It’s not easy to feel out of sync with the rest of the world, but most of us have been there. Not surprisingly — fiction writers are familiar with that sensation, too. In fact, it’s sort of their thing. We’ve chosen 45 titles, both adult and YA, that capture those feelings of discontent, bewilderment, and alienation and follow that thread, wherever it takes them. It may not be a smooth ride, but it will be an enjoyable one. For a limited time, select books are 20% off.
Offer good on new and used copies of select titles, in the featured edition only.
Amelia Morris
“Wildcat is that rare novel I’m always in the mood to read: at once laugh-at-loud funny and deeply serious, page-turning and smart. Amelia Morris tackles contemporary motherhood — with its social media-induced peer pressure, its confusing isolation, its complicated beauty — with the sharpest wit and a tenderness that takes my breath away.” – Edan Lepucki, bestselling author of Woman No. 17 and California
Andrew Lipstein
“Last Resort raises incisive questions about authorship, the tension between art and commerce, and the elusive nature of self-fulfillment, all while unspooling a compelling story with humor and great suspense. I didn’t want it to end.” – Julia Pierpont, author of Among the Ten Thousand Things
Avni Doshi
“Avni Doshi is a writer of surgical precision and sharp intelligence. This novel of mother-and-daughter resentments and the deep, intimate cuts of ancient family history gleams like a blade — both dangerous and beautiful. I loved it.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and Big Magic
Bethany C. Morrow
“Cherish Farrah got me shivering in all kinds of good ways. Intelligent, insightful, and absolutely creepy, too. The novel builds mystery and intensity with such powerful intent. Bethany C. Morrow knows how to make a reader squirm, and thank goodness for that.” – Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling and The Ballad of Black Tom
Bryan Washington
“Tender like a bruise, Memorial is a novel of uncommon depth and feeling. It is about everything that matters in life: love, loss, community and communion. Bryan Washington will take your breath away.” – Katie Kitamura, author of A Separation
Caitlin Barasch
“This book is a ride. An unruly study of fixation, performance, and the exquisite agony of anonymity.” – Raven Leilani, New York Times bestselling author of Luster
Candice Wuehle
“If the vacant, robotic gaze of the beauty queen has ever seemed sinister to you, Ms. Wuehle provides a possible reason...Wuehle pursues her gonzo premise with satirical gusto, mixing together some curious brew of Robert Ludlum and Don DeLillo...[A] lively debut.” – Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
Chantal V. Johnson
“Chantal V. Johnson has blessed us with a cool, stylish, and violently funny novel about survival. It made me smile, laugh, cringe, shiver, and think. Like life, Post-traumatic is richly triggering and highly recommended.” – Myriam Gurba, author of MEAN
Claire Kohda
“The most unusual, original and strikingly contemporary vampire novel to come along in years.” – The Guardian
Diane Johnson
“Johnson makes a welcome return to her wheelhouse in this propulsive domestic dramedy of manners...[Her] usual razor-sharp prose and astute observations are on full display...provocative...poignant...a treat.” – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Elaine Hsieh Chou
“Disorientation is the funniest novel I’ve read all year... This uproarious tale of a young woman’s quest to uncover the truth about the world’s most famous Chinese American poet is packed full of sly truths about race, love, and life in general — all of which you’re going to miss, because you’ll be laughing so hard.” – Aravind Adiga, author of The White Tiger
Elena Ferrante
“A marvelously disconcerting novel of disillusionment.” – The Atlantic
Eley Williams
“Comically inventive.The author combines a Nabokovian love of wordplay with an Ali Smith-like ability to create eccentric characters who will take up permanent residence in the reader’s heart. This is a sheer delight for word lovers.” – Publishers Weekly, starred review
Ella Baxter
“New Animal is filled with death and darkness, yet Baxter’s prose feels so very alive. A novel that’s core is ultimately one of hope, a complex, heartfelt ballad to the strange, sloppy ways we find ourselves growing into the people we were meant to become.” – Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl
Hilary Leichter
“The story in Temporary — an absurd, wild, emotional take on women’s work in a dystopic version of the gig economy — is built of exquisite, striking writing....This is someone for whom ideas and language are both fuel and match.” – Diane Cook, author of New Wilderness
Jessamine Chan
“A terrifying novel about mass surveillance, loneliness, and the impossible measurements of motherhood — The School for Good Mothers is a timely and remarkable debut.” – Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House
Julia May Jonas
“Vladimir is a thrilling debut — smart, sharp, and über provocative. I devoured it with fascination and awe.” – Lily King, author of Writers and Lovers
Kelly McClorey
“I read Nobody, Somebody, Anybody the way I watch horror films: half-hiding behind my fingers, both worried for the anxious young protagonist and eager to know what trouble she'd find herself in next....This is a book for anyone who's ever been sad or stuck, or longed to be somewhere or someone else. I loved it.” – Rachel Khong, author of Goodbye, Vitamin
Noor Naga
“Noor Naga’s language combines precision with extraordinary suggestiveness. Reading this book is like stepping through an open doorway and realizing that a sparkling zodiac of colorful expressions lies another small step away. One has the impulse to keep going and to stop only to wave someone else to hurry along.” – Ato Quayson, author of The Cambridge Companion to the Postcolonial Novel
Patricia Lockwood
“Witty and at times genuinely moving...Lockwood is a phenomenal writer who is a keen observer of the strangeness of online culture and the fragility of the human heart.” – Roxane Gay, author of Not That Bad
Raven Leilani
“There is nothing on offer like Luster — the story of a Black woman who is neither heroic nor unduly tragic...She is destructive but tender, ravenous for experience but deeply vulnerable — and often wickedly funny.” – Parul Sehgal, The New York Times
Sara Freeman
“Brilliant, elegant, and unsparing. Tides is a lyrical meditation on selfhood: Sara Freeman illuminates, with a poet’s eye, the shifting interior landscape of a woman adrift.” – Emma Cline, author of The Girls
Sarah Manguso
“Very Cold People knocked me to my knees. So precise, so austere, so elegant, this story is devastatingly familiar to those of us who know the loneliness of growing up in a place of extreme emotional restraint.” – Lauren Groff, author of Florida
Sasha Fletcher
“Breathless distraction, omnipresent dread and sudden! glorious! joy! This is a work of far-flung imagination and simultaneously the most realistic novel of our times.” – Daniel Handler, author of A Series of Unfortunate Events
Sean Thor Conroe
“Got under my skin in the way the best writing can.” – Sheila Heti, author of Pure Colour
Abdi Nazemian
“The Chandler Legacies is a heartfelt meditation on the abusive structures that need us to be both oppressed and oppressors, and the found families that help us break ourselves free.” – Laura Ruby, author of Bone Gap
Angeline Boulley
“A rare and mesmerizing work that blends the power of a vibrant tradition with the aches and energy of today’s America. This book will leave you breathless!” – Francisco X. Stork, author of Marcelo in the Real World and Illegal
Christina Hammonds Reed
“I’ve never read a book that so aptly delves into the harrowing shift from black girl to black woman, while chronicling one of the most resounding examples of systemic racism in recent American history. Should be required reading in every classroom.” – Nic Stone, author of Dear Martin
Crystal Maldonado
“An ultrasmart contemporary that fully understands what teens face in today’s social media-obsessed landscape.” – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
David Valdes
“An absolute blast. I loved it, and I couldn’t put it down.” – Bill Konigsberg, author of The Music of What Happens
Dhonielle Clayton
“A juicy, elegant, absolutely flawless thriller with a twist. It’s the diverse Gossip Girl we’ve been waiting for!” – Tiffany D. Jackson, author of Grown and White Smoke
Heather Henson
“An intense story of love, friendship, and family that takes unexpected turns.” – Kirkus Reviews
Helena Fox
“A profoundly moving story about grief, loss, and love that will take your breath away. Helena Fox is a writer to be reckoned with.” – Kathleen Glasgow, author of Girl in Piecess
Jessie Burton
“A beautiful and profound retelling. Burton’s text and Lomenech Gill’s art are a perfect match, offering a powerfully feminist, elegiac, and original twist on this old story. The book tackles pain and trauma without flinching, but its message is ultimately one of joy and hope.” – Madeline Miller, author of The Song of Achilles
Kacen Callender
“A firecracker of a book from an author with a powerful point of view, Felix Ever After is refreshingly real — full of queer kids who live and breathe and swear and love and make messy mistakes. Teens need this one.” – Casey McQuiston, author of Red, White & Royal Blue
Kit Frick
“A multi-layered mystery and a razor-sharp indictment of privilege in all its forms, Very Bad People is a stunning thriller.” – Kara Thomas, author of The Cheerleaders and That Weekend
Mahogany L. Browne
“Interweave[s] poetry and prose...portraying with nuance a group of Brooklyn teens unpacking their traumas and finding their joy.” – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Malinda Lo
“Oh, what a wonderful novel this is! For all who ever dared to want more, much more, from life — a beautifully sensitive love story, with telling historic detail.” – Susan Elia MacNeal, author of the Maggie Hope series
Mar Romasco-Moore
“Compelling...Teens will relate to Pie's deep sense of relief at being seen and loved, as she truly is.” – Booklist
Marit Weisenberg
“This Golden State’s mashup of gorgeously drawn coming of age and utterly gripping mystery had me magnetized to the page. A propulsive tale full of crystalline insights, told with such delicate ferocity.” – Melissa Albert, author of The Hazel Wood Series
Morgan Rhodes
“Echoes and Empires draws you in from page one with forbidden magic, an irrepressible heroine bent on discovering the truth, and a motley collection of characters who will keep you guessing. I need the sequel immediately!” – Elly Blake, author of Frostblood
Nic Stone
“An unforgettable tour de force of social-justice and activist literature.” – Booklist (Starred Review)
Nina LaCour
“The sense of place is strong, and readers will be transported to the rocky, coastal hills shrouded in fog and full of secrets....Mila’s journey to reclaim herself and find independence is tense and powerful.” – Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Steven Salvatore
“A defiant love letter to queer youth; honest, brutal, and more important than ever.” – Kirkus Reviews
Yamile Saied Méndez
“Weaving rich cultural specifics and electric energy into her prose, Méndez crafts a dynamic, feminist narrative that commands attention from the very first line.” – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)