We’re halfway through the year, and it’s time to check in on the books that left the most significant impact on me. Every year, I keep a running list that leads to the Best Of lists. Some are titles that I recommend the most, others are the ones that challenged me. I look for worlds I would never experience on my own, tantalizing writing, and a dash of sad, weird, or horny. Kudos if they could hit all three.
The debut books below (20 fiction, 5 poetry, and 5 nonfiction) are the books I consider to be the best of the year so far. Of course, I think any of the books Debutiful previously recommended could find their spot on here, but a list has to end somewhere.
Here are the Best Debut Books of 2025 (So Far), presented alphabetically.
Aggregated Discontent: Confessions of the Last Normal Woman by Harron Walker
From the publisher: A searing journey through the highs and lows of twenty-first century womanhood from an award-winning journalist beloved for her unflinchingly honest and often comedic appraisals of pop culture, identity, and disillusionment
Walker’s sharp tongue blends memoir and criticism throughout these essays. Among a wide variety of topics, she beautifully tackles art as capitalism and explores why we work.
Big Chief by Jon Hickey
From the publisher: There, There meets The Night Watchman in this gripping literary debut about power and corruption, family, and facing the ghosts of the past.
This is a new American classic. Hickey’s book is tightly written while being an expansive look into Indigenous politics. If you only read one book this year, make it this book.
Blob: A Love Story by Maggie Su
From the publisher: A humorous and deeply moving debut novel in the vein of Bunny and Convenience Store Woman about a young woman who tries to shape a sentient blob into her perfect boyfriend.
A laugh-out-loud and off-the-wall story. It’s all about finding yourself and finding love, but it does so in a completely unexpected way. Reading this was like riding a rollercoaster.
The Catch by Yrsa Daley Ward
From the publisher: Yrsa Daley-Ward conjures a kaleidoscopic multiverse of daughterhood and mother-want, exploring the sacrifices that women must make for self-actualization. The result is a marvel of a debut novel that boldly asks, “How can it ever, ever be a crime to choose yourself?”
In her fiction debut, Daley-Ward explores family in an enthrallingly poetic way. She puts readers into the moments in between madness and lets them move throughout the family through moments big and small. The Catch is expertly plotted with language to match.
Cosmic Tantrum by Sarah Lyn Rogers
From the publisher: A debut full-length poetry collection from Sarah Lyn Rogers rewriting girlhood and summoning mischief
Listening to Sarah Lyn Rogers read from her collection during our Virtual Poetry Night was completely captivating. She explores what girlhood means and how society treats young women with a brilliant eye.
The Edge of Water by Olufunke Grace Bankole
From the publisher: Set between Nigeria and New Orleans, The Edge of Water tells the story of a young woman who dreams of life in America, as the collision of traditional prophecy and individual longing tests the bonds of a family during a devastating storm.
I loved going on this journey that was so gorgeously written. Every word is like silk. Bankole is a writer everyone should be reading.
Foreclosure Gothic by Harris Lahti
From the publisher: A multi-generational and deeply autobiographical gothic tale of Hollywood dreams and upstate New York reality that feels like Andre Dubus III meets Chantal V. Johnson.
A wild ride that is on its way to becoming an all-timer. Lahti will grab you on page one and not let you go as you feel the unearthlyness take over your body. This is firing on all cylinders and the beautiful thing is it feels like Lahti did it effortlessly. Simply stunning.
Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange by Katie Goh
From the publisher: Per person, oranges are the most consumed fruit in the world. Across the world, no matter how remote or cold or incongruous a climate is, oranges will be there. What stories could I unravel from the orange’s long ribboning peel? What new meanings could I find in its variousness, as it moves from east to west and from familiar to foreign?
This is the type of nonfiction I love. A blend of memoir and criticism that explores a topic in a way I never encountered. Goh’s writing is inventive and intelligent.
The Gloomy Girl Variety Show by Freda Epum
From the publisher: Merging memoir, poetry, and criticism, this radical literary revue traces a first-generation Nigerian American’s search for home and belonging on her own terms.
Epum invites readers into a world filled with beautiful language and clever quips to explore identity in an approachable way. It is a mesmerizing debut that will open readers’ eyes to new worlds.
Good Girl by Aria Aber
From the publisher: An electric debut novel about the daughter of Afghan refugees and her year of self-discovery–“a stunning coming-of-age story” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) and a portrait of the artist as a young woman set in a Berlin that can’t escape its history
Wow. Holy, wow! This had a lot of hype already by the time I got my hands on it and it didn’t disappoint. It’s a messy coming-of-age with complex and gripping characters.
Great Black Hope by Rob Franklin
From the publisher: A gripping, elegant debut novel about a young Black man caught between worlds of race and class, glamour and tragedy, a friend’s mysterious death, and his own arrest, from an electrifying new voice.
Tantalizing, to say the least. Franklin’s ability to ooze authentic charisma from the page is unparalleled. This is the perfect summer novel and one that will transport you to the sweltering subway rides while dealing with sweeping themes. Franklin could very well be our next great American writer.
Guatemalan Rhapsody by Jared Lemus
From the publisher: A vibrant debut story collection–poignant, unflinching, and immersive–masterfully moving between sharp wit and profound tenderness, Guatemalan Rhapsody offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of an ever-changing country, the people who claim it as home, and those who no longer do
This collection is already one of my favorites since starting Debutiful. They’re fresh but timeless. Lemus writes about place – both America and Guatemala – with precision and care. He writes with utter compassion. Reading this collection was an absolute delight.
Hardly Creatures by Rob Macaisa Colgate
From the publisher: Through nine sections that act as gallery rooms, the book shepherds the reader through the radiance and mess of the disability community.
An eye- and heart-opening collection about being yourself through thick and thin. Colgate is a lyrical mastermind. I could reread these poems until the ends of days.
Helen of Troy, 1993 by Maria Zoccola
From the publisher: Part myth retelling, part character study, this sharp, visceral debut poetry collection reimagines Helen of Troy from Homer’s Iliad as a disgruntled housewife in 1990s Tennessee.
I didn’t know what to expect when this one arrived on my doorstep. I ended up reading it in one sitting and was moved by the creativity and the modern take on an all-time classic. The moment I finished it, I knew it was going to be a favorite book for a long, long time.
Homeseeking by Karissa Chen
From the publisher: An epic and intimate tale of one couple across sixty years as world events pull them together and apart, illuminating the Chinese diaspora and exploring what it means to find home far from your homeland.
Chen’s debut is a panoramic story about recapturing, and outrunning, the past. Emotions pour over on every page while characters you will grow to cherish navigate intimacy across place and time. She asks if we can recapture our past, and, more importantly, if we should try to.
Loca by Alejandro Heredia
From the publisher: If Junot Diaz’s critically acclaimed collection Drown and Janet Mock’s Emmy-winning series Pose produced offspring, Alejandro Heredia’s Loca would be their firstborn.
This was completely enthralling and moving. It pulls back the curtain on young, queer people’s lives and organically allows readers into and beautiful and complicated friendship. Simply one of the most exciting new writers on the scene.
Luminous by Silvia Park
From the publisher: A highly anticipated, sweeping debut set in a unified Korea that tells the story of three estranged siblings–two human, one robot–as they collide against the backdrop of a murder investigation to settle old scores and make sense of their shattered childhood, perfect for fans of Klara and the Sun and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.
It’s a stone cold stunner of a novel. If this list was ranked and not alphabetical, this would have been given Number One. Park masterfully balances complex characters in a very creative world. The family dynamics in this future-tinged novel are brilliantly written.
Make Sure You Die Screaming by Zee Carlstrom
From the publisher: An electrifying debut about a nonbinary corporate burnout embarking on a road trip from Chicago to Arkansas to find their conspiracy-theorist father, who has gone missing–for fans of Detransition Baby and Chain-Gang All-Stars
Every sentence, every page, every chapter got a hell yeah out of me. This is an anthem for all of us sick of what our society has become.
Old School Indian by Aaron John Curtis
From the publisher: An astonishing coming-of-middle-age debut about an Ahkwesáhsne man’s reluctant return home, Old School Indian is a striking exploration of the resonance of love and family, culture and history.
Aaron John Curtis has announced himself into the pantheon of modern Indigenous writers alongside Morgan Talty, Brandon Hobson, and, among others, Tommy Orange. Old School Indian is a revelation. I could not put this down.
The Original Daughter by Jemimah Wei
From the publisher: In this dazzling debut, Stegner Fellow Jemimah Wei explores the formation and dissolution of family bonds in a story of ambition and sisterhood in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.
A moving story about sisterhood and the bonds that we can and cannot break. This is a generational novel, both in plot and quality. I suspect readers will be talking about this book for years to come.
Plum by Andy Anderegg
From the publisher: For fans of Sarah Rose Etter and Scott McClanahan, Plum is a darkly beautiful, unflinching novel about modern girlhood in the internet age, the daily toll of trauma, and the limits of love.
Plum is breathtaking. Anderegg’s style and prose are a breath of fresh air. She writes about trauma in a raw way that I have never experienced before. I wish more people wrote with the courage that Anderegg writes with.
Sky Daddy by Kate Folk
From the publisher: Cross the jet bridge with Linda, a frequent flyer with an unusual obsession, in this “audaciously imagined and surprisingly tender” (Rachel Yoder, author of Nightbitch) debut novel by the acclaimed author of Out There.
Sky Daddy has quickly become the easiest and most frequent book for me to recommend. There is something in it for everyone, but especially those who need an off-the-wall, bonkers escape from our reality.
The Slip by Lucas Schaefer
From the publisher: For readers of Jonathan Franzen and Nathan Hill comes a haymaker of an American novel about a missing teenage boy, cases of fluid and mistaken identity, and the transformative power of boxing.
An ambitious and masterful book of epic proportions. Schaefer comes out swinging and delivers on every page. Crime, sports, and coming-of-age have never felt so alive in a book.
Strange Beach by Oluwaseun Olayiwola
From the publisher: A debut poetry collection wrangling the various selves we hold and perform–across oceans and within relationships–told through a queer, Nigerian-American lens
Olayiwola’s poems made me stop and catch my breath. He writes without fear, inviting readers to experience raw emotions and unspoken truths. Strange Beach was profoundly moving.
There Are Reasons for This by Nini Berndt
From the publisher: There Are Reasons for This is a modern love song about the fallibility of love–in all its iterations–about the denial and tethering of desire, about the family we are given and the one we find for ourselves, and to what comes next, whatever that may be.
This is an undeniably engrossing read with a beautiful cover. Berndt’s writing blew me away time and time again throughout this novel. She writes like a boxer floating off the page with ease and packing the heaviest of punches with the simplest flick of her wrist.
This Is Your Mother by Erika J. Simpson
From the publisher: From “a writer who’s absolutely going places” (Roxane Gay), a remarkable, inventive debut memoir about a mother-daughter relationship across cycles of poverty, separation, and illness, exploring how we forge identity in the face of imminent loss.
An ode to Simpson’s mother, filled with gorgeous language and imagery. Simpson earnestly shares insights into her life, her mother, and how they navigated race, class, and gender in America.
We Contain Landscapes by Patrycja Humienik
From the publisher: To whom do we belong, and at what cost? Patrycja Humienik’s debut poetry collection, We Contain Landscapes, is haunted by questions of desire, borders, and the illusion of national belonging
A collection of uniquely written poems that made me think a lot about my relationship with my parents and family.
We Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown
From the publisher: An exuberant and ribald debut novel about three adolescent girls, as sweetly vulnerable as they are cunning and tough, coming of age in a gritty postindustrial town in nineties Yorkshire, England
If you couldn’t tell by now, I love coming-of-age stories set in small towns and I love the 1990s. This book does everything exceedingly well. It’s full of emotion.
When the Harvest Comes by Denne Michele Norris
From the publisher: In this heart-wrenching debut novel, a young Black gay man reckoning with the death of his father must confront his painful past–and his deepest desires around gender, love, and sex.
I nearly fell over when I heard Norris read from Harvest at AWP 2024 in Kansas City. It wouldn’t be hyperbole to say her craft is genius. Norris radiates on the sentence, emotional, and plot level. An early contender for Novel of the Year.
Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything (Essays on the Future That Never Was) by Colette Shade
From the publisher: Perfect for fans of Jia Tolentino and Chuck Klosterman, Y2K is a delightfully nostalgic and bitingly told exploration about how the early 2000s forever changed us and the world we live in.
We need more great essay collections that take a critical lens to recent culture and history and Shande’s collection is a perfect addition to that pantheon. While nostalgia is just now dipping into the Y2K era, Shande unflinchingly looks at the time period with biting takes and a keen eye. She explores why we’re so nostalgic for the 2000s, why what we were promised never came true, and what we can learn from our past.
