Electric Lit’s Best Novels of 2024

 One of the great joys of working for Electric Literature is the opportunity to celebrate the best books of the year. It seems that every year produces better and better books; or perhaps readers continue to fall more in love with reading. Or maybe two things, or many things, are true. Either way, what I know to be true is that every year, our most-loved novels are filled with extraordinary characters who soar into your hearts, burrowing into them, and remaining. They are original, unforgettable, un-put-downable, and we are lucky to have them.This year’s list features a number of well-known authors and their best-loved books, as well as remarkable debut authors, whose voices we will luxuriate in for years to come. These books wrapped themselves around us, warming and comforting us in a time of great turmoil. If you haven’t explored these novels, do so as soon as possible. You won’t be sorry, you’ll simply fall deeper in love—with reading, and with books. 

The novels included on this list were chosen by a vote from the EL community. Here are Electric Lit’s Top 5 nonfiction books of 2024, followed by the best nonfiction books of the year.

The Top 5 Novels of the Year:

Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino

How would an alien in Northeast Philly record observations of earth? Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland contains a simple answer: using a fax machine she found discarded on the street. The story of Bertino’s third novel follows Adina, an alien, born on earth who is sent to record humanity’s happenings. The result is a tender, incisive reckoning with what it means to be human. 

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Martyr-obsessed Cyrus Shams is haunted by a number of tragedies when we meet him, high and drunk, in the pages of Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr!. His father recently suffered a stroke and died. His mother was killed in the late 1980s, when the U.S, Navy shot down a flight she was on over the Persian Gulf. So, he decided to craft a book about historical martyrs and along the way discovers Orkideh, a terminally ill artist, who spurs questions about Cyrus’ mother. Short-listed for the National Book Award, the fresh family saga ask what it takes for life and death to be consequential. 

Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg

This multilayered sapphic road trip novel is a delightful surprise that plays with the themes of queer ancestry, embodiment, American politics, photography, and the artistic life. Bernie and Leah’s drive across Pennsylvania is inspired by a real-life historical trip taken by photographer Bernice Abbott and art critic Elizabeth McCausland, but Bernie and Leah are ultra-modern and grounded in the concerns of the frantic present. The characters’ journey toward both relational intimacy and artistic collaboration guides the trajectory of this enthralling debut novel.

The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan

An international bestseller, Vanessa Chan’s incredibly gripping debut novel is set in World War II and follows Cecily, a Malayan housewife who agrees to act as a spy for a general that dreams of an “Asia for Asians.” When Cecily finds her nation crumbling years later, she does everything in her power to save them. This historical fiction novel effortlessly leaps through time and its central family’s perspectives to deliver a story of secrets and survival in times of tragedy.

City of Laughter by Temim Fruchter

A multi-generational family saga, City of Laughter centers on a Jewish woman, Shiva, whose family has been visited by a shapeshifting stranger over the course of 100 years. Shiva travels to Ropshitz, Poland, colloquially known as the “City of Laughter,” to learn more about her family secrets. The tale deftly moves between perspectives, capturing the family’s joy, shame and everything in between.

Electric Lit’s Additional Favorite Novels 

Colored Television by Danzy Senna 

After a decade of writing her supposedly groundbreaking second novel—what her husband calls a “mulatto War and Peace”—Jane’s efforts and expectations fall flat. In a bid of desperation, she turns to Hollywood, thinking it may be her way out of her precarious lifestyle as a novelist. Danzy Senna’s latest novel, Colored Television, is a hilarious and sharp take on the racial-industrial complex, ambition, and reinvention.

Memory Piece by Lisa Ko

Ko’s sophomore novel tracks three lifelong friends, roving from their 1980’s girlhood to their Y2K-era years in New York to their adulthood in the dystopian 2040’s. Though starkly different from one another, the women are brought together by their identities as outsiders who find comfort on the fringes. Refreshingly honest and driven by female-centric relationships, this novel digs into questions about documentation and survival at the edges of society.

James by Percival Everett

In his National Book Award winning novel, Percival Everett reimagines the (in)famous Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the enslaved Jim. When he hears he is going to be sold, and thus separated from his family, he escapes to an island to form a plan. While many of the same beats of Huckleberry Finn can be found, James brings the story into an entirely new light, showcasing Jim’s agency, compassion, and wits as he takes back control of his life.

Come and Get It by Kiley Reid

An RA aspires to buy a home. A visiting writer starts an affair with a student after secretly mining private conversations for a Money Diaries-esque column. A disgraced batton twirler tries to find community as a transfer student in a new state In her zany, sophomore novel, Kiley Ried skewers assumptions about race, class, and American university culture. 

Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez

The titular Anita de Monte is one of three narrators in Xochitl Gonzalez’s sophomore novel Anita de Monte Laughs Last. After de Monte is found dead in her apartment, her work as a conceptual artist is nearly forgotten until Raquel Toro, a graduate student in art history, begins uncovering her story.  

All Fours by Miranda July

The National Book Award finalist All Fours follows an unnamed artist as she seeks reinvention. Confronting middle age and menopause, she embarks on a journey of self discovery that forces her to reevaluate her ideas of family and intimacy. Described as frank, captivating, and irresistible, the novel reckons with what does (and doesn’t) change as we get older.

Worry by Alexandra Tanner

The magic of this novel lies in the hyperrealistic dynamic between sisters Jules and Poppy: their constant push and pull, their paradoxical desire for both personal space and intense closeness. Tanner’s prose has a unique, captivating beauty as she traces the sisters’ meandering journey through their twenties in New York City, shadowed by their overbearing mother and by the specter of the Internet.

The Coin by Yasmin Zaher

Our unnamed narrator has migrated from Palestine to New York City after the death of her parents, pursuing a semblance of the American dream. The narrator struggles against the hypnotic pull of capitalism but finds herself scheming with her situationship, a homeless man called Trenchcoat, to resell Birkin bags to the wealthy. The nonlinear, unraveling story of her movement through the city includes meditations on the environment, individualism, the body, and the accumulation of wealth. 

The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas

The premise of The Anthropologists is simple: Asya, a documentary filmmaker, and her husband Manu, an employee of a nonprofit organization, search for apartments in a foreign country. Like so much of our daily lives, the moments that seem mundane are filled with profundity. The Anthropologists is a great love story about aging parents, romantic love, and what it means to call a place home. 

Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang

Jiaming Tang’s stunning debut novel is an engrossing portrait of gay men in rural China — and the women that marry them. Opening in a movie theater known for being a pickup spot for gay men in 1980s China, the novel tracks criss-crossed lovers as secret romances are exposed, and as desperate treks to America are taken. Cinema Love aches with tenderness and heart as it explores desire, immigration, grief, and survival.

Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham

Vinson Cunningham, a former Obama campaign staffer, introduces us in his autofictive debut novel to David, a Black man (and Pip figure) working for an unnamed presidential Candidate who closely resembles Obama. Cunningham’s prose sparkles with energy and offers juicy tidbits about the less-than-glamorous reality of the campaign trail. The story raises resonant questions about privilege, the intersection of race and class, and authenticity in the political realm.

Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte

Longlisted for the National Book Award, Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection is a novel-in-stories that satirizes the rejects of our world. Described as a modern classic, Tulathimutte is unrelenting as he explores the delusion and desire of our time through seven linked portraits. 

Malas by Marcela Fuentes

This generational saga set in the fictional Texas-Mexico border town of La Cienega traces a family curse from the 1940’s to the 1990’s. The driving voices of the braided narrative are two equally proud, obstinate women who address the injuries of the past and embrace their futures. Fuentes writes captivating dialogue and cinematic scenes that arrest the reader’s attention throughout this entertaining debut novel.

The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

Following the tale of a secret resistance helmed by Black women in pre-Civil War New Orleans, this gripping historical novel explores hope, resistance, and the triumphant power of community. After being separated from her mother, Ady—a sharp and curious enslaved woman—must embark on a journey toward liberation and self-discovery. Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s latest is riveting, inventive, and inspiring.

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

Wandering Stars, Tommy Orange’s follow up to There, There, begins with survivor of the 1864 Sand Creek massacre Jude Star. Star, who is part of the Cheyenne tribe,  is forced to learn English and assimilate into Christianity. The novel follows his descendants, eventually landing on the Red Feather family, familiar to readers from There, There. In the present day, the novel examines how the family copes with inherited trauma, addiction and the pains of assimilation.  

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

Sally Rooney’s fourth novel follows brothers Peter and Ivan. A lawyer and a chess prodigy, respectively, the men are reeling from the loss of their father and Rooney deftly chronicles their misadventures in life and love. Peter is unable to choose between two women: one older, one younger. Ivan meets Margaret, an arts program director, and the two begin a secret relationship. 

The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft

This debut, from Booker Prize-winning translator Jennifer Croft, trodes on familiar material. The titular character Irena Rey brings eight translators to her home to translate one of her books. Then, she goes missing and a surprising, remarkable tale ensues. 

Broughtupsy by Christina Cooke

After the death of her younger brother, Akúa flies from Canada to Jamaica to spread his ashes, reconnect with her sister, and revisit significant locations from their childhood in Kingston. Akúa’s journey brings her to question her ethnic identity as a member of the Jamaican diaspora and as a lesbian pushing back against a restrictively religious family. Drifting across continents, Broughtupsy is at once a queer bildungsroman, a tale of displacement, and a tender family saga.

Exhibit by R. O. Kwon

If Jin doesn’t keep her old familial curse a secret, she risks losing everything she has. And yet, this doesn’t stop her from confiding in Lidija—a woman she’s found a sudden, intense connection to, and who helps her explore her deepest, most hidden desires. This hypnotic and sensual narrative is razor sharp as it explores rebirth, identity, pain, and pleasure. R.O. Kwon writes with an urgency like no other.

Devil Is Fine by John Vercher

Blurring the lines between tragedy and humor, past and present, John Vercher’s latest novel follows our biracial narrator as he inherits land from his estranged white grandfather. While he expected to resell the land, things take a turn when he discovers he is now the Black owner of what used to be a plantation, passed down for generations. With raw honesty and aplomb, Devil Is Fine dissects the relationship between legacy, memory, and destiny.