30 Books By Authors Under 30

Youth is fleeting, but these 30 authors have made good use of theirs. All these books were written by authors under 30! Marvel at what some people are capable of at quite a young age.

1. Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Via randomhouse.ca

Pierce Brown’s bio states that “he fancied the idea of continuing his studies at Hogwarts. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a magical bone in his body.” We think he’s selling himself short. He’s got a magical talent for creating a dystopian world that’s a cross between The Hunger Games, Ender’s Game and The Game of Thrones. This book deserves all the buzz it’s getting!

2. Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh

Via goodreads.com

An incredible graphic memoir from Allie Brosh. A book guaranteed to make you laugh out loud, even in public! Allie Brosh is a great comedic talent and hopefully we’ll see a lot more from her.

3. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

Via randomhouse.ca

Eleanor Catton is not only young, but also the winner of the 2013 Man Booker Prize and Governor General's Award for Fiction. The Luminairies is set during the heady days of New Zealand's Gold Rush. It is a magnificent novel of love, lust, murder, and greed, in which three unsolved crimes link the fates and fortunes of twelve men. Dickens meets Deadwood in this internationally celebrated phenomenon.

4. The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht

Via randomhouse.ca

In a Balkan country mending from war, Natalia, a young doctor, is compelled to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. Entertainment Weekly said it was “Spectacular . . . [Téa Obreht] spins a tale of such marvel and magic in a literary voice so enchanting that the mesmerized reader wants her never to stop. [Grade:] A”

5. The Kissing Booth by Beth Reekles

Via randomhouse.ca

A cool, sexy romance novel written by seventeen-year-old British sensation Beth Reekles. Beth first self-published this novel to Wattpad where it got a lot of attention and even the Most Popular Teen Fiction Watty Award.

6. Eragon by Christopher Paolini

Via randomhouse.ca

Christopher Paolini’s abiding love of fantasy and science fiction inspired him to begin writing his debut novel, Eragon, when he graduated from high school at fifteen after being homeschooled all his life! He’s since finished the four-book cycle and now everyone is waiting for what he’ll write next!

7. The Encyclopedia of Early Earth by Isabel Greenberg

Via randomhouse.ca

A charming and tongue-in-cheeck graphic novel about a the explorations of a young man as he paddles from his home in the North Pole to the South Pole of Early Earth. There, he meets his true love, but their romance is ill-fated. Early Earth’s unusual and finicky polarity means the lovers can never touch.

8. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra

Via randomhouse.ca

This is a brilliant debut novel that brings to life an abandoned hospital where a tough-minded doctor decides to harbour a hunted young girl, with powerful consequences. A haunting story that brings to mind The Cellist of Sarajevo, The English Patient and The Tiger’s Wife.

9. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

Via goodreads.com

With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man sets out to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war; an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior; and Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.

10. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Via randomhouse.ca

In her second novel before the age of 30, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie recreates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria during the 1960s. Widely praised by critics and award juries alike.

11. Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson

Via retreatbyrandomhouse.ca

If you like Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman, and William Gibson you'll love Alif the Unseen. It's an addictive blend of classic fantasy with the 21st-century reality of imperilled young hackers in a repressive security state in the Arabian Gulf. An impressive novel from a talented young woman.

12. The People of Forever Are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu

Via randomhouse.ca

Shani Boianjiu’s riveting debut is the story of three girls who grow up in a small Israeli village and join the Israeli Defense Forces at eighteen, where they experience a typical coming of age at the same time as preparing for the ever-present threat of war.

13. Ghostman by Roger Hobbs

Via randomhouse.ca

Jack, is a fixer who has 48 hours to recover money from a heist gone wrong. He’s a little bit like a darker, badder Jack Reacher. This is a great debut and we can’t wait to read what Roger Hobbs does next.

14. The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

Via goodreads.com

Twenty-one year old Samantha Shannon started her 7-part Bone Season series with her debut novel of the same name. This book elicited comparaisons to J.K. Rowling. With angels and clairvoyants and battles between good and evil it's a great debut.

15. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Via randomhouse.ca

Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has lived her entire life at Swamplandia!, her family’s island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when illness fells Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, the family is plunged into chaos; her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called The World of Darkness. And Ava sets out on a mission through the magical swamps to save them all.

16. Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Via goodreads.com

Scott Pilgrim meets Ramona Flowers, falls in love but that’s where the usual boy-meets-girl story ends. In Bryan Lee O’Malley’s first Scott Pilgrim graphic novel, Scott has to fight Ramona’s seven evil exes. A quirky, funny, great Canadian story!

17. Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

Via randomhouse.ca

For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano. As three generations of women arrive at the family’s beach house, each brings her own hopes and fears. You’re going to be blown away that this is J. Courtney Sullivan’s second novel written before she was thirty!

18. Fiend by Peter Stenson

Via randomhouse.ca

When Chase Daniels first sees the little girl in umbrella socks tearing open the Rottweiler, he’s not too concerned. As a longtime meth addict, he’s no stranger to horrifying, drug-fueled hallucinations. But as he and his fellow junkies soon discover, the little girl is no illusion. The end of the world really has arrived.

19. Looking for Alaska by John Green

Via goodreads.com

Miles “Pudge” Halter’s whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the “Great Perhaps” (François Rabelais, poet) even more. Then he heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

20. Divergent by Veronica Roth

Via goodreads.com

In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue. On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is–she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

21. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Via goodreads.com

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days. The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world was too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. But now so many people are dead that The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

22. Magnified World by Grace O’Conell

Via randomhouse.ca

A beautiful debut from a stunningly gifted young novelist about what it means to be a daughter, a patient, a lover and a human being who can carry on after a massive loss.

23. Be Good by Stacey May Fowles

Via goodreads.com

Morgan and Hannah are part of a group of fellow twenty-something Canadians struggling to navigate a maze of love affairs, failed relationships, obsessions, and departures from the familiar—each with a distinct persona molded by secrets and deceptions.

24. The Oathbreaker’s Shadow by Amy McCulloch

Via randomhouse.ca

Fans of Philip Pullman, Jonathan Stroud, and George R.R. Martin are going to love this action-filled fantasy novel by an exciting new voice in the genre. In the world of fifteen-year-old Raim, you tie a knot for every promise you make. Break that promise and the knot will burst into flames, scarring your skin and forever marking you as an oathbreaker. Raim has worn a simple knot around his wrist for as long as he can remember. No one seems to know where it came from or which promise it symbolizes, and Raim barely thinks about it at all until the day the rope ignites and sears a dark mark into his skin. Scarred now as an oathbreaker, Raim has two options: run or be killed.

25. All Just Glass by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Via randomhouse.ca

This is far from Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’ first novel. She’s been writing since the age of 14 and has written over a dozen novels for young adults. Taking place over just twenty-four hours, this book tells the story of a game-changing battle that will forever change the world of the Den of Shadows. And at its center is the story of two sisters who must choose between love and duty.

26. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

Via randomhouse.ca

Curtis Sittenfeld’s debut novel, Prep, is an insightful, achingly funny coming-of-age story. Using her main character, Lee Fiora, an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old scholarship student at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts, Curtis Sittenfeld creates a portrait of the painful and thrilling adolescence universal to us all.

27. Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner

Via randomhouse.ca

Vaclav and Lena, both the children of Russian émigrés, are at the same time from radically different worlds. After a horrific discovery, the two are ripped apart without even a goodbye. Years later, they meet again. But will their past once more conspire to keep them apart? A delightful debut from this wonderful novelist.

28. Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

Via goodreads.com

This debut novel from Marisha Pessl is a darkly hilarious coming-of-age novel and a richly plotted suspense tale told through the distinctive voice of its heroine, Blue van Meer. In her final year of high school at the unusual St. Gallway School, Blue falls in with a charismatic group of friends and their captivating teacher, Hannah Schneider. But when the drowning of one of Hannah’s friends and the shocking death of Hannah herself lead to a confluence of mysteries, Blue is left to make sense of it all with only her gimlet-eyed instincts and cultural references to guide – or misguide – her.

29. Between the Lines by Samantha van Leer and Jodi Picoult

Via goodreads.com

Only one of theses authors was under 30, but we still think that counts. Jodi Picoult’s first YA novel was co-written with her daughter Samantha Van Leer! We love it when family works together! In this book, bookworm Delilah, loves the sweet little fairy tale she found in the library. To her this fairy tale is more than just words on the page. It feels as if there’s something deeper going on. And one day, Delilah finds out there is.

30. Rust and Bone by Craig Davidson

Via goodreads.com

In steel-tipped prose, Craig Davidson conjures a savage world populated by fighting dogs, prizefighters, sex addicts, and gamblers. The hostility of his fictional universe is tempered by the humanity he invests in his characters and by his subtle and very moving observations of their motivations. He shares with Chuck Palahniuk the uncanny ability to compel our attention, time and time again, to the most difficult subject matter.