The Best Fantasy Books of 21st Century (Emily's Version)
Somewhat recently, the New York Times put together a list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. They reached out to “hundreds of literary luminaries” to compile and vote on this list.
You may or may not be surprised to see that not many fantasy (or other genres outside of “literary”) made the list. Even some books that many would agree deserve to be put on there. So, I thought it would be fun to make my own list of best books of the 21st century.
(If you’re interested in more discussion about this, and with a romance twist, the Fated Mates podcast did a great episode about it.)
While I read a wide variety of genres, I decided to just go with fantasy, and I’m only sharing 30 because 100 would be a little much for a newsletter and when I tried to narrow it down to 25 it was too hard.
To put it tovether, and to give a fair view of “good,” I gave myself some guidelines:
I have to have read the whole book and enjoyed it
Include books that I think have made an impact on culture/the fantasy genre/the reading community
More “high brow” books should be in there, but also include personal favorites I could read over and over again
Only 1 book per author (but I allowed a whole series to be clumped together)
No limits on sub-genres or age group (so you’ll see Adult, Young Adult, and Middle Grade!)
The List In No Particular Order
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree
Cackle by Rachel Harrison
For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri
The Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire
The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Strange the Dreamer duology by Lani Taylor
Certain Dark Things by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia
The Nevernight trilogy by Jay Kristoff
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
His Fair Assassin trilogy by Robin LaFevers
The Paper Magician series by Charlie N. Holmberg
The Throne of Glass series by Sarah J Maas
The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine
The Chicagoland Vampires series by Chloe Neill
The Diviners by Libba Bray
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison
The Wolf of Oren-Yaro by K.S. Villoso
The Blackthorn and Grimm trilogy by Juliett Mariller
Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
Warm Bodies by Issac Marion
What are your thoughts? There are so many more books I could have added too! Which books would you have added? (Other than The Cursed Queens series by yours truly, of course!)
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