I’ll be the first to acknowledge how much I love series. I love getting to really know the characters in multiple installments rather than trying to glean anything I can in the limited amount of pages offered by a standalone novel. Aside from some nonfiction books, like memoirs or essay collections, I don’t tend to read many standalones. That being said, I’m going through a standalone novel phase that I’m not really sure how I got into, but I’m a little reluctant to pull myself out of and delve into another series.
Here are some standalones that I’m a little bit obsessed with at the moment:
Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips
Only Child by Rhiannon Navin
The Hunger by Alma Katsu
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Marlena by Judy Buntin
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
Circe by Madeline Miller
The Spring Girls by Anna Todd
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
I Was Anastasia by Ariel Lawhorn
Oliver Loving by Stefan Merrill Block
Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao
As Bright as Heaven by Susan Meissner
White Houses by Amy Bloom
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Which we’ll be reading for Stuck Between the Pages, the high school age book discussion for May!)
Here are some standalone novels that have been near and dear to my heart since I have read them in years past:
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Cell by Stephen King
P.S. I Love You by Cecilia Ahern
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Where the Heart Is by Billie Lets
The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
And by Jodi Picoult, one of my favorite authors:
It helps that I read/listen to multiple books at a time, so while I can lose myself in various series, I can learn to love something new in a standalone. I commend authors who can pack character development, a believable story arc, and grip/keep my attention in one novel.
What are some of your favorite standalone novels? I’d love any recommendations you could give!
Happy Reading!
Category: