13 Fiction Debuts & Breakthroughs That Live up to the Hype

by Naomi Alderman

Very smart and very entertaining. Full review >

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by Hernan Diaz

Not for the faint of heart, perhaps, but an ambitious and thoroughly realized work of revisionist historical fiction. Full review >

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by Tom Hanks

While these stories have the all-American sweetness, humor, and heart we associate with his screen roles, Hanks writes like... Full review >

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by László Krasznahorkai ; translated by John Batki with Ottilie Mulzet and Georges Szirtes

Complex and difficult, as are all of Krasznahorkai’s works, but worth sticking with. Full review >

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by Ann Leckie

More intriguing cultures to explore, more characters to care about, more Leckie to love. Full review >

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by Mike McCormack

This transcendent novel should expand McCormack's following on this side of the Atlantic and further establish him as a... Full review >

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by Carmen Maria Machado

An exceptional and pungently inventive first book. Full review >

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by Brendan Mathews

It’s not Doctorow’s Ragtime, but there’s a similar feel in this impressive, wide-ranging debut. Full review >

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by Annalee Newitz

A strong and cerebral start if perhaps a little too open-ended. Full review >

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by Joan Sales ; translated by Peter Bush

Philosophical and earthy, tragic and funny, honest, raw, superb: Sales makes Hemingway seem thin, even anemic, in... Full review >

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by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

A well-crafted—and altogether timely—first novel. Full review >

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by Gabriel Tallent

A powerful, well-turned story about abuse, its consequences, and what it takes to survive it. Full review >

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by Cherise Wolas

From the start, one wonders how Wolas is possibly going to pay off the idea that her heroine is such a genius. Verdict: few... Full review >

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