Best Contemporary fiction books

The 20 highest-rated Contemporary fiction books, scored from 13.7K reader ratings.

Top 3: The Color Purple (8.4), The Correspondent (8.3), The Perks of Being a Wallflower (8.2)

Sort byDecadeMinimum ratings20 results

By year of first publication, 1982–2026. The busiest stretch is 2000–2009, with 9. Select a bar to narrow the list.

1
8.48.4 / 10
The Color PurpleAlice Walker873 ratingsTold in letters, “The Color Purple” opens with abuse and racism described without softening, and some readers find the first half hard to take.Our view
2
8.38.3 / 10
The CorrespondentVirginia Evans361 ratings“The Correspondent” builds a whole life out of letters, and its prickly, ageing letter-writer becomes harder to resist with every page.Our view
3
8.28.2 / 10
The Perks of Being a WallflowerStephen Chbosky2.5K ratingsTold through letters, this novel lives on Charlie’s voice: shy, observant and so convincing that the letters seem to come from a real teenager.Our view

Why The Color Purple is #1

The Color Purple (Alice Walker) scores 8.4/10 from 873 ratings — 0.1 points ahead of The Correspondent in second place.

The score is a weighted average across 3 independent rating sources. A title with few ratings is pulled toward the category average, so a handful of enthusiastic reviews cannot outrank a book that thousands of readers have judged. To keep the list varied, the top 20 holds at most two books from one series and three by one author; the rest follow further down. Method →