The Top 50 Books of the Last 5 Years
A post was shared with me back in 2024 that presented "Goodreads Members' Top Books of the Past Five Years". I took a read through the list, and I'll be honest, I was triggered! There were some winners on the Goodreads list, but there was also a bunch of fluff. There are so many better books published since 2020 than what the masses have identified above.
I had to fix it, and there was only one way to do so: I simply had to create my own list. Since that original list, the years keep offering new books, and so I've expanded my list to include books from 2025 and 2026 as well, but there are too many great books from 2020 and 2021. So, indulge me: it's the top 50 (or a few more) from the last 5 years (plus a couple extra).
Enjoy!
A lovely and cheeky queer story, this traces the evolution of a man as he comes to grips with his professional and sexual identity.
Meet protagonist Marian Graves, a woman in determined to fly planes in the early 1900s at a time when women, quite simply, didn't.
Spanning 30 years of the main characters' lives, it's the story of 3 friends inspired to create something great in the world of gaming.
When a woman washes ashore on a remote island, the lone family living there nurses her back to health. But both parties have secrets...
What happens when a mom can't connect with her child, and she starts to wonder if her child isn’t just different, but maybe inherently bad?
Kerr's mature and tightly-plotted debut follows the murder investigation of the founder of a fictitious tech company in San Francisco.
Edgy and violent, Cosby's latest sees a successful money manager sucked into working for a sadistic gang in order to save his brother.
Another great spy thriller from Hayes after 10 long years. Despite some questionable supernatural plot choices, it's still a winner.
A high school girl is thrust into an FBI investigation to try to uncover a drug ring that is terrorizing Native American tribes
The former drummer for Nirvana and founding member of the Foo Fighters shares stories of his life in rock in this memoir.
*Published in 2021, but I read it in 2024.
A better version of the "city dweller finds love in a small town" trope, while also ranking as the funniest book I read in 2022.
An exploration of the immigrant experience through the story of two high school students of Pakistani descent, growing up in rural CA.
When sex workers start to turn up murdered, a Philly cop investigates, hoping to stop the trend before her sister becomes a victim.
Set in 1975, the search for a missing child acts as the foundation for Moore's tactful exploration of societal themes of the time.
A stellar offering from author Harper about a missing woman and a history of complicated relationships among friends in a small town.
A woman returns to the small town where she grew up, despite being the prime suspect in the 5-year-old murder of her best friend.
A nostalgia-inducing romp through the most impactful songs of the '90s, focusing on their meaning to the decade and to music overall.
Years after her cousin's disappearance, detective Maggie D'Arcy is asked to consult an a case with eerie similarities.
Jaw-dropping dialogue and moral judgement set the tone for this dark exploration of five neurodiverse characters, one of which we're told will die by the end of the book.
When two young gay men are murdered, their fathers join forces to take solving the murders into their own hands.
A land where one’s blood color determines their race is the setting while a secret sect try to infiltrate to infiltrate the government.
Harrow returns to top form with a genre-blending story of a young woman trying to scrape by in a town haunted by its past and secrets.
Goo's sweet time travel tale sees a 17-year-old from 2025 transported back to 1995 to try to help her own mother win homecoming queen.
Filled with tragedy, perseverance, and love, the novel focuses on the fictional first women in the NASA space program in the early 1980s.
A stand-alone novel unrelated to her "Divide" series, author Dewes elegantly explores immortality, AI, and what it means to be human.
The journey of a mother and her son as they flee Acapulco for the United States after becoming targets of the local cartel.
An ambitious, sprawling novel that intertwines 3 storylines across different places and times, but magically comes together in the end
A "tradwife" and Instagram influencer has cultivated a seemingly idyllic life for herself and family, but it's all upended when she wakes up one day in 1805.
An old friend desperately needs Lillian's help caring for her kids. There's one catch, though: when the kids get upset, they catch fire
Perhaps the most-hyped book of 2023 lives up to it, as we follow the journey of a young girl as she attempts to become a dragon rider.
Yarros gives us a rarity -- a sequel to a force-of-nature debut that's just as good as the original, and in some ways possibly better.
A truly excellent start to a trilogy about an orphan who infiltrates an Academy for societal elites in order to uncover a conspiracy.
Skillful dialogue and prose adorn this debut that combines a love story with the search for a mysterious gangster in 1920s Chicago.
A beautifully written (despite its lack of quotation marks) character study of a cast of memorable souls that spans 30 years from the end of World War II until the mid-70s.
A brilliant retelling of Cinderella from the "wicked" stepmother's perspective, this witty, inventive historical drama completely reimagines a classic villain.
One outlier...so what if it came out in 2009? Don't care. I read it in 2024, and it's one of the best autobiographies I've come across in a long time.
A small town, a love triangle, a murder, and a trial form the foundation of this twisty, emotional novel set in mid-1900s England.
A children's book about life's most difficult subject—death—told with compassion, humor and grace at a level on par (or above) any adult literature.
Part Seabiscuit, part palace politics, part commentary on societal boundaries and castes -- this novel was great on multiple levels.
When author Christie Tate hits rock bottom, she decides to try a radical form of group therapy, where everything is NOT confidential.
I'm cheating a bit on this one by selecting a 3-book series for one slot, but they're all equally great and all released within the last five years. An action-packed space opera that's great for fans of The Expanse.
It was not the novel I liked the most -- it was slow at times, and seemed to drag on forever -- but it was the novel for which I have the most respect in 2023.
A masterful book, Lehane's best since Mystic River, set against the racial tensions of Boston school busing during the summer of '74.
The reunion of 2 siblings around a mysterious house is the backdrop for this lyrical beauty of a novel, my favorite of 2022.
An ode to Charles Dickens in the form of a modern retelling of David Copperfield, set in Appalachian Virginia over the last 30+ years.
More than a retelling of "Huck Finn" from the point of view of Jim, this is a brilliant treatise on race and slavery in 1860s America.
A grieving scientist encounters a glowing dome in Antarctica whose particle physics may prove a universe where time runs backward — and offer her a way to undo her own past.
Whitaker delivers another masterpiece of character development while tackling several tough topics -- a challenging but uplifting read.
Set in a near-future society that feels all too possible, prisoners fight in gladiatorial death matches for a chance at freedom.
Another tightly crafted Southern Noir novel from Cosby packed with social commentary and memorable characters. Possibly his best yet.
Set in 1999, a coming-of-age story about a high schooler who finds himself embroiled in a supernatural missing persons investigation.
Like an Irish version of Braveheart, at sea, with a badass woman at the helm, it reimagines the life of Ireland's legendary pirate queen Grace O'Malley.
A scientist trapped alone in space trying to survive. What worked for Weir with The Martian does again and this time might be even better.
An innovative character study in which an aging woman's life story is revealed through the letters she writes and receives from a myriad of perpeople.
A “one last job” crime caper that ends up with a lot more depth and character development than expected. It's outstanding.
A thought-provoking and heartbreaking coming of age story, mixed with a small town mystery. My clear favorite of 2021 by a wide margin.
One email on the first of every month with a summary and rating of each book reviewed over the past 30 days, and a look at where the year's ranking stands.