Cart's Top 200 Adult Books for Young Adults

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Book, 201 Books

"Michael Cart, former YALSA president and the best-selling author of Young Adult Literature, applies his considerable expertise as one of the nation's leading experts on YA literature to identify exceptional adult books"
In his own words: "I started by revisiting the adult books I had reviewed since 1994... to search back issues of the three major youth review media, Booklist, School Library Journal, and VOYA. I consulted other book lists and readers’ guides and surveyed lists of award-winning books; I browsed in bookstores, got lost in the maze that is Amazon.com...followed by winnowing and discarding, until I had assembled the list of two hundred fiction and nonfiction titles".
Total is 126 fiction and 77 non fiction, the total is 203 as he treated certain works as one, e.g. Cormac McCarthy's works are discussed/treated separately but then counted as the Border Trilogy.

This list was originally published in 2013 and was added to this site about 1 year ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
3873 The Alienist Caleb Carr 1994 American English
13772 All Souls Christine Schutt 2008 American English
751 All the Pretty Horses Cormac McCarthy 1992 American English
2286 The Crossing Cormac McCarthy 1994 American English
3902 Cities of the Plain Cormac McCarthy 1998 American English
314 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
13971 Anthill E. O. Wilson 2010 American English
13513 As Simple As Snow Gregory Galloway 2005 American English
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
12226 Batwoman Greg Rucka 2009 American English
14025 The Big Book Of Adventure Stories Otto Penzler 2011 American English
7143 Black Hole Charles Burns 1995 American English
11051 Black Swan Green David Mitchell 2006 British English
641 Bridget Jones's Diary Helen Fielding 1996 British English
396 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
116 The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer 1400 British Middle english
3069 Caramelo Sandra Cisneros 2002 American English
13971 Citrus County John Brandon 2010 American English
9302 The Client John Grisham 1993 American English
11938 Coffee Will Make You Black April Sinclair 1995 American English
11611 A Complicated Kindness Miriam Toews 2005 Canadian English
1812 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon 2003 British English
12588 Diamond Dogs Alan Watt 2000 Unknown English
9513 Drinking Coffee Elsewhere ZZ Packer 2003 American English
5992 The Eight Katherine Neville 1988 American English
12251 Election Tom Perrotta 1998 American English
4447 Ellen Foster Kaye Gibbons 1987 American English
13886 Elmer Gerry Alanguilan 2009 Unknown English
8689 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Jonathan Safran Foer 2005 American English
13772 The Flowers Dagoberto Gilb 2008 American English
12251 Getting In Jennifer Finney Boylan 1998 American English
13513 Gil's All Fright Diner A. Lee Martinez 2005 American English
12438 The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon Stephen King 1999 American English
7005 The Girl With The Pearl Earring Tracy Chevalier 1999 British English
13716 The God Of Animals Aryn Kyle 2007 American English
13716 The Headmaster Ritual Taylor Antrim 2007 American English
890 High Fidelity Nick Hornby 1995 British English
6147 The Historian Elizabeth Kostova 2005 American English
12588 How All This Started Pete Fromm 2000 American English
13886 Huge James W. Fuerst 2009 Unknown English
13716 I Love You, Beth Cooper Larry Doyle 2007 American English
12438 Imani All Mine Connie Rose Porter 1999 American English
1917 In the Time of the Butterflies Julia Alvarez 1994 Dominican English
13513 Indecision Benjamin Kunkel 2005 American English
13886 Into The Beautiful North Luis Alberto Urrea 2009 American English
14025 Jamrach’s Menagerie Carol Birch 2011 British English
12588 Jim The Boy Tony Earley 2000 American English
13567 J Pod Douglas Coupland 2006 Canadian English
7139 The Kitchen God's Wife Amy Tan 1991 American English
892 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini 2003 Afghan English
11320 Lamb Christopher Moore 2002 American English
2493 A Lesson Before Dying Ernest J. Gaines 1993 American English
1142 Life of Pi Yann Martel 2001 Canadian English
11320 The Little Friend Donna Tartt 2002 American English
11428 Locas Jaime Hernandez 1989 American English
1693 The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold 2002 American English
10959 The Magicians Lev Grossman 2009 American English
11489 Mary Reilly Valerie Martin 1990 American English
13259 The Meaning Of Consuelo Judith Ortiz Cofer 2003 American English
14025 Miss New India Bharati Mukherjee 2011 American English
4500 Mister Pip Lloyd Jones 2006 New Zealand English
10525 Montana 1948 Larry Watson 1993 American English
13513 More Like Not Running Away Paul Shepherd 2005 Unknown English
14025 My New American Life Francine Prose 2011 American English
266 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro 2005 British English
11927 Nineteen Minutes Jodi Picoult 2007 American English
9589 Old School Tobias Wolff 2003 American English
13971 The Outside Boy Jeanine Cummins 2010 Unknown English
13772 Over And Under Todd Tucker 2008 Unknown English
4461 The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake Aimee Bender 2010 American English
5331 The Perks Of Being A Wallflower Stephen Chbosky 1999 American English
14025 Pigeon English Stephen Kelman 2011 British English
588 The Pillars Of The Earth Ken Follett 1989 British English
11927 World Without End Ken Follett 2007 British English
5343 Plainsong Kent Haruf 1999 American English
13567 The Poe Shadow Matthew Pearl 2006 American English
878 The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver 1998 American English
6559 Prep Curtis Sittenfeld 2005 American English
13567 Pride Of Baghdad Brian K. Vaughan 2006 American English
13340 Project X Jim Shepard 2004 American English
13886 Pygmy Chuck Palahniuk 2009 American English
13971 The Radleys Matt Haig 2010 British English
7732 Ready Player One Ernest Cline 2011 American English
4667 Red Mars Kim Stanley Robinson 1992 American English
8216 Green Mars Kim Stanley Robinson 1993 American English
8516 Blue Mars Kim Stanley Robinson 1996 American English
6004 The Rehearsal Eleanor Catton 2008 New Zealand English
10778 Reservation Blues Sherman Alexie 1995 American English
13340 The Rule Of Four Ian Caldwell, Dustin Thomason 2004 American English
11938 Rule Of The Bone Russell Banks 1995 American English
7838 Sag Harbor Colson Whitehead 2009 American English
13567 Sammy And Juliana In Hollywood Benjamin Alire Sáenz 2006 American English
8303 The Secret Life Of Bees Sue Monk Kidd 2001 American English
12226 Shades Of Grey Jasper Fforde 2009 British English
4681 Skippy Dies Pauli Murray 2010 Irish English
12149 Snow In August Pete Hamill 1997 American English
4538 Special Topics In Calamity Physics Marisha Pessl 2006 American English
13971 Star Island Carl Hiaasen 2010 American English
8959 Stardust Neil Gaiman 1999 British English
9730 The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle David Wroblewski 2008 American English
13220 Summer Blonde Adrian Tomine 2002 American English
12588 Sunday You Learn How To Box Bil Wright 2000 American English
5118 Swamplandia! Karen Russell 2011 American English
13220 10th Grade Joe Weisberg 2002 American English
648 The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien 1990 American English
13772 The Third Angel Alice Hoffman 2008 American English
1675 The Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger 2003 American English
8429 To Say Nothing of the Dog Connie Willis 1997 American English
13259 The True Account Howard Frank Mosher 2003 American English
14025 2030 Albert Brooks 2011 American English
13886 Unseen Academicals Terry Pratchett 2009 British English
13340 Upstate Kalisha Buckhanon 2004 American English
13886 The Vanishing Of Katharina Linden Helen Grant 2009 British English
3910 Water For Elephants Sara Gruen 2006 American English
12149 What Girls Learn Karin Cook 1997 American English
13772 When We Get There Shauna Seliy 2008 Unknown English
8691 Wicked Gregory Maguire 1995 American English
13716 What I Was Meg Rosoff 2007 British English
11320 When The Emperor Was Divine Julie Otsuka 2002 American English
13716 When We Were Romans Matthew Kneale 2007 British English