Home
Books
The best debut novels of 2017

The best debut novels of 2017

By Isabella Biedenharn

December 19, 2017 at 11:38 AM EST

Meredith has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Meredith may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links.

Skip gallery slides

1 of 15

The best debut novels of 2017

Credit: Penguin Random House; Grove Atlantic; Henry Holt and Company; Knopf Doubleday; Little Brown and Company

2017 was a bang-up year for first-time novelists, with riveting reads about female friendship like The Animators and Marlena sticking with readers for months, and hits like The Hate U Give and The Leavers nominated for big literary prizes. Read on to see our picks for the best debuts of the year — and the writers you should watch out for in years to come.

2 of 15

Kayla Rae Whitaker, The Animators

Credit: Penguin Random House

Whitaker's delicious saga about two vivdly-realized avant garde cartoonists (who are also best friends) goes through so many twists and turns, I found myself asking multiple times, "Where can she possibly go from here?" Turns out the answer — aside from Brooklyn, central Florida, and rural Kentucky — is straight into your heart. Order it here.

3 of 15

Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

Credit: Harper Collins

You probably haven't heard of this one... just kidding! After Thomas's YA debut, which spurred a fervent auction amongst 13 publishing houses, was published in early 2017, it shot straight onto the New York Times best-seller list — where it's remained for 41 weeks and counting. The timely tale follows 16-year-old Starr, a high school student who sees her childhood best friend killed by a police officer. Scared and traumatized, she's reluctant to speak out about the experience — but eventually finds her voice and is drawn to activism. Order it here.

Continued on next slide.

4 of 15

Rachel Khong, Goodbye Vitamin

Credit: Henry Holt and Company

Khong's slim, rollicking novel doesn't sound too funny — it's about a woman who's just broken up with her fiancé and moves home to help care for her dementia-stricken father. But trust us, the former Lucky Peach executive editor infuses her debut with laugh-out-loud humor, warm pathos, and delicious food descriptions. Order it here.

5 of 15

Lisa Ko, The Leavers

Credit: Algonquin Books

Not only was Ko's debut a National Book Award finalist this year, but it also won the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Fiction. The moving story follows a young boy named Deming Guo whose mother, an undocumented immigrant, disappears one day, leaving him to be adopted by two white professors who change his name to Daniel. Order it here.

6 of 15

Emily Ruskovich, Idaho

Credit: Random House

As her husband Wade's memory slips away, Ann tries to figure out what happened to his first wife and their daughters. Order it here.

Continued on next slide.

7 of 15

Weike Wang, Chemistry

Credit: Penguin Random House

Wang, who has a doctorate herself, makes a flailing Ph.D student's breakdown utterly entertaining in this crisply written and compuslively readable snack of a novel. Order it here.

8 of 15

Julie Buntin, Marlena

Credit: Henry Holt and Co.

Buntin's Marlena unspools the dark, gorgeously written story of a fast-moving friendship between two teen girls that ends in one's death. Order it here.

9 of 15

Emily Culliton, The Misfortune of Marion Palm

Credit: Knopf Doubleday

Marion Palm's titular misfortune is all of her own making: The Brooklyn mother is on the run after embezzling money for years from her daughters' elite school. In Culliton's slick and surprising novel, we follow both Marion's path as a fugitive, and her bereft family at home, where her aloof, self-absorbed husband is trying (sort of) to make sense of things, and her young daughters learn to live without their mother.

Order it here.

Continued on next slide.

10 of 15

Brendan Mathews, The World of Tomorrow

Credit: Little Brown and Company

Mathews brings the 1939 World's Fair to life in this enthralling saga about three Irish brothers in New York City who are on the run from the IRA — and an assassin. Order it here.

11 of 15

Sarah Schmidt, See What I Have Done

Credit: Grove Atlantic

Though it happened over a century ago, Schmidt makes Lizzie Borden's infamous 1892 murder case feel gruesomely, viscerally real in this excellent historical thriller. Order it here.

12 of 15

Ayobami Adebayo, Stay with Me

Credit: Knopf

College sweethearts Yejide and Akin eschewed their culture's polygamist ways when they got married — but when four years pass and Yejide still isn't pregnant, her family finds a second wife for Akin. To save her marriage, Yejide knows she has to find a way to get pregnant, but at what cost? Order it here.

Continued on next slide.

13 of 15

Josephine Rowe, A Loving, Faithful Animal

Credit: Catapult

When Jack, an Australian Vietnam War veteran, goes missing, his family flounders in his absence. At the same time, they begin to recognize that Jack's own personal trauma has been passed along to them in myriad tragic ways. Order it here.

14 of 15

Jenny Zhang, Sour Heart

Credit: Lenny

Zhang's lively, gorgeously written short stories spotlight the lives of daughters of Chinese immigrants. Order it here.

15 of 15

George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo

Credit: Penguin Random House

We almost forgot this one since the inimitable Saunders is such a seasoned writer, but Lincoln in the Bardo — which nabbed this year's Man Booker Prize — is the short story master's debut novel. His wildly original rendering of a night in a graveyard with President Lincoln and his dead son, Willie, narrated by a Greek chorus of ghosts, will stay with us for years. Order it here.

Replay gallery

Up Next

By Isabella Biedenharn

Account

The best debut novels of 2017

1 of 15

The best debut novels of 2017

1 of 15

2 of 15

Kayla Rae Whitaker, The Animators

2 of 15

3 of 15

Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

3 of 15

4 of 15

Rachel Khong, Goodbye Vitamin

4 of 15

5 of 15

Lisa Ko, The Leavers

5 of 15

6 of 15

Emily Ruskovich, Idaho

6 of 15

7 of 15

Weike Wang, Chemistry

7 of 15

8 of 15

Julie Buntin, Marlena

8 of 15

9 of 15

Emily Culliton, The Misfortune of Marion Palm

9 of 15

10 of 15

Brendan Mathews, The World of Tomorrow

10 of 15

11 of 15

Sarah Schmidt, See What I Have Done

11 of 15

12 of 15

Ayobami Adebayo, Stay with Me

12 of 15

13 of 15

Josephine Rowe, A Loving, Faithful Animal

13 of 15

14 of 15

Jenny Zhang, Sour Heart

14 of 15

15 of 15

George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo

15 of 15

Share the Gallery

Up Next

Share the Gallery

Everything in This Slideshow