A comprehensive guide to: fiction books.

Everything I've loved in the past few years.

Here’s a list of every fiction book that’s not a romance novel that I’ve liked in the last 5 years. This is obviously such a huge category so I’ve done my best to break it down into smaller ones, but it was hard! Some of these are perfect fits but I did my best.

In general I like character driven, women centered stories. I don’t read thrillers as often as I used to, but for a while I read a ton of them so there are a lot on this list. I like realistic fiction— I do not read fantasy or sci fi, even the popular ones (ACOTAR, I’m looking at you). I love a family drama, and I love a book about rich, unsupervised teens.

Here’s my list of romance recs, and here’s my list of non-fiction recs.

Some favorites:

• An American Marriage by Tayari Jones: One of the most beautiful novels I have ever read. It follows a couple, Celestial and Roy, as Roy is incarcerated for years for a crime he did not commit. Beautiful, incredible book.

• Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson: Incredible novel about two estranged siblings, Byron and Benny, who are dealing with the recent death of their mother. She left behind an hours long tape recording of her telling her life story, and they learn a lot about her while listening together. So beautiful, compelling and sprawling and intimate. Would recommend to anyone.

• Curtis Sittenfeld: I just love her writing. I’ll read anything she writes. I’m working my way through them all, but so far I’ve read and liked Rodham, Prep, Eligible, American Wife, and Romantic Comedy.

• Ghosts by Dolly Alderton: After ending a long term relationship, a woman in her 30s starts dating again for the first time in years. This is one of the most accurate portrayals of modern dating that I’ve ever read.

• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee: One of the most extraordinary novels I’ve ever read, about a Korean-Japanese family over several generations throughout the 1900s. Just an absolute masterpiece. It’s long and took me a month to read, but it’s just an incredible piece of art. The show, on AppleTV+, is also excellent.

• Sally Rooney: Sorry, I love her. I’ve read all three, I love them all. I think Normal People is the most accessible, but truly I think all three are very good. If you read one and do not like it, you probably won’t like the others. If you read one and do like it, you must read all of them. I’ll read anything she writes.

• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid: One of the most popular novels of the last decade, and that feels fair. About an iconic movie star, Evelyn Hugo, who decides to grant an interview to a young new reporter. They meet over the course of several days, and Evelyn tells the story of her seven marriages. Beautiful and captivating and unputdownable.

• Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid: LOVED this book. Emira is a nanny for Alex Chamberlain, and one night she is with two year old Briar in a grocery store when a police officer accuses her of kidnapping the child. This is such a good book.

• Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin: An absolute masterpiece of a novel. About two friends, Sam and Sadie, who grow up together and eventually start creating video games together. If this plot does not sound interesting to you, do not be deterred, I felt the same and I simply could not put this book down. I’ve never been so invested in characters so quickly. Must read.

• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett: Gorgeous, gorgeous book that follows the lives of two light-skinned black sisters who grow up together, but ultimately decide to live separate lives…one as a black woman and the other passing as a white woman.

Literary Fiction

This is a category that is difficult to describe and there’s not really consensus on what it actually means, so I will just tell you what it means to me. These are generally more character driven (as opposed to plot driven) and don’t follow a specific formula (like a rom com or a thriller). I also think of these as being really well written, where the quality of the writing is just as impactful as the storyline.

• Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters: Such a fascinating book that takes place in two different timelines. In the earlier timeline, Amy and Reese are two trans women who date for five years. In the present day, Amy has destransitioned and is now Ames, and he has accidentally gotten his boss/girlfriend pregnant. Ames knows Reese has always wanted to be a mother, so the three of them explore the idea of parenting the baby together. This made me think so much about gender and motherhood, and is also just such a good story.

• Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: About a Chinese-American family living in Ohio in the 1970s, who’s daughter, Lydia, dies (not a spoiler, it’s the first line in the book). Just very good.

• The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer: Follows Greer Hendricks, a woman in her young twenties, as she graduates college and goes to work for Faith Frank, a prominent feminist who runs a magazine. Loved this one.

• If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha: A story that shifts perspectives between four women who live in the same apartment building in Seoul, Korea. It focused on topics like beauty standards and plastic surgery, social hierarchies, and gender norms. I learned a lot about Korea, and each woman’s story was really interesting.

• Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: Single mother Mia moves to a new neighborhood with her daughter Pearl, and they become intertwined in the lives of the Richardson family. This show (on Hulu) is also good.

• My Dark Vanessa by Kate Russell: This is a BLEAK novel about a 15-year-old girl who has an “affair” with (read: is abused by) her 40-year-old teacher. It takes place at the time of affair, and also 10 years later as Vanessa grapples with the relationship and everything that happened to her. It is so well written, and I could not put it down, but it is very dark.

• The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo: A multigenerational novel that follows a couple who falls in love in the 1970s all the way through to present day and their four grown kids.

• The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans: A collection of short stories that are so well written it was upsetting to me. Absolutely loved this, and it made me want to read more short stories.

• Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson: About several members of an extremely rich family in Brooklyn Heights. They all suck but are interesting to read about and the writing here is really good.

• The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan: A haunting, bleak story about a woman named Helen who has a bad day that results in her two year old daughter being taken from her. Helen ends up in a CPS hellscape where she has to prove she is a good parent, or her parental rights will be terminated. This was so good but maybe not for someone with young children.

• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: A gorgeous novel about a flu-like pandemic that wipes out a huge majority of the population, and 20 years into the future where the survivors are living in a whole new world. This is so beautiful. The show, on HBO, is also excellent.

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead: This is about a woman named Cora and her journey to escape slavery. Colson Whitehead’s writing is immaculate. This won a Pulitzer. I liked it.

Thrillers (aka everyone is trying to write another Gone Girl):

• Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage: This is about a mother named Suzette who starts to worry that there is something deeply, psychologically, wrong with her young daughter Hanna. But, Hanna behaves very differently around her father/Suzette’s husband, so he doesn’t know who to believe. This is creepy, creepy, kept me up at night.

• Defending Jacob by William Landay: A detective in a small New England town is shocked when his 14 year old son is charged with murder. The show, on AppleTV+, is also good.

• Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner: A pregnant woman befriends a single mom, and as their relationship intensifies things start to get weird.

• The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson: If someone told me they wanted to read a mystery or thriller, this is the first one I’d recommend. It’s not too gory, it’s not too cheesy, and it’s not too over the top full of twists and turns. I think this genre can really vary in terms of quality, and this is just a really good one.

• The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave: About a woman named Hannah whose husband, Owen, goes missing after the company he works for gets caught up in an insider trading scandal. The book follows Hannah, along with Owen’s daughter/her stepdaughter, Bailey, as they try to piece together what happened and find Owen.

• Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan: Courtroom drama told from two perspectives. One is Lily, a teenage girl. The other is Olivia, whose son Asher is Lily’s boyfriend. Could not put this down.

• Miracle Creek by Angie Kim: A courtroom drama/mystery about an accident at a special treatment center that results in two deaths.

• My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite: The title here is self explanatory— about a young woman whose sister keeps killing her boyfriends. This is short and quick and very enjoyable.

• Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell: About a fifteen year old girl who goes missing, and about her mother 10 years later. This one is messed up! But very good.

• The Villa by Rachel Hawkins: Told in two timelines. In the past, a group of friends spend a week at a villa in Italy and by the end of the week someone is dead. In the present, two friends go on a vacation to the same house. Daisy Jones and the Six meets The White Lotus Season 2.

• Watching You by Lisa Jewell: A psychological thriller about a woman who moves into a new home with her new husband who becomes obsessed with watching the man who lives next door.

• When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole: I am hesitant to describe the plot at all in order to avoid any spoilers, so I will tell you what I knew going in: this is about the gentrification of a neighborhood in Brooklyn. The pacing was a little off for me…the first one hundred pages were fairly slow and then SO MUCH happened at the end. Still worth a read.

Cozy Mysteries (still a mystery, but not a dark and depressing one):

• Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn: A group of women in their 60s are about to retire from their careers as assassins for an extra-governmental organization. They go on a cruise to celebrate and find themselves facing one final mission. SO fun.

• Flying Solo by Linda Holmes: Laurie’s Aunt Dot dies, and Laurie returns to her house in her tiny hometown to clean it out. She finds a duck figurine in the house, and tries to figure out what it meant to Dot. Extremely low stakes mystery, very comforting read.

Beach Reads That Aren’t Rom Coms (Fun Fiction):

A book does not have to be a literary masterpiece to be good! These are all fun and entertaining in their own way.

• American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson: Takes place during the Cold War, about a woman FBI agent who goes undercover in Burkina Faso. This was so interested and compelling, but also quick and fun.

• Happy and You Know It by Laura Hankin: A struggling musician gets a job as a music teacher for the children of a bunch of rich moms on the Upper East Side, and then things get crazy. So funny and ridiculous.

• Crazy Rich Asians trilogy by Kevin Kwan: These are worth the hype. They are compulsively readable and just so, so fun. I don’t classify these as romance novels because the love story isn’t the central plot point, but definitely some elements of love/romance here.

• Cover Story by Susan Rigetti: An epistolary novel about an Anna Delvey meets Caroline Calloway character. A fun entry into the scammer universe.

• The Daydreams by Laura Hankin: The Daydreams was an early 2000s hit teen drama until the live season two finale crashed and burned. 15 years later, the four main cast members return for a live reunion show.

• Destination Wedding by Diksha Basu: Reminiscent of Crazy Rich Asians, about a big Indian family and their weekend at a very extravagant wedding.

• Hayley Aldrigde is Still Here by Elissa R. Sloan: A fictionalized version of Britney Spears’ story. That’s the whole plot.

• Lucky by Marissa Stapley: A woman and her boyfriend have just pulled off a huge heist and are on the run when she finds out she has a winning lottery ticket. She has to decide whether or not to turn herself in.

• A Special Place for Women by Laura Hankin: A woman joins an exclusive, women only social club in NYC (think The Wing), and then things get very, very weird. This is absurd but so fun.

• Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering: Deeply frustrating but compulsively readable, about a girl named Lucy who meets a boy named Stephen during her freshman year of college. One of the most toxic relationships I’ve ever read.

Literally the only two sci fi books I’ve read in the last five years:

• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir: Absolutely shocking to find a 500 page novel about space on this list, but I liked this so much more than I expected. Sort of hard to explain the plot, but I found it very compelling.

• The Measure by Nikki Erlick: Plot: one morning, everyone on Earth wakes up to find they have received a box with a piece of string in it. They soon find out that the length of the string corresponds with the length of their life. We follow several different characters with different length strings. This is my type of sci-fi because it still feels very based in reality and human emotion. It has some heavier themes and tries a little too hard to be profound, but it is compulsively readable and ultimately quite effective.

Young Adult:

You do not have to be a young adult to enjoy reading about them! This genre has a lot to offer.

• Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé: Gossip Girl meets Get Out. That’s it, that’s the plot.

• Begin Again by Emma Lord: Andie transfers schools to be with her boyfriend, and plans to surprise him on the first day of the semester. But when she gets there she learns that he also transferred schools to be with her. This has a lot of fun storylines and was very good. Emma Lord is great at writing YA that doesn’t feel too juvenile for me.

• Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo: When a man dies in a plane crash, his two daughters, who don’t know the other exists, struggle to make sense of what happened.

• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas: One of the most popular and important YA novels of the last decade, about a girl who sees her friend get shot and killed by the police and everything that happens when the story gains media attention.

• Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson: A fictional retelling of R. Kelly’s abuses of teenage girls.

• Karen M. McManus: If you think adult thrillers are too scary, try a YA one! Karen McManus ones are reliably good. I’ve read and enjoyed: The Cousins, One of Us is Lying, and One of Us is Next.

• You Have a Match by Emma Lord: Abby does a DNA kit and finds out she has a secret sister, and then they both spend the summer as counselors at a summer camp to get to know each other.