“Sometimes books don’t find us until the right time.”
Whether you’re new to her work or a long-time fan, exploring Gabrielle Zevin’s books in order is the perfect way to appreciate the range of her storytelling. Best known for Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Zevin has established a reputation for crafting heartfelt, thought-provoking stories that explore love, loss, creativity, and human connection. From her early novel to her more recent bestsellers, each Gabrielle Zevin book offers something unique – sharp wit, emotional depth, and unforgettable characters. Today at What We Reading, we’re walking through the best Gabrielle Zevin books in order, highlighting her most acclaimed titles, and where to start if you’re discovering her work for the first time. Whether you’re looking for a complete Gabrielle Zevin reading order or simply her top books to add to your TBR pile, this post will help you find your next great read.
Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow (2022)
Where else could we begin a list of the best Gabrielle Zevin books than with her 2022 global bestseller, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow? On a bitterly cold day in December of his junior year in Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, among the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. She turns. Thus begins a game: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. Together, they create their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. But their brilliance won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions and betrayals of the heart.
Spanning thirty years from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novels that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, and the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved, and to love.
Check Out The Best Books Like Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow
The Storied Life Of A.J. Fikry (2014)
A.J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he thought it would be. His wife has died, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his most prized possession, a collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. Slowly but surely, he is isolating himself from all the people of Alice Island. Even the books in his store have stopped holding pleasure for him. These days, A.J. can only view them as a sign of a world that is changing too rapidly.
And then a mysterious package arrives at his bookstore. It’s a small package, but large in weight. It’s that unexpected arrival that gives A.J. Fikry the opportunity to do his life over, the ability to see everything anew. As surprising as it is moving, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is an unforgettable tale of transformation and second chances, an irresistible affirmation of why we read, and why we love.
Elsewhere (2005)
Welcome to Elsewhere. The beaches are marvellous. It’s quiet and peaceful. You can’t get sick, and you’ll never turn even a day older. This is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up when she dies. It’s a place so like Earth yet completely different. Here, Liz will age backwards from the day of her death until she becomes a baby and returns to Earth.
But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her driver’s licence. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. Now that she’s dead, though, Liz is forced to live a life she doesn’t want with a grandmother she has never met – and it isn’t going well. How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Is it possible that a life lived in reverse is no different from one lived forwards?
Young Jane Young (2017)
Meet Rachel Grossman. She’ll stop at nothing to protect her daughter, Aviva, even if it ends up costing her everything. Meet Jane Young. She’s disrupting a quiet life with her daughter, Ruby, to seek political office for the first time. Meet Ruby Young. She thinks her mother has a secret. She’s right. Meet Embeth Levin. She’s made a career out of cleaning up her congressman husband’s messes. Meet Aviva Grossman. The internet won’t let her or anyone else forget her past transgressions.
This is the story of five women, and the sexist scandal that binds them all together. Young Jane Young is another one of the best Gabrielle Zevin books, filled with unforgettable characters that are especially suited to the times we live in now.
Memoirs Of A Teenage Amnesiac (2007)
If Naomi had picked tails, she would have won the coin toss. She wouldn’t have had to go back for the yearbook camera, and she wouldn’t have hit her head on the steps. She wouldn’t have woken up in an ambulance with amnesia. And she definitely would have remembered her boyfriend, Ace. Perhaps she may even have remembered why she fell in love with him in the first place.
Now, she isn’t sure why her best friend, Will, keeps calling her “Chief.” She’d know about her mother’s new family, as well as her dad’s new fiancée. James, the boy with the questionable past and even fuzzier future who says he once wanted to kiss her but who she didn’t want to kiss back, wouldn’t have met. Except Naomi picked heads.
Margarettown (2005)
Margarettown is a person, a place, a love story. It could be about anyone – you, your parents, your best friends. But it’s not. It’s about a woman called Margaret Towne, and a man who falls in love with her. The day he meets Maggie for the first time is the day he understands what it is to be in love. Deeply, wildly, terminally in love. What he doesn’t know is that loving Maggie means loving many women at once.
After a brief, intense courtship, the two young lovers set off to meet Maggie’s family: Old Margaret, Marge, Mia, and May – five women of different ages, all living together in a house called Margaron, in a place called Margarettown. Nothing in their world is quite like anywhere else. Part memoir, part fable, part journey through the many worlds of one woman, Margarettown is a novel about how love takes us over and changes our lives. It is a story about what it means to love the same person for a lifetime, and about the impossibility of really knowing who it is we have come to love.
The Hole We’re In (2010)
Meet the Pomeroys: a church-going family living in a too-red house in a Texas college town. Roger, the patriarch, has impulsively gone back to school, only to find his true ambitions at odds with the temptations of the present. His wife, Georgia, tries to keep things in order at home, but she’s been feeding the bill drawer with unopened envelopes for months and can never find the right moment to confront its swelling contents.
In an effort to climb out of the hole they’ve dug, Roger and Georgia make a series of choices that have catastrophic consequences for their three children – especially Patsy, the youngest, who will spend most of her life fighting to overcome them. Another one of the most poignant Gabrielle Zevin books, The Hole We’re In is a deft exploration of the fragile economy of family life that makes this a story for the ages.
All These Things I’ve Done (Birthright #1) (2011)
In 2083, chocolate and coffee are illegal, paper is hard to find, water is carefully rationed out, and New York City is rife with crime and poverty. And yet, for Anya Balanchine, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the city’s most notorious (and deceased) crime boss, life is fairly routine. It consists of going to school, taking care of her siblings and dying grandmother, trying to avoid falling in love with the new assistant D.A.’s son, and avoiding her loser ex-boyfriend.
That is, until her ex is accidentally poisoned by the chocolate her family manufactures, and the police think she’s to blame. Suddenly, Anya finds herself thrust unwillingly into the spotlight – at school, in the news, and, most importantly, within her mafia family. Engrossing and suspenseful, All These Things I’ve Done is an utterly unique, unputdownable read that blends both the familiar and the fantastic.
Birthright Book Series In Order:
- All These Things I’ve Done (2011) – Birthright #1
- Because It’s My Blood (2012) – Birthright #2
- In the Age of Love and Chocolate (2013) – Birthright #3
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
