Fans pick 100 books like Number One Fan

By Meg Elison,

Here are 100 books that Number One Fan fans have personally recommended if you like Number One Fan. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of House of Hollow

Natalie Lund Author Of The Wolves Are Watching

From my list on YA to give you chills.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in a small town full of ghosts. They broke plates in a doctor’s office-turned-restaurant, feuded in a house built by twins, emerged from cornfields to stand in our headlights, and turned headstones blue in a cemetery where tombstones protruded from the ground like jagged teeth. The stories that surrounded me while I was a teen still bleed into my writing. And as reader, I gravitate toward books that are atmospheric, rich in moments of magic or the unreal, and riddled with stories of the past and long-forgotten.

Natalie's book list on YA to give you chills

Natalie Lund Why did Natalie love this book?

As one of four sisters, I appreciate a good sister story because there’s always something going on under the surface. House of Hollow is no different. There’s the complicated dynamic of the three sisters—the model and fashion designer, the grunge musician, and the loner high school student—revealed when the eldest goes missing and the two younger sisters search for her. And then there’s the twist of something otherworldly—the fact that the girls disappeared for a month as children, reappearing with black eyes, white hair, mysterious scars, and the ability to entrance others with their scent and touch. I couldn’t stop turning the pages.

By Krystal Sutherland,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked House of Hollow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

'A gorgeous, grisly modern fairy tale.'
- THE GUARDIAN

'Dark and delicious. House of Hollow hums with malice and mystery. I devoured it whole.'
- KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE

** SHORTLISTED FOR THE YA BOOK PRIZE 2022 **

The Hollow sisters - Vivi, Grey and Iris - are as seductively glamorous as they are mysterious. They have black eyes and hair as white as milk. The Hollow sisters don't have friends - they don't need them. They move through the corridors like sharks, the other little fish parting around them, whispering behind their backs.

And everyone knows who the Hollow sisters…


Book cover of The Violence

Sarah Gailey Author Of Just Like Home

From my list on for making you lose sleep.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love books that keep me up at night. I'm constantly trying to get into a good, healthy bedtime routine—but I am also constantly sabotaging that effort by finding books that I simply can’t put down. The feeling of being drawn so deep into a story that the hours slip away is easily one of my favorite feelings in the world. I also love books that make me wake up in the middle of the night, books that slide into my brain and plant new ideas there. As an author, I am always striving to write those books. I can think of no higher compliment than “I stayed up all night reading it.”

Sarah's book list on for making you lose sleep

Sarah Gailey Why did Sarah love this book?

This book delivers truly striking insight into the nature of fear, the cost of survival, and cycles of violence. Dawson’s writing shines here, grounded and visceral, and deeply honest. Between the propulsive and tense plot, the exquisitely rendered characters, and the unflinching examination of the world we live in, this one kept me up late and woke me up early.

By Delilah S. Dawson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Violence as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How far would you go to be free? Three generations of women forge a new path through an America torn by a mysterious wave of violence in this “chilling [and] dizzyingly effective” (The New York Times Book Review) novel of revenge, liberation, and triumph.

“A compulsively readable fusion of domestic thriller and modern horror.”—Kameron Hurley, author of The Light Brigade

“A novel that defines this era.”—Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians

They call it The Violence: a strange epidemic that causes the infected to experience sudden bursts of animalistic rage, with no provocation…


Book cover of Hide

Sarah Gailey Author Of Just Like Home

From my list on for making you lose sleep.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love books that keep me up at night. I'm constantly trying to get into a good, healthy bedtime routine—but I am also constantly sabotaging that effort by finding books that I simply can’t put down. The feeling of being drawn so deep into a story that the hours slip away is easily one of my favorite feelings in the world. I also love books that make me wake up in the middle of the night, books that slide into my brain and plant new ideas there. As an author, I am always striving to write those books. I can think of no higher compliment than “I stayed up all night reading it.”

Sarah's book list on for making you lose sleep

Sarah Gailey Why did Sarah love this book?

Hide feels like a book tailor-made to pull me in and refuse to let go. The pitch—a high-stakes game of hide-and-seek in an abandoned amusement park—is solid gold, and the book delivers so much more than it promises. With relentless, cutting-class commentary and a truly ferocious sense of clarity, Hide excoriates systems of exploitation with incredible efficiency. I found myself sneaking chapters wherever I could.

By Kiersten White,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Hide as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A high-stakes hide-and-seek competition turns deadly in this dark supernatural thriller from New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White, perfect for fans of Stephen King and SQUID GAME.

The challenge: spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park and don't get caught.

The prize: enough money to change everything.

Even though everyone is desperate to win - to seize their dream futures or escape their haunting pasts - Mack feels sure that she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she's an expert at that.

It's the reason she's alive, and her family isn't.…


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Book cover of Make Her Pay

Make Her Pay By Miranda Rijks,

A twisty psychological thriller about beautiful, successful Leonie who has just met Markus, the man of her dreams. But Leonie has a secret. Ten years ago, she was involved in an accident in which another driver died. Leonie shouldn’t have been behind the wheel that night – so she fled…

Book cover of Feed Them Silence

Sarah Gailey Author Of Just Like Home

From my list on for making you lose sleep.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love books that keep me up at night. I'm constantly trying to get into a good, healthy bedtime routine—but I am also constantly sabotaging that effort by finding books that I simply can’t put down. The feeling of being drawn so deep into a story that the hours slip away is easily one of my favorite feelings in the world. I also love books that make me wake up in the middle of the night, books that slide into my brain and plant new ideas there. As an author, I am always striving to write those books. I can think of no higher compliment than “I stayed up all night reading it.”

Sarah's book list on for making you lose sleep

Sarah Gailey Why did Sarah love this book?

When I was a kid I was very excited about wolves. Not in the sense that I knew a lot about wolves—I didn’t study them and learn about them—so much as I felt certain, in my heart of hearts, that if I met a wolf, we would understand each other in a way no two creatures ever have. Feed Them Silence is a book that returned me to that sense of certainty, but with a more fundamentally realistic understanding of the nature of animals as existing outside of human understanding. I couldn’t put it down, and the hours slipped right past me.

By Lee Mandelo,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Feed Them Silence as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Lee Mandelo dives into the minds of wolves in Feed Them Silence, a novella of the near future.

What does it mean to "be-in-kind" with a nonhuman animal? Or in Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon’s case, to be in-kind with one of the last remaining wild wolves? Using a neurological interface to translate her animal subject’s perception through her own mind, Sean intends to chase both her scientific curiosity and her secret, lifelong desire to experience the intimacy and freedom of wolfishness. To see the world through animal eyes; smell the forest, thick with olfactory messages; even taste the blood and viscera…


Book cover of The Enthusiast

Stephen Harrison Author Of The Editors

From my list on real-life experience of living and working online.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a novelist who draws inspiration from my work experience as both a journalist covering tech platforms and a lawyer advising clients on tech transactions. It fascinates me how the internet has become ubiquitous in our lives, and yet it appears so rarely in popular fiction. My high school English teachers taught me that we don’t read just for escapism but to better understand the full range of human experience. Given how deeply technology shapes today’s moral problems, I believe fiction should address these issues head-on. I’m excited to share this list of books that depict how the internet is affecting us—for better and for worse.

Stephen's book list on real-life experience of living and working online

Stephen Harrison Why did Stephen love this book?

This book finally offers representation to the weird and wonderful world of internet fandoms. We all know someone who is passionate about a niche interest, and this book focuses on characters who really love trains and comic books.

The protagonist, Kate, works for the Subconscious Agency, an organization that helps drum up enthusiasm for their clients by interacting with super fans on message boards. I especially enjoyed the plot point where the characters track down an internet troll by noticing some breadcrumbs that he left on his Wikipedia page.

Fair warning: This book might inspire some nostalgia for an era when text-based sites like Reddit had much more sway than the short-form videos dominating today’s platforms.

By Josh Fruhlinger,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Enthusiast as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

kmac1987 is sneaking through a fence with a group of strangers to catch a glimpse of new train on the Washington Metro. Kate Berkowitz and a movie star are making jokes online about a fifty-year-old soap opera comic strip. kmac1987 and Kate Berkowitz are the same person, and her job is to get you excited about her clients without you noticing that she's doing it. Kate loves her job. She's a professional enthusiast. But it's about to get complicated.


Book cover of Fever Pitch

Rob Harris Author Of The Absurd Life of Barry White

From my list on heroes you’ll root for, but not all of the time.

Why am I passionate about this?

Like the character of Wala Kitu in Dr No, I consider myself an expert on nothing. Heroes have to be flawed, right? And you don’t always have to like and admire them. They don’t have to be perfect. With perfect hair and teeth. Because I’m not. And I need someone to identify with. Someone to walk the roads I might or might not walk. A list of Nick Hornby, Michael K, Miles Jupp, Billy Liar, and Wala Kitu shouldn’t belong together. But they do. Right here. It’s absurd, right? The connection of different roads? Different stories? Different hurdles to jump? Different act of heroism I say.    

Rob's book list on heroes you’ll root for, but not all of the time

Rob Harris Why did Rob love this book?

This is a book that has sparked a thousand imitations. If a writer isn’t honest, he’s not doing his job, and Nick Hornby is painfully honest here about his self-destructive, blokey obsessions with football and music. It’s a trailblazer of a book and a theme that resonates with a lot of men, me included.

Why would anyone seriously want to attend a family wedding when your team is playing in a cup final? How inconsiderate can a couple be to get married on the final day of the cup? To hold those thoughts–without a hint of irony–is viewed as an affliction and an absurdity by many. But of course, they don’t understand! 

By Nick Hornby,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Fever Pitch as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book, chronicled from the perspective of a fanatical ten-year-old soccer fan, through disillusioned adolescence, to an adult "who should know better", examines the absurdities, idiosyncrasies and traumas of everyday life and football. While Chelsea were undoubtedly the football team at the heart of fashionable London in the late 1960s, it proved to be the quiet backstreets around Highbury and Finsbury Park which led a sombre schoolboy from Maidenhead into a 20-year obsession with football, and Arsenal FC in particular. Nick Hornby became hooked after seeing Arsenal beat Stoke City (1-0 from a penalty rebound) in 1968. 24 years later…


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Book cover of Draakensky: A Supernatural Tale of Magick and Romance

Draakensky By Paula Cappa,

A murder. A wind sorcerer. A dark spirit.

On Draakensky Windmill Estate, magick and mystery rule. Sketch artist Charlotte Knight is hired to live on the estate while illustrating poetry under the direction of the reclusive spinster, and wind witch, Jaa Morland—who believes in ghosts. Charlotte quickly encounters the voice…

Book cover of Eliza and Her Monsters

Annie Wood Author Of Just a Girl in the Whirl

From my list on teen girls finding themself in the midst of chaos.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a Hollywood native, writer/actor/mixed-media artist/creative compulsive. When I was a kid, I was really close to my older brother who was an addict. Unfortunately he never stopped using and died too young. I dealt with it by allowing the experience to inspire me. In my recent young adult novel, Just a Girl in the Whirl, the father character is inspired by him. I express myself through all art forms in order to make my way in the world and I love reading about other female characters who do the same! I’m a lifelong optimist and I love feeling inspired and inspiring others to love themselves, find the humor in everything, and create! 

Annie's book list on teen girls finding themself in the midst of chaos

Annie Wood Why did Annie love this book?

It’s about a girl, Eliza, who created a super successful webcomic. IRL, Eliza is shy and withdrawn so when she meets a boy who loves her comics she doesn’t tell him that she’s the creator. This book is so now and reminds me of the importance of showing your true self and embracing your gifts. 

By Francesca Zappia,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Eliza and Her Monsters as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 13, 14, 15, and 16.

What is this book about?

"A love letter to fandom, friendship, and the stories that shape us, Eliza and Her Monsters is absolutely magical."-Marieke Nijkamp, New York Times-bestselling author of This Is Where It Ends


Eighteen-year-old Eliza Mirk is the anonymous creator of the wildly popular webcomic Monstrous Sea, but when a new boy at school tempts her to live a life offline, everything she's worked for begins to crumble.

Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl meets Noelle Stevenson's Nimona in this acclaimed novel about art, fandom, and finding the courage to be yourself. "A must-have."-School Library Journal

In the real world, Eliza Mirk is shy, weird, and…


Book cover of A Kingdom of Dreams

Colet Abedi Author Of Conquer

From my list on to read when you’re traveling in a far-off land.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love reading. I’ve been an avid reader since I was a child. Having been raised in a conservative, Persian family, it was a tool I used to escape and imagine another way of life. I’m always traveling now and searching for ways to better myself, and for topics or places to write about. I’m so inspired when a book just grabs me and pulls me in and makes me think. Whether that’s a romance, or a book about self-actualization, I think of everything I read as a teacher. We can never stop learning, stop growing, or dreaming. 

Colet's book list on to read when you’re traveling in a far-off land

Colet Abedi Why did Colet love this book?

She is the queen of historical romance for a reason. I will never forget reading this book as a teen, and I don’t know how many times I’ve read this as an adult. It has everything you can want - adventure, a crazy kind of love, an alpha male who is hot as hell, and of course, an innocent virgin. It’s a book that made me want to be a romance novelist. I bow to Judith McNaught for life. 

By Judith McNaught,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Kingdom of Dreams as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The #1 New York Times bestselling author continues her evocative Westmoreland Dynasty Saga with this romance following two defiant hearts clashing over a furious battle of wills in the glorious age of chivalry.

Abducted from her convent school, headstrong Scottish beauty Jennifer Merrick does not easily surrender to Royce Westmoreland, Duke of Claymore. Known as "The Wolf," his very name strikes terror in the hearts of his enemies. But proud Jennifer will have nothing to do with the fierce English warrior who holds her captive, this handsome rogue who taunts her with his blazing arrogance.

Boldly she challenges his will-until…


Book cover of In Rod We Trust

Chuck W. Chapman Author Of Freak on a Moped

From my list on horror you’ve never heard of.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been a fan of the horror genre since I was a kid. Even though sometimes I was so scared, I had to sleep with the light on or not sleep at all. Something about the darkness and the unknown has always seemed so alluring. I can't even count the number of horror movies I've watched or books I've read. That feel of the hair standing up on your arms or the back of your neck is a thrill like no other. 

Chuck's book list on horror you’ve never heard of

Chuck W. Chapman Why did Chuck love this book?

This collection of short stories are designed to be reminiscent of the old Twilight Zone TV series. As a huge fan of the show, I was interested to see how the interpretation to short story would work. It works very well. If you enjoyed the show (and/or the movie) you'll enjoy this book. Rod Serling would be proud.

By Tom Sawyer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In Rod We Trust as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. This is a dimension of imagination. In the case of these stories, it is where author Tom Sawyer’s imagination takes flight. Mr. Sawyer, as a popular Michigan horror fiction author of many delights ( From Paradise to Hell, Dark Harbors), pays an ultimate tribute to Rod Serling’s own imagination, which influenced viewers around the world since its inception decades ago with The Twilight Zone TV series. Here, Sawyer continues the tradition seamlessly on these pages. So sit back, relax, and cross over into the sight and sound and…


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Book cover of The Vixen Amber Halloway

The Vixen Amber Halloway By Carol LaHines,

Ophelia, a professor of Dante, is stricken when she discovers that her husband Andy has been cheating on her with a winsome colleague. What follows is Ophelia’s figurative descent into hell as she obsessively tracks her subjects, performs surveillance in her beat-up Volvo, and moves into the property next door…

Book cover of Y/N

Lio Min Author Of Beating Heart Baby

From my list on the transformative power of art.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m only a writer because I was a musician first. I worshiped music—as a performer, listener, and later a critic—for its ability to enshrine me in a purely emotional world. My favorite lyrics were poetry in motion; my favorite melodies escaped description. And through sharing my feverish acclamations of particular albums and songs, I found community with others who also pledged themselves to art that’d definitively split their lives into “before” and “after.” My writing career was born from cathartic devotion and remains devoted to recounting the rapture of self-formation, of being reflected in the mirror of something that saw you before you even knew to see yourself.

Lio's book list on the transformative power of art

Lio Min Why did Lio love this book?

Based on the title alone, I knew Yi’s debut novel would hit me like a crossbow to the heart. “Y/N” Is a prevalent shorthand for a particular kind of self-insert fan fiction, and having grown up in online fandom spaces, I have a lot of nostalgia for (and now plenty of necessary distance from) the passion that often explodes within and beyond those communities.

And still, I wasn’t prepared for the journey that Yi took me on. Nominally about one woman's spiraling obsession with a Korean pop idol, Y/N charts the inexplicable journey between a “regular person” and a “fan" before morphing into something sinisterly, beautifully, and singularly unhinged.

By Esther Yi,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Y/N as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Wondrous and weird." -New York Times
"Gorgeous." -New Yorker
"High Brow x Brilliant." -NY Mag (Approval Matrix)
"So good it's hard to believe." -New York Times Book Review Podcast
"Rare." -n+1
"A true novel of the era." -Elle
"Piercing, feverish, and frequently astonishing." -Entertainment Weekly
"Utterly brilliant, shining, and mesmerizing." -Cosmopolitan
"Freakish and hallucinatory." -Vulture
"Absurdly funny." -Ms. Magazine
"Savage." -Vanity Fair
"Playful, immersive yet unreal." -Esquire
"Riveting and innovative." -TIME
"Curious, cerebral . . . with moments of tender poetry." -Times Literary Supplement
"It."-SSENSE
"Sophisticated." -Chicago Review of Books
"Strange, haunting, and undeniably beautiful." -Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"One…


Book cover of House of Hollow
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