The Stacks
773 honest reviews across fiction, non-fiction, mystery, sci-fi, romance, and more.
Showing 73-96 of 773
by Holly Black
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black 2018 review. Jude Duarte, a human raised in the High Court of Faerie, navigates Prince Cardan's cruel politics. Canonical contemporary YA romantasy.
by Maggie O'Farrell
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell 2022 review. Lucrezia di Cosimo de' Medici recognizes that her husband, the Duke of Ferrara, intends to kill her. O'Farrell's Hamnet follow-up.
by Stuart Turton
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton 2018 review. Aiden Bishop wakes in eight different bodies at a 1920s country house and must solve a murder. Costa First Novel Award winner.
by Erik Larson
The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson 2024 review. The five months between Lincoln's November 1860 election and Fort Sumter. Larson's follow-up to The Splendid and the Vile and one of the canonical narrative non-fiction books of the year.
by Olivie Blake
The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake 2022 review. Six powerful magicians are recruited for the Alexandrian Society. Only five will be initiated. The first Atlas trilogy book and the canonical BookTok-era dark academia romantasy.
by Rebecca Yarros
Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros 2025 review. Third Empyrean novel and the volume that takes the war into its third year. Violet flies south. The fastest-selling adult novel in the past twenty years.
by Sally Rooney
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney 2021 review. A famous Irish novelist and her Dublin best friend exchange philosophical emails. Rooney's third novel and the structural bridge between Normal People and Intermezzo.
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney 2024 review. Two Dublin brothers - a lawyer and a chess player - navigate grief and romance after their father's death. Rooney's fourth novel and her structurally most ambitious yet.
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney 2017 review. Two Dublin college students become entangled with an older married couple. Rooney's debut and the structural predecessor to Normal People.
by Jodi Picoult
Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan 2022 review. A New Hampshire beekeeper's teenage son is accused of murdering his girlfriend. The Picoult-Boylan co-authored breakout.
by Nita Prose
The Maid by Nita Prose 2022 review. A neurodivergent hotel maid finds a guest dead in his suite and becomes the primary suspect. New York Times bestseller and the basis for the Florence Pugh film.
by Samantha Shannon
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon 2019 review. A standalone epic fantasy across four kingdoms preparing for the return of a banished ancient dragon. Canonical contemporary literary epic fantasy.
by Erin Morgenstern
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern 2011 review. A black-and-white circus open only from sunset to sunrise hosts a years-long competition between two young magicians. Canonical contemporary American literary fantasy.
by Gail Honeyman
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman 2017 review. A thirty-year-old Glasgow office worker develops her first adult friendship. British Book Award Book of the Year 2018.
by Fredrik Backman
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman 2020 review. A failed bank robber takes a Stockholm apartment-viewing hostage. Backman's structurally most ambitious novel and the basis for the Netflix limited series.
by Tommy Orange
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange 2024 review. The historical-and-contemporary follow-up to There There. The Red Feather ancestral chain from Sand Creek 1864 through the present.
by Kristin Hannah
The Women by Kristin Hannah 2024 review. A California debutante follows her brother to Vietnam as an Army nurse in 1967. Kristin Hannah's structural masterwork and the best-selling adult novel of 2024.
by Prince Harry
Spare by Prince Harry 2023 review. The Duke of Sussex's memoir of his life from Diana's death through the 2020 California relocation. The fastest-selling non-fiction book in English-language publishing history.
by Trevor Noah
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah 2016 review. Trevor Noah's memoir of growing up mixed-race in late-apartheid and early-post-apartheid South Africa. The canonical contemporary South African memoir.
by Emily Henry
People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry 2021 review. Travel writer Poppy and her best friend Alex have taken one summer trip together for ten years. Two years ago the trip ended badly. Henry's breakout contemporary romance.
by Ariel Lawhon
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon 2023 review. Maine midwife Martha Ballard examines a frozen-river body in November 1789. Lawhon reconstructs the four-month murder investigation from Ballard's actual surviving diary.
by Emily St. John Mandel
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel 2022 review. Four characters across four centuries are connected by the same anomalous moment. Mandel's third in the post-Station-Eleven sequence and the most structurally ambitious of the three.
by Ann Napolitano
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano 2023 review. Four sisters in 1980s Chicago and the graduate-student basketball player who marries into the family. Napolitano's breakout literary commercial novel.
by John Boyne
The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne 2017 review. Cyril Avery's life across seven decades - adopted out of 1945 Catholic Cork, navigating the closeted gay Ireland of the 1960s through the 2010s. Boyne's literary commercial masterwork.
