The Best Books of 2019 to Add to Your Reading List

I Know What You Did Last Summer meets The Girl on the Train in Andrea Bartz’s addictive debut novel, which follows magazine fact-checker Lindsay as she tries to figure out the mystery of her best friend’s suicide. 

Released February 26 

For centuries, women on Korea’s Jeju island have been free-diving into the sea, a practice explored through this fictionalized story of two friends who struggle to stay close amid war, family rivalries, and a shifting cultural landscape. It’s riveting, historical, and heartbreaking all at once.

Released March 5

This novel (which Reese Witherspoon is already adapting into a series) follows the rise and fall of a rock group and its complex female front woman. Told through a series of articles and band interviews, it’s like a deep dive into the archives of the best band you’ve never heard of.

Released March 5

Helen Oyeyemi’s playful, enchanting novel nods at Hansel and Gretel while spinning its own story of a quirky mother and daughter and the family gingerbread recipe that follows them through the years. It’s a modern-day fairy tale with a mysterious twist.

Released March 5

After her fiancé, Henry, dies tragically, Grace sees him everywhere—in restaurants, in shops, even in Andy, a ringer for her former love who knocks on her door one day. A huge hit in the U.K., Irish author Eithne Shortall’s Dublin-set romance novel allows its characters to experience grief with a mix of lightheartedness and gravity.

Released March 12

Fifteen beautiful, deeply affecting short stories—like the tale of a man volunteering at a dog shelter to stop euthanizations—highlight the shared connection we’re all searching for. It will feel like a relief to slip into Amy Hempel’s compassionate world for a few hours.

Released March 26

We’re calling it now: Samantha Downing’s creepy, sexy debut thriller, inspired by the real-life 1977 kidnapping of Colleen Stan, is going to be the next Gone Girl. When a suburban husband and wife accidentally commit their first murder, the secret reignites a long-lost spark in their relationship—and ends up forming a dangerous new hobby for them.

Released March 26

This twisty novel follows two freshman drama students in love and the disturbing role their theater-arts teacher plays in their relationship. It seems a straightforward enough story—until the roller-coaster second half makes you doubt everything that came before.

Released April 9

Documentary filmmaker Erin Lee Carr writes a heartbreaking memoir about the relationship with her father, the acclaimed New York Times journalist who passed away in 2015 after collapsing in the newsroom. You can feel the simultaneous love and grief on each page as Carr offers a glimpse into their unbreakable bond. 

Released April 9 

People can't stop talking about Sally Rooney's Normal People—a magnetic love story between two teenagers who couldn't be completely different from each other, but somehow end up finding their way back to each other—even if it means self-destruction and isolation. 

Released April 16 

Feel inspired by Melinda Gates in her first book, where she shares the lessons she's learned throughout her years of work and travel as one of the most powerful women in the world—and the magic that happens when we all make a conscious decision to lift each other up. 

Released April 23

Though it’s fiction, Joanne Ramos’s novel will feel especially poignant right now: Jane is an immigrant from the Philippines who moves to New York’s Hudson Valley to be a surrogate for the “perfect baby,” for which she’ll be extremely well compensated. The downside? She can’t leave the facility’s grounds for nine months, every move she makes will be heavily monitored, and she must sever all ties to her old life. It will leave you questioning what it really means to live the American dream.

Released May 7 

A year after the release of her critically-acclaimed The Kiss Quotient, Helen Hoang returns with The Bride Test—a refreshingly real depiction of Khai Diep, a man with autism who believes he'll never find love or be loved. That is, until he meets Esme Tran from Vietnam and things get a whole lot more complicated.

Released May 7 

Mandy Berman perfectly captures an all-too-familiar academic love triangle between college friends Fiona and Liv and their charming college professor, Oliver Ash. Berman explores power dynamics and identity issues that the women are forced to face when Ash's sketchy past reveals he's had a relationship with a former underage student. 

Released May 28 

My Favorite Murder's Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark bring you personal stories on topics like depression, eating disorders, and addiction as they delve into the cultural and societal issues women face today. It'll remind you why you love their podcast so much in the first place. 

Released May 28

Elizabeth Gilbert, the critically-acclaimed author known for Eat, Pray, Love (2017) and Big Magic (2016), is back with a sexy tale set in the 1940s about a woman who looks back at her youth. The major themes? Female sexuality and promiscuity.

Released June 4 

Jean Kwok's Searching for Sylvie Lee explores what happens when the eldest daughter of a Chinese immigrant family disappears, revealing complicated truths about family and identity. 

Released June 4 

When Olympic skier Katie's dreams are taken away from her after finding out a truth about her sister that's possible to ignore, she escapes to Buenos Aires to reinvent herself and meets a group of ex-pats who lead her to confront her demons. 

Released July 2 

Jasmine Guillory's novels never disappoint, especially when you're in the mood for a fun, light read. The Wedding Party tells the story of Maddie and Theo, two people who share a mutual friend who's getting married...and a mutual hate for each other. That is, until they end up sleeping with each other and are forced to sneak around until they confront the truth about their relationship. 

Released July 16 

Thirty-four years after she released the original Handmaid's Tale (you may have heard of the adapted Hulu series), Margaret Atwood is set to make her return with The Testaments, which picks up on main character Offred's story 15 years after the dystopian novel's cliffhanger ending. (We won't spoil it for you.)

Released September 10 

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, who you may know as the women who took down Harvey Weinstein, take us inside the investigation that led to their groundbreaking New York Times article in October 2017 and how it's impacted generations of women for years to come. 

Released October 1

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A version of this article appeared in the March 2019 issue of Marie Claire.

READ THE FULL ISSUE HERE