Must-Read
Best Books to Read in Your 20s
The reading you do in your 20s sticks. These are the eight books our editors keep pressing into the hands of friends in that decade — books about identity, ambition, the slow break with your family of origin, and the slow build of the family you choose. Not a homework list. The ones that change how you think.
8 books on this list.
Normal Peopleby Sally Rooney
5.0“Normal People by Sally Rooney 2018 review. Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small Sligo town, attend Trinity College Dublin together, and orbit each other across four years of intermittent intimacy. The literary-fiction novel that defined the Rooney moment.”
The Goldfinchby Donna Tartt
5.0“The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt 2013 review. Theo Decker, thirteen, survives a Metropolitan Museum bombing that kills his mother and ends up with a stolen painting that defines the next decade of his life. Pulitzer Prize 2014.”
Klara and the Sunby Kazuo Ishiguro
5.0“Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 2021 review. Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches the children passing by the storefront and waits to be chosen. Late-career Ishiguro at his most patient and most strange.”
Educatedby Tara Westover
5.0“Educated by Tara Westover 2018 review. The memoir of growing up in a survivalist Idaho family that kept her out of school until age seventeen, and her subsequent education through Brigham Young University and Cambridge. The PEN/Bingham winner and one of the canonical contemporary memoirs.”
The Midnight Libraryby Matt Haig
4.0“A gorgeous concept executed with warmth and wit. The Midnight Library will make you think differently about the choices you have made - and the ones still ahead.”
Becomingby Michelle Obama
5.0“Becoming by Michelle Obama 2018 review. Michelle Obama's memoir, from her South Side Chicago childhood through the Obama White House. The political memoir that sold seventeen million copies, and the one that genuinely earns its bestseller status.”
Six of Crowsby Leigh Bardugo
5.0“Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo 2015 review. A crew of six outcasts attempts an impossible heist in the corrupt city of Ketterdam. The YA fantasy heist novel that defined the contemporary Grishaverse and made Bardugo the major YA fantasy writer of her generation.”
Jamesby Percival Everett
5.0“James by Percival Everett 2024 review. A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the enslaved man Jim, in his own voice. The most important American novel of 2024 and the right Everett entry point.”