“I suppose, I said, it is one definition of love, the belief in something that only the two of you can see.”
Finding time to read can be a challenge, but that doesn’t mean that you have to miss out on the joy of a great story. Short novels for adults offer the perfect solution – quick reads that are both satisfying and memorable. Whether you’re juggling a busy schedule or just want a story you can finish in an afternoon, these short books deliver powerful narratives without demanding a huge time commitment. From contemporary fiction to timeless classics, short novels can pack just as much emotional punch and literary depth as longer works. Today at What We Reading, we’re rounding up the best short novels for adults, featuring titles that are perfect for both seasoned readers and those new to adult fiction. Each book proves that brevity doesn’t mean sacrificing impact – these short books are quick to read, but long remembered.
Convenience Store Woman – Sayaka Murata
First up on our list of the best short novels for adults is Sayaka Murata’s acclaimed English-language debut, Convenience Store Woman. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family nor in school. Yet when at the age of eighteen she starts working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. Unlike the rest of her life, she understands the rules of social interaction in the store, playing the part of a “normal” person perfectly.
Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly put pressure on her to find a husband and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action. A brilliant depiction of a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at modern work culture and the pressures we all feel to conform.
Page count: 163 pages
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Our Wives Under The Sea – Julia Armfield
Miri thinks she has got her wife back when Leah finally returns after a deep-sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah is not the same. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has brought part of it back with her, onto dry land, and into their home.
Moving through something that only slightly resembles normal life, Miri comes to realise that the life they had before might be gone. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp. Our Wives Under the Sea is the debut novel by Julia Armfield and is a short story about falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep, deep sea.
Page count: 240 pages
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Animal Farm – George Orwell
A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus, the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned – a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.
When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today, it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s timeless classic have a meaning and a message still fiercely fresh.
Page count: 141 pages
The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is one of the best short novels for adults who love sharp wit and layered storytelling. Set in 1930s Edinburgh, the story follows Miss Jean Brodie, an unconventional teacher at a conservative girls’ school, who prides herself on inspiring her students to think independently.
Yet, as her influence grows, her charismatic teaching style begins to blur the line between guidance and manipulation. Through the eyes of her devoted pupils, Spark explores themes of power, individuality, and betrayal with dark humour and precision. At under 200 pages, this short classic novel delivers a rich character study and biting social commentary in remarkably few words.
Page count: 150 pages
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Before The Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a cafe which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time. In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to use the cafe’s time-travelling offer.
But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the cafe, and, finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold. Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, perhaps for one last time?
Page count: 213 pages
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Outline – Rachel Cusk
A woman writer goes to Athens during the height of summer to teach a writing course. Though her own circumstances remain indistinct, she becomes the audience to a chain of narratives, as the people she meets tell her one after another the stories of their lives.
The more they talk, the more elliptical their listener becomes, as she shapes and directs their accounts until certain themes begin to emerge: the experience of loss, the nature of family life, the difficulty of intimacy, and the mystery of creativity itself. Rachel Cusk’s Outline is a novel about writing and talking, about self-expression and the desire to create, and the human art of self-portraiture in which that desire finds its universal form.
Page count: 249 pages
The Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka
The Metamorphosis is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant, beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man.
A harrowing – though absurdly comic – meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has been cemented as one of the most widely read and influential novels of the twentieth century, and is a great go-to if you’re looking for a quick read you can finish in one sitting.
Page count: 201 pages
Of Mice And Men – John Steinbeck
Another classic novel from the twentieth century that is quick and easy to read, Of Mice and Men opens with an unlikely pair of friends: George and Lennie. Labourers in California’s dusty vegetable fields hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack that they can one day call their own.
While the powerlessness of the working classes is a recurring theme in Steinbeck’s work from the 1930s, Of Mice and Men is an especially intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. A unique perspective on life’s hardships, this story has achieved the status of a timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.
Page count: 107 pages
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Dept. Of Speculation – Jenny Offill
Told through fragmented vignettes, Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation follows an unnamed woman navigating the shifting landscapes of marriage, motherhood, and creative ambition. Offill’s poetic prose captures the chaos and quiet beauty of everyday life, blending humour, heartbreak, and philosophical insights in under 200 pages.
This short novel feels intimate and raw, depicting how love and identity evolve over time with honesty and grace. Offill’s sharp observations and lyrical style make this one of the most memorable short novels for adults who enjoy stories about the messiness of modern relationships and the delicate balance between personal dreams and domestic reality.
Page count: 179 pages
We Have Always Lived In The Castle – Shirley Jackson
We Have Always Lived in the Castle is Shirley Jackson’s beloved gothic tale of a peculiar girl named Merricat and her family’s dark secret. Pulling readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, the book is a deliciously unsettling story about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives on their estate.
Page count: 152 pages
The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
Blending magic, mysticism, and wonder into an inspiring tale of self-discovery, The Alchemist remains one of the best short novels for adults looking for a big-hearted, transformative experience. Paulo Coelho’s masterpiece tells the story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure.
But, his quest leads him to riches far different – and far more satisfying – than he ever imagined. Santiago’s journey teaches us readers about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, recognising opportunities, and learning to read the omens along life’s path, and, most crucially, the importance of following our dreams.
Page count: 182 pages
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Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious, and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. Yet, when Zeena’s vivacious cousin enters their household as a hired girl, Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for the happiness she comes to represent.
In one of American fiction’s finest and most intense narratives, Edith Wharton moves this ill-starred trio towards their tragic destinies. This classic short story explores despair, forbidden emotions and sexual undercurrents, all set across a baron, haunting backdrop of the New England countryside.
Page count: 99 pages
The Sense Of An Ending – Julian Barnes
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about – until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony Webster thought he’d left all this behind as he built a life for himself, and by now his marriage and family and career have fallen into an amicable divorce and retirement.
But he is then presented with a mysterious legacy that obliges him to reconsider a number of things he thought he’d understood all along, and to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world. A short novel for adults so compelling it begs to be finished in a single sitting with stunning psychological and emotional depth and sophistication, The Sense of an Ending is a brilliant tale from the bestselling author of Arthur & George and Nothing to Be Frightened Of.
Page count: 150 pages
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).
