At the start of this decade, Barack Obama was a first-term president, Kim Kardashian was dating Reggie Bush, and Meghan Markle was still more than a year away from starting the role that would make her sort of famous (Rachel on Suits) and eight years away from marrying into the title that would make her extremely famous (Duchess of Sussex). When you put it in those terms, 2010 seems like a dozen lifetimes ago, and to be fair, you could have lived a dozen lifetimes through the long list of electrifying, transportive, and ground-breaking books published in the last 10 years.

Let’s get one thing straight: No ranking of the “best books” will ever be complete. It’s a subjective task, and this list will undoubtedly leave out one of the books that rocked your world this decade. Instead, let’s think of this list as the books that sparked conversations, changed perspectives, and led to recommendations from your mom, your aunt, your best friend, your barista, and practically every influencer you follow on Instagram. These are the 15 books that made the biggest splash this decade; among them you’ll find harrowing stories of surviving sexual assault, a dizzying thriller that shook up the literary world, a memoir about the Herculean task of finding oneself—and forgiving oneself—in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest, and a young adult novel that spoke truth to power about race, class, and violence in the United States.