about sympathizing with the villain and LOVING it. (CD)
Buy it here.
After Birth by Elisa Albert, 2015
Glorious in its brutal, forthright language. I highlighted practically the entire thing. After Birth is an honest book about becoming a mother; I have not read a lot like this. It's hilarious, because you have to laugh when your mind and body are in that special time of postpartum crisis. It's a difficult book to recommend because there are just so many opinions and sensitivities surrounding birth and child rearing, but that's part of what the novel attempts to demystify. (JMJ)
Buy it here.
ALL MY PUNY SORROWS by Miriam Toews, 2015
One of my all-time favorite novels. It feels completely human, moving and sad but also sharp and observational. (VS)
Buy it here.
ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES by Jennifer Niven, 2015
All The Bright Places is far and away the best YA book I’ve ever read, and it’s also one of the most piercing, raw, realistic, and heartbreaking meditations on mental health I’ve come across. This book had me openly ugly-face weeping on the couch in my old boss’s office while he was at lunch and I was covering phones. An important, powerful gut-punch. (NM)
Buy it here.
BLACKOUT: REMEMBERING THE THINGS I DRANK TO FORGET by Sarah Hepola, 2015
There are many books about addiction out there… but this one stood out to me, probably for the most raw and vulnerable scenes describing her lows on the road to change. And, again, the writing itself is witty and lovely. (MR)
Buy it here.
CITY ON FIRE by Garth Risk Hallberg, 2015
This one checked all the boxes for me. It was about NYC history and it had an experimental format, collecting ephemera and zines and smashing it all together into an epic. I wish I wrote this. (MR)
Buy it here.
A Court of Thorns and Roses Series by Sarah J. Maas, 2015
This was the first fantasy series I read as an adult (other than Harry Potter). It blue me away. I was so consumed with this story I practically ignored everyone on my family holiday. As I read I was holding the book together as the glue melted and the pages separated from the spine. (CD)
Buy it here.
DID YOU EVER HAVE A FAMILY by Bill Clegg, 2015
Apparently I’m a real sucker for the weepers, because Bill Clegg’s Did You Ever Have a Family stands alongside All The Bright Places and A Little Life in the “You Will Fill Buckets with Your Tears” department. This spectacular and heartrending debut novel by literary agent Bill Clegg (who represents prodigious author Emma Cline of The Girls fame) packs a damn intense emotional punch. (NM)
Buy it here.
THE FIRST BAD MAN by Miranda July, 2015
If discomfort compels you, this is the book you need to read. I can’t say I ever enjoyed reading it, but I couldn’t put it down it’s stayed with me ever since. (JR)
Buy it here.
Hemingway in Love by A. E. Hotcher, 2015
A terrible title for a brilliant book. (The Book Slut)
Buy it here.
ILLUMINAE by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman, 2015
The best thing to come out of Australia since..? It's just the best. The first novel in a series set in space with a corrupt government, murderous AI, and people you can't trust to remain dead. (BA)
Buy it here.
Inside the O’Briens by Lisa Genova, 2015
I found this inside a Little Free Library and picked it up because I LOVED Still Alice. I wasn’t disappointed with this one, either. Genova knows how to get inside the inner workings of a family and make you feel like you’re reading about your own. (MW)
Buy it here.
A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN by Lucia Berlin, 2015
This is another collection of short stories that are intelligent and familiar. (VS)
Buy it here.
Purity by Jonathan Franzen, 2015
I can’t explain why this stuck with me so much as a 16-year-old, but it did. (CD)
Buy it here.
SEVENEVES by Neal Stephenson, 2015
A sci-fi epic and a masterpiece of plot, ingenuity, and craft. Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves is wholly transporting, and I genuinely felt smarter after finishing this book. (NM)
Buy it here.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, 2015
Everything about it is perfect. (CD)
Buy it here.
Where They Found Her by Kimberly McCreight, 2015
Another thriller where nothing is as it seems. The content is dark and emotional, but sometimes you need a book like that to remind you how drama-free your life really is… (MW)
Buy it here.
ANOTHER BROOKLYN by Jacqueline Woodson, 2016
Beautiful. Do you ever wish a book were longer? Woodson’s prose so captured me, bringing me fully into 1970s Brooklyn and the main character’s transition from a sheltered life into a more normal teenage existence in the city. I wanted to highlight everything and save it for later, to read over and over again. (MR)
Buy it here.
Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson, 2016
This one is probably the most powerful book I read all year! Historian Heather A. Thompson’s Pulitzer-Prize winning Blood in the Water is a phenomenal history of the Attica prison uprising and its aftermath. Thompson is an astonishing historian who has written an important book that recounts the actual history that transpired at Attica, as she uncovered a trove of previously suppressed documents from the Erie County New York Courthouse. Thompson gives agency to those often missing from history, “The Attica Prison uprising of 1971 shows the nation that even the most marginalized citizens will never stop fighting to be treated as human beings. It testifies to the irrepressible demand for justice.” (MP)
Buy it here.
Can You Hear Me? by Elena Varvello, 2016
Equal parts dreamy and disturbing. Unapologetically original in its lyrical prose which was so lovingly translated by Alex Valente. It takes you back in time to a rural town in Northern Italy in the late 1970's. Seen through the eyes of an alcoholic schizophrenic father, a hormonal teenager and a victim of a horrific crime. (The Book Slut)
Buy it here.
CHRISTODORA by Tim Murphy, 2016
In the same vein as A Little Life (or, more recently, The House of Impossible Beauties), Murphy took on the iconic East Village in the height of the AIDS epidemic, giving voice to the addicts and the families who lived through the worst, and made it out the other side. (MR)
Buy it here.
THE FIFTH AVENUE ARTISTS SOCIETY by Joy Calloway, 2016
A beautiful story about the underground artists societies in the Victorian era, full of romance, deception and successful females. I also cried at this one. (BA)
Buy it here.
Forty Rooms by Olga Grushin, 2016
This book was criminally under-read upon its release and is still a book I revisit every few months. It’s beautiful and delicate. (HM)
Buy it here.
HILLBILLY ELEGY: A MEMOIR OF A FAMILY AND CULTURE IN CRISIS by J.D. Vance, 2016
I don’t read a lot of nonfiction, but HILLBILLY ELEGY is important, and it made me cry on a plane. This memoir explores what it means to grow up poor in America, neatly charting a path from Appalachia to Yale and attempting to explain the rise of the U.S.’s current political climate in the process. (NM)
Buy it here.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, 2016
This epic spans generations that come after two sisters born and separated in Ghana. One family line grows in Africa, the other in the United States. Gyasi explores so much history in this novel, and the traumas that can span centuries in one family. A remarkable debut. (JMJ)
Buy it here.
A Life Discarded by Alexander Masters, 2016
148 diaries are found by chance in a skip. From there Alexander Masters attempts to piece together the life of the original owner. (The Book Slut)
Buy it here.
LITTLE LABORS by Rivka Galchen, 2016
This book is the strangest and most wonderful depiction of motherhood, and I don't think nearly enough people have read it. If I could push one book on a whole bunch of people, it'd be this one. (VS)
Buy it here.
MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON by Elizabeth Strout, 2016
Fabulous in its simplicity and its focus on the mundane realness of an average woman just trying to make something of her life. (MR)
Buy it here.
Only Ever You by Rebecca Drake, 2016
I’ve been a nanny for four years, so when authors write kids as unrealistically angelic, it always sticks out. That wasn’t the case with this piece, which involved a three-year-old getting kidnapped. It kept me on the edge of my seat and played with my emotions in the sense that I wasn’t sure who to sympathize with. That’s the mark of a strong writer! (MW)
Buy it here.
THE POWER by Naomi Alderman, 2016
The most vivid portrait of destroying the patriarchy out there. Not sure this was meant to be a fantasy, but I check my collar bone every day, just in case it comes true. (JR)
Buy it here.
Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick, 2016
There’s seriously nothing that Anna Kendrick can’t do. Her book had me laughing out loud, and I loved it so much that I downloaded the audiobook version and went through it again - this time with her reading it to me! (MW)
Buy it here.
Scythe by Neal Shusterman, 2016
I really thought I was going to hate this book, ended up loving it and recommend it to everyone. This concept is so unique I am in awe of the world Shusterman has created. (CD)
Buy it here.
The Secret by Katerina Diamond, 2016
Good crime fiction can be so formulaic, Diamond creates unguessable plots that have you squirming in your seat. (CD)
Buy it here.
Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman by Lindy West, 2016
Sharp commentary on reproductive rights, politics, fatphobia, and pop culture. (MC)
Buy it here.
Swing Time by Zadie Smith, 2016
The book, which on the surface is about a fractured friendship, is Smith at her best delving into racial identity, cultural appropriation, and class struggles of two mixed race black northwest Londoners. I love how whip smart Smith is in recounting the complexities of racial identity. Some have panned Smith for writing in the first-person narrative but I thought it lent to the storytelling well. (MP)
Buy it here.
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, 2016
Listened to this on audio and it is a stark reminder to live every
day like tomorrow will not come. Have tissues. (MC)
Buy it here.
WHEN IN FRENCH by Lauren Collins, 2016
This is a memoir, but it's also an examination of French and American culture and language. I found it fascinating. (VS)
Buy it here.
WHEN THE AIR HITS YOUR BRAIN by Frank T Versosick Jr., 2016
Simply an incredible collection of real cases experienced by the doctor author during his neurosurgical residency. (MR)
Buy it here.
All Our Wrongs Today by Elan Mastai, 2017
Imagine a world we’re all those beauty pageant contestants got their wish. There is world peace, all of Earth’s problems have been solved by technology. You wake up to a world with no poverty, no violence, everything is as it should be. Even the avocados will always be perfectly ripe. But like most things in life, perfection is sometimes not what you want. Especially if the piece of perfection you most desire feels out of your reach.Now enter Tom. Tom isn’t happy. The girl of his dreams is gone, so naturally, he wants to move heaven and earth to get her back... or go back in time. Luckily he has access to a time machine. Queue the chaos and conundrums. (The Book Slut)
Buy it here.
THE ATLAS OF FORGOTTEN PLACES by Jenny D. Williams, 2017
An absolutely stunning debut. The backstories of the German, Ugandan, American, and Swiss characters are incredibly enmeshed. There were several shocking moments along the way and I rooted for them all to make it out of the bush together, and alive. (MR)
Buy it here.
Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough, 2017
One of the craziest endings I’ve ever read. Not only in this decade, but in my entire life. I can’t even begin to explain it. You just have to read it for yourself. (MW)
Buy it here.
The Best We Could Do by
Thi Bui, 2017
In this beautifully illustrated graphic novel, Bui recounts her family history from the Indo China War in Vietnam to her immigration following the fall of Saigon. Bui’s black and white drawings also feature a palette of stunning orange-toned water colors. This one is an insightful memoir about Vietnam and a poignant refugee narrative. I’m not usually a reader of graphic novels but this one is a superb one to pick up. (MP)
Buy it here.
Blue Money by Janet Capron, 2017
A memoir about Janet Capron’s life as a prostitute in downtown NYC before AIDS and the War on Drugs. An NYC that was at once bright and full of life, but had a dark fog cast over it. I was so taken and intrigued with Capron’s life that when I closed the book I spent hours after reading everything I could about her and her family. And to me is the sign of a great book—if it makes you seek out more information about the characters and/or the author even after you’ve finished reading. (KM)
Buy it here.
BORNE by Jeff Vandermeer, 2017
Oh, to be a fly on the walls of Jeff Vandermeer’s brain! The iconic sci-fi author comes up with the strangest, most original concepts and stories (for reference, read his Southern Reach trilogy or watch Alex Garland’s adaptation of the first novel Annihilation on Netflix) — and BORNE is no different. Hard, cerebral science fiction with high stakes. (NM)
Buy it here.
THE BRIGHT HOUR: A MEMOIR OF LIVING AND DYING by Nina Riggs, 2017
I was in awe of her prose and I’m sad to have finished it, knowing that the author herself had died months before the book was published. I am crushed with the emotion unleashed but so happy to have heard her story. (MR)
Buy it here.
Chemistry by Weike Wang, 2017
I really loved this small, intimate book about a woman who keeps most people at an arm's length. I didn't relate to a lot (I'm no chemist), but I liked how she intertwined scientific perspective with her personal struggles. I did relate a lot to having an immigrant parent: "Even now, people still talk to her in loud voices, as if speaking English poorly is the same as being deaf. People still laugh, as if it is the same as being very funny." (JMJ)
Buy it here.
THE DARK DARK by Samantha Hunt, 2017
Samantha Hunt is the best kind of weird. (VS)
Buy it here.
GET WELL SOON: HISTORY’S WORST PLAGUES AND THE HEROES WHO FOUGHT THEM by Jennifer Wright, 2017
I learned so much about ineffective “cures” of the times and how, like during the Spanish flu and at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, national morale was seen as a priority despite high fatality rates. Wright inserted her fabulous sense of humor to add modern day notes and asides laced with sarcasm to make the worrisome statistics go down much easier. (MR)
Buy it here.
How To Stop Time by Matt Haig, 2017
I give and recommended this book to everyone. Seems fitting that
I should recommend it to you sluts too. (The Book Slut)
Buy it here.
HUM IF YOU DON’T KNOW THE WORDS by Bianca Marais, 2017
One of my all-time favorites, this is also one of the most insightful books I’ve ever read about something I knew so little of. The mix of excellent pacing and viscerally visual descriptions do all the work necessary to engage and entertain. The characters here too are so complementary and play off each other in the best way… I scratched up my copy making notes and underlining all the best quotes. (MR)
Buy it here.
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay, 2017
A book about what it's like to live in a big, unruly body. (MC)
Buy it here.
THE IDIOT by Elif Batuman, 2017
This is one of those books that get very popular, but they still feel like they very much belong to you. I don't even like talking about this book, it's personal. (VS)
Buy it here.
I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes With Death by Maggie O’Farrell, 2017
Seventeen discrete encounters with Maggie at different ages, in different locations, reveal a whole life in a series of tense, visceral snapshots. In taut prose that vibrates with electricity and restrained emotion, O'Farrell captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself. In writing this memoir Maggie O’Farrell hasn’t just stripped off her clothing; baring her flesh and soul to the audience. She has self-skinned. Painfully exposing every part of herself. She has sliced and peeled back the layers of her soul with the sharpest of razor blades. A devastating yet life-affirming read.
Buy it here.
In the Distance by Hernan Diaz, 2017
In the Distance is a meditation on loneliness and solitude in the form of a journey. First, we meet Håkan, our protagonist, (our dear Håkan!) as an old, towering Swede emerging from a hole in a frozen-over sea. And then he begins to tell his life's tale, one that found him on opposite sides of the country from his brother when he was just a boy, over a century ago, and we travel with him, and see him learn, and love, and lose—truly staggering losses, felt keenly by the reader. There is something dazzling about Diaz's sentences and how he beautifully renders the plot from Håkan's perspective. He reveals the horror and ugliness of humanity, but still makes a quiet hero of Håkan. The bond that Diaz creates between reader and protagonist is rare; especially for me, in a man. (JMJ)
Buy it here.
Into the Water by Paula Hawkins, 2017
I actually liked this one much better than The Girl on the Train. It gives off the same sullen and mysterious vibe, but with characters that I connected with on a deeper level. (MW)
Buy it here.
Johnny Ruin by Dan Dalton, 2017
One of my favourite books of all time. Poetic, trippy. A man attempts suicide by taking an overdose of ketamine. He ends up going on a road trip from Cali to New York with Bon Jon Jovi as his unwanted side-kick. Imagine Shrek and Donkey with a sprinkling of Gonzo directed by Tarantino. Fucking epic. (The Book Slut)
Buy it here.
MEAN by Myriam Gurba, 2017
I don’t think I’ve ever been so uncomfortable, enraged, and yet so enthused and sometimes giggly at a memoir as dark as this one. Written in an often poetic style in fits and bursts of brutality and nostalgia, this book is meant to make you FEEL. Her cheeky style is memorable. (MR)
Buy it here.
Never Let You Go by Chevy Stevens, 2017
This one had so many twists and turns; I loved that I never knew what was coming next. If a book can make me audibly gasp, then it’s done its job! (MW)
Buy it here.
PLAYING WITH FIRE: THE 1968 ELECTION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN POLITICS by Lawrence O’Donnell, 2017
I’d never been so engaged by a historical nonfiction as I was reading O’Donnell’s in-depth analysis of the many players on all sides of the 1968 election (and beyond). I wept after the assassinations and wanted to throw the book out the window when the corruption and racism were revealed. It’s a wondrous read which I cherished specifically because I’m too young to have lived through the events. (MR)
Buy it here.
PRIESTDADDY by Patricia Lockwood, 2017
This was definitely the funniest book I read this decade. Anything Patricia Lockwood writes, I read. (VS)
Buy it here.
The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple by Jeff Guinn, 2017
I’m going to blame my background in anthropology for my abiding interest in cults; I blame Jeff Guinn for feeding this fascination. The Road to Jonestown is a meticulously researched book about the history of Jim Jones and Peoples Temple—from Jones’ time as a young boy to the massacre of over 900 Temple members in 1978. (CH)
Buy it here.
STAY WITH ME by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, 2017
Adébáyọ̀ has a way of painting emotions into a brutal presentation. I was totally enthralled with the language and the relationship at the center of this story. Delving into a different culture was a joy because she made it as accessible as it was entertaining. There’s a big surprise at the end with totally cemented this book as a great one. (MR)
Buy it here.
THE THINGS WE PROMISE by
J.C Burke, 2017
A novel that educated me on the discrimination and lives of an
AIDS sufferer from the point of view of a family member. (BA)
Buy it here.
Unaccompanied by Javier Zamora, 2017
This slim volume of poetry has a powerful punch. Zamora, a Salvadoran poet, writes in spare, straightforward language about his migration experience at age nine unaccompanied. It’s a powerful testament to the resiliency of migrants’ journeys to the U.S. As powerful now, if not more than when he wrote it. (MP)
Buy it here.
White Tears by Hari Kunzru, 2017
Started reading this book shrugging: okay, so two dudes meet in college and really love vinyl records. Nerdy music geeks, fine. Then...other things started happening and I found I could not put the book down. It turns into a tale of horror, one that I was not expecting, and I was thoroughly put into a trance by it. I feel I could read this 10 times and still discover details I missed. Kunzru layers many themes into a sharp tale about cultural appropriation and racism, and I can't stop thinking about it. (JMJ)