The Quail Bell Crew: Top Books We Read in the 2010s

The Quail Bell Crew's Most Influential Books of the 2010s

By The Editors

The 2010s were a roller coaster of radical progress, pain, and resistance. Along the way were the books that paved the individual paths of our own crew to inspire our writing and personal journeys. So it is only fitting that we share our picks with you. 

Because there are so many books that transcend time, our picks are a mixture of books published in this decade as well as previous decades.
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Christine Sloan Stoddard: Founding Editor

Sights Unseen by Kaye Gibbons

How the García Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez

Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid

"These books are strong, female-driven stories of self-discovery, navigating change, and understanding family."
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​Gretchen Gales: Executive Editor

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Wonder by R.J. Palacio 

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Hunger by Roxane Gay

Pure by Linda Kay Klein

MacBeth by William Shakespeare

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

"A some of these are YA, mostly because I began the decade as a freshman in high school. I connected with a lot of these books because of the way they represent the many ways that human pain can manifest and how we can let it destroy us or drive ahead to make a better world than what we left behind. From body image to systemic oppression, the human experience is uniquely represented in each one of these books."
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Ghia Vitale: Senior Editor

Nothing Is Okay by Rachel Wiley

My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness by Nagata Kabi.

"Reading Nothing Is Okay was a life-changing experience for me because it empowered me to write about my own fatness. I love My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness by Nagata Kabi because it's an autobiographical manga that represents a queer woman in a much different light than usual. Honestly, I relate to Kabi more than other queer characters I've encountered via manga and anime."

​Alex Carrigan: Contributing Writer 

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

Black Girl Magic edited by Mahogany L. Browne, Idrissa Simmonds, and Jamila Woods

Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker

Big Little Lies, Truly Madly Guilty, and Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

"Looking back at the books I read in the 10's, I realized that this was the decade where I finally began to expand my reading preferences and selection beyond what was assigned in school. All my favorite books of the decade were written by female authors, some of whom are women of color and some are LGBT+. These books offered darker and unique looks into suburbia, other cultures, and the future. Each of these books made me a better fan of literature, and they are all worth checking out for those who are interested in stories about identity, gender, crime, secrets, and more."
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Julian Drury: Contributing Writer

Zero Saints by Gabino Iglesias

Windeye by Brian Evanson

Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

Mudwoman by Joyce Carol Oates

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Night Shift by Stephen King

Errantry by Elizabeth Hand

The Wide Carnivorous Sky by John Langan

The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin

The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Beautiful Thing that Awaits us All by Laird Barron

"These works challenged traditional noir/horror tropes, crafting characters that weren't always heroic yet were relatable, in settings that were fantastic and gritty. They bent the rules on what makes a protagonist "likeable" and offered a glimpse of their worlds through the eyes of the marginalized and unsuspecting.​"
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