Best Fiction of 2012

Part 2 of Mantel's trilogy about Thomas Cromwell is a masterful imagining of the events leading up to Anne Boleyn's demise.

Read Rob Brunner's review.

A strange, scary, and sometimes funny novel about the endless mysteries of North Korea.

Read Rob Brunner's review.

Set in '60s Italy and contemporary L.A., this irresistible Hollywood novel features lost love, thwarted dreams, and Richard Burton.

Read Leah Greenblatt's review.

Penned by a former Arrested Development writer, it's part hilarious Seattle send-up, part rich portrait of an eccentric family and its troubled matriarch.

Read Stephan Lee's review.

What happens when an innocent young Bangladeshi woman marries some dude from Rochester after they meet on a website? Freudenberger expertly explores their odd relationship in this continent-hopping novel.

Read Lisa Schwarzbaum's review.

The most fun you'll ever have reading a YA cancer-teen love story. Also: deeply sad.

Read Stephan Lee's review.

This twisty, can't-stop-reading mystery features a divisive ending and real insight into human relationships.

Read Jeff Giles' review.

Ware's astonishing deconstructed graphic novel comes in a box that looks like a Monopoly set — which consists of 14 interchangeable parts — and captures the lonely lives of people living on top of each other in a Chicago apartment building.

Read Melissa Maerz's review.

A linked series of flawless short stories that train Díaz's sharp ear on narrator Yunior's wandering eye.

Read Thom Geier's review.