The Road cover
Literary Fiction The Road

Cormac McCarthy

A father and son journey through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, clinging to each other and the last ember of hope.

4.0 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Survival
Beloved cover
Literary Fiction Beloved

Toni Morrison

An emancipated slave is haunted by the ghost of her dead daughter -- a shattering portrait of trauma, memory, and freedom.

3.9 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Identity
The Remains of the Day cover
Literary Fiction The Remains of the Day

Kazuo Ishiguro

An English butler reflects on a lifetime of devoted service and the love he quietly, fatally suppressed.

4.1 via Goodreads
Emotional Identity
Blood Meridian cover
Literary Fiction Blood Meridian

Cormac McCarthy

A brutal, visionary epic following a teenage drifter across a landscape of near-mythic violence on the Texas-Mexico border.

4.2 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty War
One Hundred Years of Solitude cover
Literary Fiction One Hundred Years of Solitude

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Seven generations of the Buendia family in the mythical town of Macondo -- the definitive masterpiece of magical realism.

4.1 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Family
To Kill a Mockingbird cover
Literary Fiction To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee

A young girl in the Depression-era South watches her father defend a Black man falsely accused of a terrible crime.

4.3 via Goodreads
Emotional Identity
The Catcher in the Rye cover
Literary Fiction The Catcher in the Rye

J.D. Salinger

A disillusioned teenager wanders New York for three days after being expelled -- the defining novel of adolescent alienation.

3.8 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Identity
The Perks of Being a Wallflower cover
Literary Fiction The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Stephen Chbosky

A quiet, sensitive teenager writes letters to an anonymous stranger about his first year of high school -- and what he's trying to survive.

4.2 via Goodreads
Emotional Coming of Age
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone cover
Literary Fiction Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

J.K. Rowling

An orphaned boy discovers on his eleventh birthday that he's a wizard -- and the world of magic has been waiting for him.

4.5 via Goodreads
Action-Packed Identity
The Fault in Our Stars cover
Literary Fiction The Fault in Our Stars

John Green

Two teenagers with cancer fall in love at a support group -- a story that refuses to be sentimental and earns every tear.

4.1 via Goodreads
Emotional Love
The Outsiders cover
Literary Fiction The Outsiders

S.E. Hinton

A teenager from the wrong side of town navigates gang rivalries and loyalty -- written when its author was just sixteen.

4.1 via Goodreads
Emotional Coming of Age
A Wrinkle in Time cover
Literary Fiction A Wrinkle in Time

Madeleine L'Engle

A misfit girl travels through time and space to rescue her father -- and faces a force that wants to erase individuality.

4.0 via Goodreads
Action-Packed Identity
Normal People cover
Literary Fiction Normal People

Sally Rooney

Two young people from the same small Irish town orbit each other from school through college -- intimately observed and profoundly honest.

3.9 via Goodreads
Emotional Love
A Man Called Ove cover
Literary Fiction A Man Called Ove

Fredrik Backman

A grumpy old man who wants to die is gradually pulled back into life by his new, too-noisy neighbours.

4.4 via Goodreads
Hopeful & Uplifting Love
The Midnight Library cover
Literary Fiction The Midnight Library

Matt Haig

Nora finds herself in a library between life and death where every book is a life she could have lived. Which one is the right one?

4.0 via Goodreads
Hopeful & Uplifting Identity
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine cover
Literary Fiction Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Gail Honeyman

A woman with no social skills and a rigid routine is gradually, painfully, beautifully opened up by an unexpected friend.

4.0 via Goodreads
Hopeful & Uplifting Identity
Anxious People cover
Literary Fiction Anxious People

Fredrik Backman

A bank robbery gone wrong leads to a hostage situation at an apartment viewing -- and eight very peculiar people who need each other.

3.8 via Goodreads
Funny & Witty Identity
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo cover
Literary Fiction The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Taylor Jenkins Reid

A reclusive Old Hollywood star agrees to tell her story -- and the truth is more scandalous, heartbreaking, and human than anyone expected.

4.2 via Goodreads
Emotional Love
Gilead cover
Literary Fiction Gilead

Marilynne Robinson

An ageing pastor in rural Iowa writes a letter to his young son -- a life's worth of memory, regret, and hard-won grace.

3.9 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Family
A Little Life cover
Literary Fiction A Little Life

Hanya Yanagihara

Four college friends build lives in New York, but one carries wounds so deep they threaten to pull them all under.

4.3 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Friendship
The Kite Runner cover
Literary Fiction The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini

A boy in Kabul betrays his closest friend -- and spends the rest of his life trying to make it right.

4.3 via Goodreads
Emotional Redemption
Speak cover
Literary Fiction Speak

Laurie Halse Anderson

A high-school outcast stops speaking after a summer party no one will talk about -- and finds her voice through art.

3.9 via Goodreads
Emotional Identity
Looking for Alaska cover
Literary Fiction Looking for Alaska

John Green

A teenager goes to boarding school looking for adventure -- and finds a brilliant, reckless girl who changes everything.

3.8 via Goodreads
Emotional Coming of Age
Where the Crawdads Sing cover
Literary Fiction Where the Crawdads Sing

Delia Owens

A girl abandoned by her family grows up alone in the North Carolina marshes -- then becomes the prime suspect in a murder.

4.5 via Goodreads
Mysterious & Atmospheric Survival
Americanah cover
Literary Fiction Americanah

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A young Nigerian woman navigates race, identity, and love across three continents -- and discovers that belonging is never as simple as a passport.

4.3 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Identity
The Secret History cover
Literary Fiction The Secret History

Donna Tartt

Six classics students at an elite Vermont college commit a murder -- and the real horror is how easily they justify it.

4.1 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Friendship
Daisy Jones & The Six cover
Literary Fiction Daisy Jones & The Six

Taylor Jenkins Reid

An oral history of a fictional 1970s rock band's explosive rise and mysterious breakup -- told by the people who lived it and the secrets they kept.

4.1 via Goodreads
Emotional Love
📚 No cover
Literary Fiction The Goldfinch

Donna Tartt

A thirteen-year-old survives a museum bombing and stumbles out with a priceless painting -- which becomes both his anchor and his curse for the next fourteen years.

3.9 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Identity
I'll Give You the Sun cover
Literary Fiction I'll Give You the Sun

Jandy Nelson

Twin artists tell their story in split timelines -- one in words, one in art -- as a family secret threatens to tear them apart.

4.1 via Goodreads
Emotional Love
Prep cover
Literary Fiction Prep

Curtis Sittenfeld

A middle-class girl arrives at an elite boarding school and spends four years observing the codes of wealth, beauty, and belonging she can never quite crack.

3.3 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Identity
Remarkably Bright Creatures cover
Literary Fiction Remarkably Bright Creatures

Shelby Van Pelt

A widowed night janitor at an aquarium forms an unlikely bond with a giant Pacific octopus -- who knows a secret about her missing son.

4.4 via Goodreads
Hopeful & Uplifting Loss & Grief
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow cover
Literary Fiction Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Gabrielle Zevin

Two friends bond over video games as children, then spend decades building virtual worlds together -- while struggling to navigate the real one.

4.1 via Goodreads
Emotional Friendship
Demon Copperhead cover
Literary Fiction Demon Copperhead

Barbara Kingsolver

David Copperfield retold in the opioid-ravaged hollows of Appalachia -- a boy fights his way through foster care, addiction, and a system that never wanted to save him.

4.5 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Identity
Lessons in Chemistry cover
Literary Fiction Lessons in Chemistry

Bonnie Garmus

A brilliant female chemist in the 1960s is forced off the lab bench -- and accidentally becomes the star of a cooking show that teaches America to think like scientists.

4.2 via Goodreads
Funny & Witty Identity
Never Let Me Go cover
Literary Fiction Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro

Three friends raised in an English boarding school discover their lives have been shaped by a terrible, hidden purpose.

3.8 via Goodreads
Emotional Identity
A Gentleman in Moscow cover
Literary Fiction A Gentleman in Moscow

Amor Towles

A Russian count sentenced to perpetual house arrest in a grand Moscow hotel discovers that a confined life can still be infinitely rich.

4.5 via Goodreads
Hopeful & Uplifting Identity
Three Men in a Boat cover
Literary Fiction Three Men in a Boat

Jerome K. Jerome

Three amiable men and a dog attempt a boating holiday on the Thames, managing to make every simple task into a minor catastrophe.

4.0 via Goodreads
Light & Fun Friendship
Fight Club cover
Literary Fiction Fight Club

Chuck Palahniuk

An insomniac office worker creates an alter ego who leads him into a secret world of organised violence and anarchic philosophy.

4.2 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Identity
The Lovely Bones cover
Literary Fiction The Lovely Bones

Alice Sebold

A teenage girl narrates her own story from the afterlife, watching her family grieve and her killer go free.

3.8 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Loss & Grief
No Longer Human cover
Literary Fiction No Longer Human

Osamu Dazai

A man pieces together the notebooks of a stranger whose life was a sustained performance of humanity concealing a radical inability to connect.

4.1 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Identity
Animal Farm cover
Literary Fiction Animal Farm

George Orwell

The animals of Manor Farm overthrow their human farmer and establish a new order -- which quickly proves just as tyrannical as the one they replaced.

3.9 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Politics
Convenience Store Woman cover
Literary Fiction Convenience Store Woman

Sayaka Murata

A thirty-six-year-old woman has found her perfect place in the world -- the Smile Mart convenience store -- and sees no reason to want anything else.

3.7 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Identity
The Alchemist cover
Literary Fiction The Alchemist

Paulo Coelho

A young Spanish shepherd follows an omen across the Sahara in search of buried treasure and discovers that the journey itself is the point.

3.9 via Goodreads
Hopeful & Uplifting Identity
Holes cover
Literary Fiction Holes

Louis Sachar

A boy sent to a brutal desert camp starts digging -- and begins to uncover connections between his family's curse, a century-old crime, and the warden's secret.

4.1 via Goodreads
Hopeful & Uplifting Friendship
The Giver cover
Literary Fiction The Giver

Lois Lowry

A boy is selected to receive the memories of his society's true history -- and discovers the terrible price his perfect world has been paying for its peace.

4.1 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Identity
The Corrections cover
Literary Fiction The Corrections

Jonathan Franzen

Three adult children and their ageing parents collide during one final Christmas gathering as the family's carefully maintained fictions begin to unravel.

3.7 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Family
Catch-22 cover
Literary Fiction Catch-22

Joseph Heller

Yossarian is quite certain someone is trying to kill him. The problem is that the only way to ground a pilot for insanity is to ask -- but asking proves you are sane.

3.9 via Goodreads
Funny & Witty War
Cold Comfort Farm cover
Literary Fiction Cold Comfort Farm

Stella Gibbons

Newly orphaned and entirely practical, Flora Poste descends on her eccentric rural relatives to sort out their melodramatic lives -- whether they want her to or not.

3.9 via Goodreads
Funny & Witty Family
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry cover
Literary Fiction The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Rachel Joyce

Harold Fry, retired and unremarkable, receives a letter from a dying friend. Instead of posting his reply, he begins to walk to her -- five hundred miles away.

4.0 via Goodreads
Hopeful & Uplifting Love
Dial A for Aunties cover
Literary Fiction Dial A for Aunties

Jesse Q. Sutanto

Meddlesome Chinese-Indonesian aunties, an accidental corpse, and a lavish wedding that cannot be cancelled -- what could possibly go wrong?

3.8 via Goodreads
Funny & Witty Family
Hatchet cover
Literary Fiction Hatchet

Gary Paulsen

Thirteen-year-old Brian survives a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but a hatchet and the knowledge that no one is coming to save him.

3.9 via Goodreads
Action-Packed Survival
The House on Mango Street cover
Literary Fiction The House on Mango Street

Sandra Cisneros

Esperanza Cordero grows up on Mango Street in Chicago, watching and listening and building inside herself the person she is going to become.

3.8 via Goodreads
Emotional Identity
I Am the Messenger cover
Literary Fiction I Am the Messenger

Markus Zusak

Ed Kennedy is a nineteen-year-old cabdriver with no direction, until he foils a bank robbery and starts receiving playing cards with addresses -- and instructions to help strangers.

4.0 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Identity
Howl's Moving Castle cover
Literary Fiction Howl's Moving Castle

Diana Wynne Jones

The eldest of three sisters and therefore (by her own resigned logic) destined for nothing, Sophie is cursed into an old woman's body -- and moves into the castle of a feared wizard.

4.3 via Goodreads
Funny & Witty Identity
Middlemarch cover
Literary Fiction Middlemarch

George Eliot

A panoramic portrait of an English provincial town where idealism collides with the limits of what society will allow -- and love proves both salvation and trap.

4.1 via Goodreads
Emotional Identity
📚 No cover
Literary Fiction Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoevsky

A brilliant student murders a pawnbroker to prove he is above ordinary morality -- then spends the rest of the novel being destroyed by conscience.

4.3 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Identity
The Great Gatsby cover
Literary Fiction The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

A mysterious millionaire throws lavish parties in pursuit of a woman he lost five years ago, while the American Dream rots quietly behind the spectacle.

3.9 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Love
Jane Eyre cover
Literary Fiction Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte

An orphaned governess refuses to surrender her dignity or her moral convictions, even as she falls in love with a man concealing a terrible secret.

4.2 via Goodreads
Emotional Identity
Of Mice and Men cover
Literary Fiction Of Mice and Men

John Steinbeck

Two itinerant workers share a dream of owning their own land -- and the gap between that dream and a brutal, indifferent world is the whole tragedy.

3.9 via Goodreads
Emotional Friendship
East of Eden cover
Literary Fiction East of Eden

John Steinbeck

Two families in California's Salinas Valley play out an epic struggle between good and evil across multiple generations -- and one word, timshel, changes everything.

4.4 via Goodreads
Emotional Family
The Bell Jar cover
Literary Fiction The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath

A young woman wins a coveted internship in New York and descends, step by careful step, into a depression she cannot name or escape.

4.1 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Identity
Things Fall Apart cover
Literary Fiction Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe

A proud Igbo warrior in colonial Nigeria watches the world he has built -- and the world he was born into -- fracture under the weight of change he cannot accept.

3.9 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Identity
The Color Purple cover
Literary Fiction The Color Purple

Alice Walker

Celie writes letters she cannot send to a God she is not sure is listening -- and slowly, through those letters, she finds her voice and her life.

4.3 via Goodreads
Emotional Identity
Stoner cover
Literary Fiction Stoner

John Williams

A Missouri farm boy becomes an English professor and leads a quiet life marked by failed love, academic disappointment, and the private rewards of literature.

4.1 via Goodreads
Emotional Identity
Siddhartha cover
Literary Fiction Siddhartha

Hermann Hesse

A young Brahmin abandons everything he has been taught -- twice -- in search of an enlightenment that cannot be handed down, only lived.

4.1 via Goodreads
Hopeful & Uplifting Identity
📚 No cover
Literary Fiction The Old Man and the Sea

Ernest Hemingway

An old Cuban fisherman rows out alone into the Gulf Stream and hooks the greatest fish of his life -- then must decide what winning actually means.

3.9 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Survival
The Picture of Dorian Gray cover
Literary Fiction The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde

A beautiful young man sells his soul for eternal youth -- and a portrait ages and corrupts in his place while he remains perfect and grows monstrous.

4.1 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Identity
Mrs Dalloway cover
Literary Fiction Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf

A June day in 1923 London, seen through the consciousness of a society hostess preparing a party and a shell-shocked veteran she will never meet.

3.9 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Identity
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous cover
Literary Fiction On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Ocean Vuong

A letter from a son to a mother who cannot read it -- written to explain a life shaped by war, addiction, queerness, and the impossible weight of inherited suffering.

4.2 via Goodreads
Emotional Family
Giovanni's Room cover
Literary Fiction Giovanni's Room

James Baldwin

An American in Paris falls in love with an Italian bartender while his fiancee is away -- and his inability to accept that love destroys them both.

4.3 via Goodreads
Emotional Identity
📚 No cover
Literary Fiction The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Milan Kundera

Two couples navigate love, infidelity, and freedom in Soviet-occupied Prague, while the narrator keeps interrupting to ask what any of it means.

4.2 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Love
Conversations with Friends cover
Literary Fiction Conversations with Friends

Sally Rooney

A college student begins an affair with a married actor and discovers that her intellectual certainties about love and autonomy do not survive contact with actual feeling.

3.7 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Love
📚 No cover
Literary Fiction The Virgin Suicides

Jeffrey Eugenides

The neighbourhood boys spend the rest of their lives trying to understand the five Lisbon sisters, whose deaths they witnessed and could not prevent.

3.9 via Goodreads
Mysterious & Atmospheric Identity
📚 No cover
Literary Fiction A Room with a View

E.M. Forster

An Edwardian young woman on holiday in Florence is kissed by the wrong sort of man in a field of violets -- and cannot stop thinking about it.

4.0 via Goodreads
Light & Fun Love
Invisible Man cover
Literary Fiction Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison

A nameless Black man moves from the Deep South to Harlem, passing through institutions that all claim to help him while systematically erasing who he is.

4.0 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Identity
The God of Small Things cover
Literary Fiction The God of Small Things

Arundhati Roy

Twins in Kerala carry for decades the weight of a single catastrophic summer -- a forbidden love, a child's death, and the caste laws that made both inevitable.

4.2 via Goodreads
Emotional Love
The Shadow of the Wind cover
Literary Fiction The Shadow of the Wind

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

A boy in post-war Barcelona discovers a forgotten novel, then discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every book the author ever wrote.

4.2 via Goodreads
Mysterious & Atmospheric Love
A Thousand Splendid Suns cover
Literary Fiction A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini

Two women from different generations are brought together by a forced marriage in Kabul -- and the bond they forge becomes the only thing that can save them.

4.4 via Goodreads
Emotional Love
The Rosie Project cover
Literary Fiction The Rosie Project

Graeme Simsion

A genetics professor with zero social skills designs a sixteen-page questionnaire to find the perfect wife -- and then meets the spectacularly unsuitable Rosie.

3.9 via Goodreads
Funny & Witty Love
Beartown cover
Literary Fiction Beartown

Fredrik Backman

A small Swedish hockey town pins its hopes on its junior team -- and then a single night shatters the community along every existing fault line.

4.3 via Goodreads
Emotional Friendship
📚 No cover
Literary Fiction The Heart's Invisible Furies

John Boyne

A man born to an unmarried mother in 1945 Ireland grows up in a country that has no place for him -- and returns every seven years to discover how much has and hasn't changed.

4.5 via Goodreads
Emotional Identity
Where'd You Go, Bernadette cover
Literary Fiction Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Maria Semple

A brilliant, agoraphobic architect disappears before a family trip to Antarctica -- and her daughter pieces together what happened from emails, invoices, and FBI transcripts.

4.0 via Goodreads
Funny & Witty Family
📚 No cover
Literary Fiction Olive Kitteridge

Elizabeth Strout

A retired schoolteacher from coastal Maine moves through the lives of her neighbours -- brusque, difficult, sometimes cruel -- and is the most fully human character in any of them.

3.9 via Goodreads
Emotional Family
The Overstory cover
Literary Fiction The Overstory

Richard Powers

Nine Americans whose lives have been shaped by trees are drawn into the struggle to save the last old-growth forests -- in a novel told partly from the trees' point of view.

4.0 via Goodreads
Thought-Provoking Identity
If Beale Street Could Talk cover
Literary Fiction If Beale Street Could Talk

James Baldwin

A pregnant young woman in Harlem narrates her fight to free her wrongfully imprisoned fiance before their child is born -- a love story built inside an indictment.

4.3 via Goodreads
Emotional Love
The Underground Railroad cover
Literary Fiction The Underground Railroad

Colson Whitehead

A slave escapes a Georgia plantation via a literal underground railroad -- a network of secret tunnels running beneath the American South -- and discovers that freedom is not a single destination.

4.0 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Survival
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry cover
Literary Fiction The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Gabrielle Zevin

A grieving, irritable bookseller on a small island finds an abandoned toddler in his shop -- and her arrival begins to piece his life back together in ways he didn't ask for.

3.9 via Goodreads
Hopeful & Uplifting Love
The Secret Life of Bees cover
Literary Fiction The Secret Life of Bees

Sue Monk Kidd

A fourteen-year-old girl escapes her abusive father in 1960s South Carolina and finds refuge with three Black beekeeping sisters who may know what happened to her mother.

4.2 via Goodreads
Hopeful & Uplifting Identity
The Cellist of Sarajevo cover
Literary Fiction The Cellist of Sarajevo

Steven Galloway

A cellist plays Albinoni's Adagio in a Sarajevo street for twenty-two days -- one for each person killed there by a mortar -- while three civilians struggle to stay alive around him.

3.9 via Goodreads
Emotional Survival
Commonwealth cover
Literary Fiction Commonwealth

Ann Patchett

A single impulsive kiss at a christening party sets two families on a collision course across fifty years -- and one summer together as blended children shapes all of them forever.

3.8 via Goodreads
Emotional Family
The Five People You Meet in Heaven cover
Literary Fiction The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Mitch Albom

An old amusement park maintenance man dies in an accident and discovers that heaven consists of five meetings with people whose lives intersected with his in ways he never understood.

4.0 via Goodreads
Hopeful & Uplifting Identity
Crying in H Mart cover
Literary Fiction Crying in H Mart

Michelle Zauner

A musician processes the death of her Korean mother through food -- and finds that cooking her mother's recipes is the closest thing to having her back.

4.3 via Goodreads
Emotional Family
The Hunger Games cover
Literary Fiction The Hunger Games

Suzanne Collins

In a dystopian future, sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers for a televised death match to save her younger sister.

4.3 via Goodreads
Tense & Suspenseful Survival
Divergent cover
Literary Fiction Divergent

Veronica Roth

In a future Chicago divided into five factions based on virtue, sixteen-year-old Tris must choose -- and discovers she does not fit any single faction.

4.0 via Goodreads
Tense & Suspenseful Identity
The Maze Runner cover
Literary Fiction The Maze Runner

James Dashner

Thomas wakes in a metal elevator with no memory and arrives in a glade at the center of an enormous maze -- with no idea why he is there or who sent him.

3.9 via Goodreads
Tense & Suspenseful Survival
City of Bones cover
Literary Fiction City of Bones

Cassandra Clare

Fifteen-year-old Clary discovers a world of Shadowhunters, demons, and warlocks hidden inside New York City -- and that she has been connected to it her whole life.

4.1 via Goodreads
Action-Packed Identity
📚 No cover
Literary Fiction Tuck Everlasting

Natalie Babbitt

Ten-year-old Winnie discovers a family who drank from a spring and stopped aging a century ago -- and must decide whether to join them.

3.9 via Goodreads
Emotional Identity
Coraline cover
Literary Fiction Coraline

Neil Gaiman

Coraline finds a door in her new home that leads to a better world -- with better food, a more attentive mother, and buttons where eyes should be.

4.1 via Goodreads
Mysterious & Atmospheric Identity
The Hate U Give cover
Literary Fiction The Hate U Give

Angie Thomas

Sixteen-year-old Starr is the only witness to the police shooting of her unarmed childhood friend -- and must decide how loudly to speak.

4.5 via Goodreads
Emotional Identity
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda cover
Literary Fiction Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Becky Albertalli

Simon is not out to anyone -- but someone at school has found his emails to a boy he's been falling for online and is threatening to expose him.

4.2 via Goodreads
Funny & Witty Identity
Red Queen cover
Literary Fiction Red Queen

Victoria Aveyard

In a world divided by blood -- silver for the powerful elite, red for everyone else -- a Red girl discovers she has the abilities of the Silver ruling class.

4.0 via Goodreads
Tense & Suspenseful Identity
Thirteen Reasons Why cover
Literary Fiction Thirteen Reasons Why

Jay Asher

Clay Jensen receives a box of cassette tapes from a classmate who has died by suicide, explaining the thirteen reasons why -- and he is one of them.

3.7 via Goodreads
Dark & Gritty Identity
📚 No cover
Literary Fiction Legend

Marie Lu

In a fractured future America, the Republic's most brilliant young soldier is sent to capture its most wanted criminal -- a boy from the slums.

4.1 via Goodreads
Tense & Suspenseful Survival
📚 No cover
Literary Fiction All the Bright Places

Jennifer Niven

Theodore Finch counts the reasons to stay alive daily. Violet Markey is counting the days until graduation. They meet on the ledge of the school bell tower.

4.0 via Goodreads
Emotional Love
Five Feet Apart cover
Literary Fiction Five Feet Apart

Rachael Lippincott

Two teenagers with cystic fibrosis meet in a hospital and fall in love -- even though the distance between them could be the thing that kills them.

4.0 via Goodreads
Emotional Love
📚 No cover
Literary Fiction An Abundance of Katherines

John Green

Former child prodigy Colin Singleton has been dumped by nineteen girls named Katherine and drives to rural Tennessee to find a mathematical theorem of love.

3.8 via Goodreads
Funny & Witty Love