Because Susie made us trust -- and cry for -- a ghost.

 

In Sebold's first novel, The Lovely Bones, she has crafted a gripping tale of tragedy. Part detective story, part family drama, part meditation¹ on what lies beyond, The Lovely Bones is a page-turner in the most literary sense.

 

 

Because Flynn nails an age-old fear: Do we really know the people closest to us?

 

As the story unfolds in precise and riveting² prose, readers will find they are being manipulated by the unreliable narrator Nick. Still, even one notices this, searching for the missing pieces is half the thrill of this wickedly absorbing tale.

 

 

Because change is inevitable³...and nobody knows what the heck to do about it.

 

The author's details about the specific Indian culture were so precise and evocative, and yet her insights into family dynamics⁴, homesickness and the ways we grapple with shifting circumstances resonated with us all.

 

Because we can't resist a didn't-see-it-coming spiritual punch.

 

The novel asked us to think how we endure tragedy, who we become in its wake and how, within it, we may just find both the terrifying and the miraculous⁵.

 

 

Because we all need to feel first love again; even if we know the horrible sob-fest to come at the end.

 

Sixteen-year-old Hazel faces terminal cancer with humor and pluck. But it isn't until she meets Augustus in a support group that she understands how to love or live fully⁶.

 

The novel asked us to think how we enduretragedy, who we become in its wake and how, within it, we may just find both the terrifying and the miraculous.

 

 

Because we got a literary visa to a long-hidden part of the world.

 

Chang's memoir⁷ reads like a blockbuster multigenerational novel, but it's true. Through the portrait of her family, Chang paints a picture of mid-20th-century China, the suffering of its people and the resilience of women everywhere.

 

 

Because Strayed showed us how to leave our tough, destructive pasts 1,100 miles behind us.

 

Cheryl Strayed, 26, admitted herself as a total mess. She righted herself by setting out to hike up the Pacific Crest⁸ Trail. How she did it, and what she learned about life, love, and survival of the emotional and physical sort, is the subject of her moving memoir, Wild.

 

 

Because wildly smart novels never go out of style.

 

In her daring debut⁹ novel, Zadie Smith takes us straight to 1970s multicultural¹⁰ London. Smith's wit and audacity¹¹ is simply irresistible¹² -- as she had written entirely¹³ in the language of charisma¹⁴.

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