Ruth Madievsky is the author of a novel, “All-Night Pharmacy” (Catapult, 2023) and a poetry collection, "Emergency Brake" (Tavern Books, 2016). Her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Harper’s Bazaar, GQ, Tin House, and elsewhere. Originally from Moldova, Ruth Madievsky lives in Los Angeles, where she works as an HIV and primary care clinical pharmacist. You can find her at ruthmadievsky.com and on social media @ruthmadievsky.
The Obsessed (2026) Lizzie Buehler "Between the sexually repressed graduate students struggling to emote and the immortalization of some truly excellent memes, The Obsessed was an enthralling, irreverent read. I will be carrying our narrator's ache that her friends 'didn't know what it meant to love a book, a writer, or a stranger as much as I did' for a long time, maybe forever. What a relief and horror to learn there are more of us out there projecting our literary obsessions onto real people than you'd think."
Kitten (2026) Stacey Yu "As tender and brutal as a kiss to the most wounded part of yourself . . . Yu's eye for friction and chaos should be studied."
The Scoop (2026) Erin Van Der Meer "I gorged on The Scoop as though reading an explosive expose about the state of the world - which, in many ways, I was. Erin Van Der Meer has crafted a devastating satire that reads the media, and those devoted to making a name for themselves within it, for filth. Smart, savage, and tinged with grief, The Scoop is required reading for anyone who has compromised themselves today for a better tomorrow."
Paper Cut (2026) Rachel Taff "Paper Cut is so intoxicating and unputdownable that I basically absconded from society until I finished. Rachel Taff has crafted an unforgettable thriller that sears and redeems in equal measure."
And I'll Take Out Your Eyes (2025) A M Sosa "An insultingly good debut from a writer I'll follow forever. And I'll Take Out Your Eyes is a poetic gut punch that heals just as much as it haunts."
Girls Girls Girls (2025) Shoshana von Blanckensee "Finally, a novel about being queer, Jewish, and obsessed with your grandmother. Shoshana von Blanckensee's Girls Girls Girls is a tender and electric coming-of-age story. Come for the shenanigans, stay for the textured portrait of grief, desire, and the making and remaking of what it means to be family."
Make Sure You Die Screaming (2025) Zee Carlstrom "Make Sure You Die Screaming is the debut novel our country needs (but doesn't deserve). It's a tight little banger about the shared delusion of family that left my heart, as Zee Carlstrom's head-wounded unnamed narrator would say, 'as full as my bladder,' because putting it down long enough to pee was out of the question."
Paradise Logic (2025) Sophie Kemp "Sophie Kemp's absurd, horny, and epic debut had me asking questions like: Is existence meaningless and random? And most importantly, how can I make my eyes resemble those of an introspective family pet?"
Voice Like a Hyacinth (2025) Mallory Pearson "Mallory Pearson's Voice Like a Hyacinth is lush chaos. Whatever your experience with codependent, homoerotic friendships, Pearson's feral quintet is on another level. 'I want to go home, but maybe home was years ago,' her narrator, Jo, thinks after reaping what they've sowed. If going home means putting down Pearson's novel and returning to my life, I'm not going without a fight."
What It's Like in Words (2024) Eliza Moss "What It's Like in Words is a consuming portrait of a young woman building and rebuilding herself from the wreckage of her past lives. Eliza Moss masterfully renders how it feels to be ruled by grief and toxic obsession, and what it takes to break out of a prison of your own making. Devastating and tender, What It's Like in Words is a love letter to friendship, art-making, and the messiest parts of ourselves."
Olive Days (2024) Jessica Elisheva Emerson "Olive Days is a lush and intoxicating Los Angeles daydream. Emerson is the real deal--a stylist whose every sentence captures how it feels to be alive, to be in love, to live in the aching distance between who you want to be and who you are."
Please Stop Trying to Leave Me (2024) Alana Saab "Please Stop Trying to Leave Me is an electric, delirious novel about how art-making, romantic partnership, and trauma make fractals of the self. Alana Saab is an intoxicating stylist, pulling off a heady and meta debut that feels like clawing your way out of the belly of some monster, rib by rib, only to find that the monster is you. Deadpan and tender, Please Stop Trying to Leave Me is a must-read for anyone who has ever white-knuckled their way through the wilderness of their own mind (it me)."
Worry (2024) Alexandra Tanner "Reading Worry felt like finding a strange jawbone on the beach. Tanner's novel is animal, salty, and deeply pleasurable to worry in my hands. This is a dark and laugh-out-loud funny debut about sisterhood, internet poisoning, and suspecting that there is something incurably wrong with you but not wanting to know what it is (relatable!). Worry homes all the trappings of our times that have nowhere else to go: tradwife influencers, Jewish survivor guilt, the boy who threatened to kill you in seventh grade and is now organizing your high school reunion. Good luck reading this book without underlining every other sentence - it slapped me across the face and then held an ice pack to my cheek until the swelling went down."
