The 22 Greatest Debut Novels of the 2010s

Everyone here was a first-timer, which makes the confidence on display a little unfair.

1. 1
   The Martian

   Andy Weir's 2011 survival story of an astronaut stranded on Mars, solved one engineering problem at a time.
   1000pts
2. 2
   The Night Circus

   Erin Morgenstern's 2011 fantasy of a black-and-white travelling circus and the rival magicians bound inside it.
   809pts
3. 3
   My Absolute Darling

   Gabriel Tallent's 2017 harrowing novel of a teenage girl and her abusive survivalist father in California.
   679pts
4. 4
   The Bear and the Nightingale

   Katherine Arden's 2017 Russian folklore fantasy about a girl who sees the household spirits.
   624pts
5. 5
   The Miseducation of Cameron Post

   Emily M. Danforth's 2012 novel about a teenager sent to a gay conversion camp in Montana.
   560pts
6. 6
   Gideon the Ninth

   Tamsyn Muir's 2019 'lesbian necromancers in space' mystery with a sword-wielding cavalier.
   560pts
7. 7
   Divergent

   Veronica Roth's 2011 dystopian YA novel about a society sorted into factions by temperament.
   485pts
8. 8
   Eileen

   Ottessa Moshfegh's 2015 dark, tense novel narrated by a young prison secretary in 1960s New England.
   485pts
9. 9
   The Rosie Project

   Graeme Simsion's 2013 romantic comedy of a geneticist who designs a questionnaire to find a wife.
   485pts
10. 10
    An Ember in the Ashes

    Sabaa Tahir's 2015 YA fantasy set in a brutal Roman-inspired empire.
    485pts
11. 11
    Lincoln in the Bardo

    George Saunders's 2017 first novel, a chorus of ghosts surrounding Abraham Lincoln's grief over his son.
    485pts
12. 12
    Behold the Dreamers

    Imbolo Mbue's 2016 story of Cameroonian immigrants chasing a better life in New York around the 2008 crash.
    397pts
13. 13
    Ready Player One

    Ernest Cline's 2011 sci-fi quest through a virtual world stuffed with 1980s pop culture.
    397pts
14. 14
    The Poppy War

    R. F. Kuang's 2018 military fantasy drawing on 20th-century Chinese history.
    397pts
15. 15
    A Man Called Ove

    Fredrik Backman's 2012 warm, grumpy story of a widower whose plans are interrupted by his new neighbours.
    291pts
16. 16
    The Hate U Give

    Angie Thomas's 2017 YA novel about a teenager who witnesses a police shooting of her friend.
    291pts
17. 17
    Shadow and Bone

    Leigh Bardugo's 2012 Russian-inspired fantasy that launched the Grishaverse.
    291pts
18. 18
    Homegoing

    Yaa Gyasi's 2016 saga following two half-sisters' descendants across Ghana and America over 300 years.
    291pts
19. 19
    Everything I Never Told You

    Celeste Ng's 2014 family mystery after a teenage girl is found drowned in a lake.
    291pts
20. 20
    The Girls

    Emma Cline's 2016 coming-of-age novel inspired by a Manson-style California cult.
    291pts
21. 21
    There There

    Tommy Orange's 2018 polyphonic novel of Native Americans in Oakland converging on a powwow.
    0pts
22. 22
    The Sympathizer

    Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer-winning 2015 spy novel narrated by a Vietnamese double agent.
    0pts

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