Another Six Contemporary Novels I Loved in the Past Year
- The Bossy Bookworm
- 2 minutes ago
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Six More Favorite Contemporary Fiction Reads
This is the third of three contemporary fiction lists I've put together as I've mined my recent-past reading for my favorite reads of the past year--you can find my first list of contemporary fiction favorite reads from last year here and my second list here.
And you can explore the twelve titles on My Very Favorite Bossy 2025 Reads to find out about my overall favorite reads from last year, or you can read about past Bossy contemporary fiction favorites here.
If you've read any of these titles, I'd love to hear what you think!
What are some of your favorite contemporary fiction reads, whether from the past year or beyond?
01 The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
Desai's first novel in decades is a 688-page tale that meanders through India, New York, family and romantic relationships, and career false starts, with missteps, mysterious, powerful magical realism elements, and an undercurrent of darkness and despair. The messy resolutions felt appropriately hard-fought after the characters' extended struggles.
Sonia is living away from her Indian family while she studies writing in Vermont, and after growing up used to having multiple family members around, feeding and speaking to her constantly, Sonia is still adjusting to the quiet of college, only having one housemate, and the cold and snow.
Sunny is a journalist in New York City, eager to escape his overbearing family home in India.
This is not a straightforward novel. Desai offers an ambitiously meandering tale in which many issues stretch out, increasingly twisted and unresolved, for much (sometimes all) of the book, often with little sense of progress for our characters.
Desai weaves darkness, powerful superstition, and magical realism through a wide-ranging story about family, tradition, fear, missteps, danger, and obtuse elements whose significance only in the end become clear(er) to our main protagonists. The situations around relationships and life choices are often messy, complex, mystifying, and frustrating. Current-day conflicts link to generational trauma, storytelling, and mysterious power.
Kiran Desai is also the author of The Inheritance of Loss.
I listened to the 688-page The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny as a 25.5-hour audiobook.
You can read my full review by clicking this link.
02 Bunny (Bunny #1) by Mona Awad
Bunny begins with an outcast main protagonist in a MFA program who's infuriated by her twee fellow seminar students. It builds into an increasingly unhinged, intriguing phantasmagoria, equal parts dark nightmare and outrageously silly absurdity.
Samantha is a scholarship MFA student at the progressive Warren University in New England. An outsider, a solitary type immersed in her own sometimes dark writing, she is disgusted by the rest of her cohort--childish women who call each other "Bunny," dress in twee outfits, speak in high voices, and, aside from their hilariously outrageous creations, seem to be of one unimaginative mind and to operate in a mindless echo chamber of nonsense.
But then the Bunnies invite Samantha to their "Smut Salon" and into their hive mind of dottiness. She becomes oddly entrenched in their circle, then increasingly unsure of herself and vulnerable. She ditches her few true friends, also outsiders, and feels at a loss to determine the line between reality and richly imagined dark, seemingly impossible developments.
Just as the novel felt as though it were lasting too long for me and began to teeter toward the tedious; just as I wondered if I could stand to listen to the Bunnies' perfectly horrible, put-on baby voices for another couple of hours (narrator Sophie Amoss deftly handles the voices in this novel to great effect), the story went in a truly unhinged direction that intrigued me.
It's difficult to describe how bonkers this story is. I was surprised by how hooked I became on it. This is not a book I would universally recommend, but for an audience that appreciates cutting satire and a bananas story, this one will fit the bill.
For my full review of this book please see Bunny.Â
03 The Names by Florence Knapp
Knapp's novel explores three life paths for a set of characters, all set into motion by the naming of the youngest child--whimsical, Mom's choice, or named for his cruel father. The trauma was difficult to read, but the various timelines were fascinating, as were the intersections of events and characters among them.
Florence Knapp's novel The Names explores three paths in a life--determined by three different names given to a baby upon his birth.
In one timeline, an abused wife makes a stand for a whimsical name suggested by her daughter Maia, Bear; in a second, she makes a less aggressive but unsanctioned name choice that's her favorite, Julian; in a third, she registers her baby's name as "junior" to her brutal husband Gordon.
In this sliding-doors story, the three paths diverge dramatically, and the whole family's destiny is shaped in different ways for each option.
Each timeline produces a vastly different boy, a significantly shaped sister Maia, drastically different paths for mother Cora, and altered futures for father Gordon. Supporting characters make Easter-egg appearances in other timelines.
None of the paths are too easy or perfect, but each offers varied satisfaction and challenge in the form of justice, tragedy, self-realization, fulfillment, confidence, and hope.
The epilogue surprised me; I wasn't sure it was necessary or that I bought into the point of view and the version of a reckoning that it offered, but it was an interesting way to set up slight closure to the story.
I found this novel fascinating.
Please click here for my full review of The Names.
04 The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner
Jennifer Weiner's newest novel offers a behind-the-scenes peek at the music business, songwriting, and the pressures of fame, layered with complications from clashing sisters, devastating tragedy, and a messy path toward reconciliation.
Cassie and Zoe Greenberg are sisters who have always been opposites. Cassie, a musical prodigy, loved losing herself in and expressing herself through playing and singing, but avoided the limelight. Zoe dreamed of stardom since she was a child and was driven more by fame than the music itself. But Zoe realizes that Cassie is key to any musical future, and she convinces Cassie to join her on stage, beginning their meteoric climb to stardom.
For one year when they're young adults, the sisters reach mindboggling heights of fame as the pop duo The Griffin Sisters--featured in Rolling Stone, performing on Saturday Night Live, and making videos for MTV. Then their run abruptly ended, and for the public, the reasons for their breakup were a mystery.
Twenty years later, Zoe is a housewife and Cassie is a recluse who hasn't spoken to her sister at all. But when Zoe's headstrong daughter Cherry becomes determined to become a star, she digs into the past and forces a confrontation between the estranged sisters at last.
This is a great behind-the-scenes look at the music business, musical creativity and songwriting processes, and body-image pressures on women earning a living by being in the limelight. Griffin Sisters also takes on deep familial conflicts, coping with loss and a devastating blow for future plans, lies and betrayals, and, finally, a messy but hopeful chance for reconciliation.
If you like to read fiction about music, you might also like the titles I included in the Greedy Reading List Six Rockin' Stories about Bands and Music.
05 The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy
This bighearted novel holds a mystery, but its main focus is  neurodivergent main protagonist Denny and his dogged persistence, ambitious acts, decisiveness, wisdom, and loving kindness as he gets into increasing trouble, touches lives, faces loss, and establishes just who he is and wants to be.
Denny lives a quiet life in small-town Minnesota, caring for his elderly mother with the companionship of his blind and deaf Saint Bernard, George.
A developmental delay--caused by an accident at his birth--means that his options are limited, but Denny seems to keep finding himself in grave trouble. There was the time he kidnapped a neighbor's pet goose, the time he accidentally aided and abetted a bank robbery, and now he's under arrest for the murder of a candidate for mayor.
As Denny's big personality, kindness, and discerning views become clear, the story tracks the lead-up to the recent death in the community and how Denny became a murder suspect. We see how he touches strangers' lives, frustrates neighbors, is ambitious in addressing societal wrongs, and we (and he) begin to understand previously unknown elements of his origin story--which he refuses to allow to define him.
The Author's Note details how Kennedy's main character and some of the story's side plotlines were built from relatives and loved ones in her own life.
The Sideways Life of Denny Voss is a bighearted novel with an irresistible main protagonist and surrounding players, and the mystery keeps the story humming along. I loved this story.
For my full review, please check out this link.
06 The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
In this heartwarming story of wonderfully faulted characters who face tragedy and often make a mess of things, loyalty and steadfastness overcome all and allow a makeshift family to heal, find adventure, discover their individual strengths, and realize that they're meant to be together forever.
PJ Halliday is 63 and won the million-dollar lottery. Now he's about to set off on a cross-country road trip to track down his high-school sweetheart following the death of his former nemesis and rival.
But not everything in his life has been luck and adventure. PJ has weathered terrible tragedies in his life.Â
Before he can set out for Arizona to try to win back his young love, his estranged brother dies, and PJ becomes the guardian for his brother's grandchildren. So he packs them into the car, enlists his grumbling grown daughter to help him, and hits the road.
Tough situations are real but are surrounded by lighthearted, zany circumstances; characters are faulted and make missteps but learn to forgive themselves and those around them; loyalty and steadfastness serve as bridges to love and caring; and animals work with magical realism to shift and affect outcomes.
While the characters in The Road to Tender Hearts face sometimes devastating turns of events, the tone of the story is such that you won't wonder whether a happy ending is coming. Past hurts aren't erased, but love overcomes, and the ending is sweet sweet sweet.
Annie Hartnett is also the author of the wonderful novel Unlikely Animals, which was one of my Bossy Favorite Fiction Reads of the Year when I read it.