Year-End Lists

Kirkus Reviews: Best Fiction Books of 2021, shown here in alphabetical order by author, but on their site Kirkus also lists the books in various groupings, like "Book Club Fiction" and "Fiction in Translation."

[see also Best Nonfiction Books of 2021]

• The Arsonists' City
  Hala Alyan
• Light From Uncommon Stars
  Ryka Aoki
• Foregone
  Russell Banks
• Northern Spy
  Flynn Berry
• Destroyer of Light
  Jennifer Marie Brissett
• What Storm, What Thunder
  Myriam J A Chancy
• Land of Big Numbers
  Te-Ping Chen
• Skinship
  Yoon Choi
• The Netanyahus

  An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family
  Joshua Cohen
• Razorblade Tears
  S.A. Cosby
• What's Mine and Yours
  Naima Coster
• Second Place
  Rachel Cusk
• A Lot Like Adiós
  Alexis Daria
• Damnation Spring
  Ash Davidson
• Machinehood
  S.B. Divya
• Echo Tree

  The Collected Short Fiction of Henry Dumas
  Henry Dumas
• Winter in Sokcho
  Elisa Shua Dusapin
• The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
  Mariana Enriquez
• The Sentence
  Louise Erdrich
• The Twilight Zone
  Nona Fernández
• Crossroads
  Jonathan Franzen
• Infinite
  Brian Freeman
• The Free Bastards
  Jonathan French
• Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch
  Rivka Galchen
• Monkey Boy
  Francisco Goldman
• Matrix
  Lauren Groff
• Three Rooms
  Jo Hamya
• The Corpse Flower
  Anne Mette Hancock
• The Other Black Girl
  Zakiya Dalila Harris
• Early Morning Riser
  Katherine Heiny
• People We Meet on Vacation
  Emily Henry
• Act Your Age, Eve Brown
  Talia Hibbert
• Golden Girl
  Elin Hilderbrand
• The Removed
  Brandon Hobson
• The Rib King
  Ladee Hubbard
• Zorrie
  Laird Hunt
• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
  Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
• Kin
  Miljenko Jergovic
• My Monticello
  Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
• Palmares
  Gayl Jones
• Five Tuesdays in Winter
  Lily King
• Billy Summers
  Stephen King
• Intimacies
  Katie Kitamura
• Build Your House Around My Body
  Violet Kupersmith
• Reality and Other Stories
  John Lanchester
• The Soulmate Equation
  Christina Lauren
• Untraceable
  Sergei Lebedev
• Red Island House
  Andrea Lee
• The Great Mistake
  Jonathan Lee
• The War for Gloria
  Atticus Lish
• The Blizzard Party
  Jack Livings
• No One Is Talking About This
  Patricia Lockwood
• Loop
  Brenda Lozano
• Bombshell
  Sarah MacLean
• How Beautiful We Were
  Imbolo Mbue
• The Fugitivities
  Jesse McCarthy
• The Souvenir Museum
  Elizabeth McCracken
• Lean Fall Stand
  Jon McGregor
• One Last Stop
  Casey McQuiston
• Milk Blood Heat
  Dantiel W. Moniz
• The Committed
  Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Walking on Cowrie Shells
  Nana Nkweti
• The Man Who Died Twice
  Richard Osman
• Battle Royal
  Lucy Parker
• Unthinkable
  Brad Parks
• A Radical Act of Free Magic
  H.G. Parry
• Detransition, Baby
  Torrey Peters
• A Lonely Man
  Chris Power
• Bewilderment
  Richard Powers
• The Five Wounds
  Kirstin Valdez Quade
• The Dating Playbook
  Farrah Rochon
• Beautiful World, Where Are You
  Sally Rooney
• American Estrangement
  Saïd Sayrafiezadeh
• Bina

  A Novel in Warnings
  Anakana Schofield
• The Queer Principles of Kit Webb
  Cat Sebastian
• Great Circle
  Maggie Shipstead
• Our Country Friends
  Gary Shteyngart
• Secrets of Happiness
  Joan Silber
• False Witness
  Karin Slaughter
• The Life of the Mind
  Christine Smallwood
• Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth
  Wole Soyinka
• Wayward
  Dana Spiotta
• Trust
  Domenico Starnone
• Bolla
  Pajtim Statovci
• In Memory of Memory
  Maria Stepanova
• Lady Joker
  Kaoru Takamura
• Filthy Animals
  Brandon Taylor
• The Blackmailer's Guide to Love
  Marian Thurm
• Fight Night
  Miriam Toews
• The Lincoln Highway
  Amor Towles
• No Gods, No Monsters
  Cadwell Turnbull
• Hummingbird Salamander
  Jeff VanderMeer
• Afterparties
  Anthony Veasna So
• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
  Dawnie Walton
• I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
  Claire Vaye Watkins
• Project Hail Mary
  Andy Weir
• Harlem Shuffle
  Colson Whitehead
• Harrow
  Joy Williams
• Seven Days in June
  Tia Williams