Debutiful tends to cover novels and short story collections the most for a myriad of reasons, but in recent years, there’s been a more concerted effort to read and cover more nonfiction at Debutiful HQ. Most of what founder Adam Vitcavage finds interesting are memoirs and essay collections. Many of the titles you see will fall into those two categories, and some of the titles can also be found in the Best Debut Books of 2025 list.
Below are the 10 Best Debut Nonfiction Books of 2025.
Aggregated Discontent: Confessions of the Last Normal Woman by Harron Walker
From the publisher: A searing journey through the highs and lows of twenty-first century womanhood from an award-winning journalist beloved for her unflinchingly honest and often comedic appraisals of pop culture, identity, and disillusionment
Walker’s sharp tongue blends memoir and criticism throughout these essays. Among a wide variety of topics, she beautifully tackles art as capitalism and explores why we work.
The Book of Kin by Jennifer Eli Bowen
From the publisher: A remarkable debut that explores the imperfect ways we care for one another, and how we seek repair when care fails.
Subtitled “On Absence, Love, and Being There,” this book opened my eyes to how I view community and how to build, nurture, and evolve it. Bowen writes with such emotional intelligence, beauty, and grace. This book feels like an education, a reckoning, and a guide.
Fetishized by Kaila Yu
From the publisher: A memoir-in-essays from former pinup model and lead singer of Nylon Pink Kaila Yu, reckoning with being an object of Asian fetish and how media, pop culture, and colonialism contributed to the oversexualization of Asian women.
A mirror to the world that packs a punch. Yu reflects with such unflinching candor about glamour, culture, and fetishism it feels like you’re out for coffee with her. She moves through the personal and the global lens with such ease. This book was truly eye-opening.
Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange by Katie Goh (May 6)
From the publisher: Per person, oranges are the most consumed fruit in the world. Across the world, no matter how remote or cold or incongruous a climate is, oranges will be there. What stories could I unravel from the orange’s long ribboning peel? What new meanings could I find in its variousness, as it moves from east to west and from familiar to foreign?
This is the type of nonfiction I love. A blend of memoir and criticism that explores a topic in a way I never encountered. Goh’s writing is inventive and intelligent.
The Gloomy Girl Variety Show by Freda Epum
From the publisher: Merging memoir, poetry, and criticism, this radical literary revue traces a first-generation Nigerian American’s search for home and belonging on her own terms.
Epum invites readers into a world filled with beautiful language and clever quips to explore identity in an approachable way. It is a mesmerizing debut that will open readers’ eyes to new worlds.
The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders by Sarah Aziza
From the publisher: A brush with death. An ancestral haunting. A century of family secrets. Sarah Aziza’s searing, genre-bending memoir traces three generations of diasporic Palestinians from Gaza to the Midwest to New York City–and back
Aziza took what a memoir can do and turned it on its head. She plays with style and genre, but also introduces the characters in her past and present with such originality. One of the best memoirs I’ve ever read.
No Sense in Wishing by Lawrence Burney
From the publisher: An essay collection from culture critic Lawrence Burney that is a personal and analytical look at his home city of Baltimore, music from throughout the global Black diaspora, and the traditions that raised him.
No writer knows a city and its culture better than Burney knows and writes about Baltimore. His debut essay collection touches on everything from the intimacy of how music touches a soul to the global impact of Black culture from continent to continent. Burney is a voice we should all be listening to.
Sing Me a Circle by Samina Najmi
From the publisher: These exquisite personal essays trace the orbit of author Samina Najmi as she reflects on events, people, and places that shape her vision of the world.
This book came to me late in the year, and I am glad it found me. Place and belonging have always preoccupied my reading, and Najmi explores her ties to various places she has called home in a way that I have never experienced. For those who question where their home is, this book is for you.
Sorry I Keep Crying During Sex by Jesse James Rose
From the publisher: A powerful, provocative, and genre-bending literary memoir that grapples with victimhood, recovery, and resilience
Rose packed everything you could possibly want into a memoir. Rose’s personality leaps off the page while she tackles everything from the absurd to the heartbreaking.
Thank You, John by Michelle Gurule
From the publisher: a heartfelt, laugh-out-loud tragi-comedy of errors based on her time spent as an inexperienced sugarbaby in 2010s Denver.
Know this: you’ll laugh, you’ll cringe, you’ll pick your jaw up from the floor. Gurule’s memoir is a sublime and revealing story about being a sugarbaby in college. It reads like a Hollywood reality series in the best way possible.
This Is Your Mother by Erika J. Simpson
From the publisher: From “a writer who’s absolutely going places” (Roxane Gay), a remarkable, inventive debut memoir about a mother-daughter relationship across cycles of poverty, separation, and illness, exploring how we forge identity in the face of imminent loss.
A moving story filled with gorgeous language and imagery. Simpson earnestly shares insights into her life, her mother, and how they navigated race, class, and gender in America.
Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything (Essays on the Future That Never Was) by Colette Shade
From the publisher: Perfect for fans of Jia Tolentino and Chuck Klosterman, Y2K is a delightfully nostalgic and bitingly told exploration about how the early 2000s forever changed us and the world we live in.
We need more great essay collections that take a critical lens to recent culture and history and Shande’s collection is a perfect addition to that pantheon. While nostalgia is just now dipping into the Y2K era, Shade unflinchingly looks at the time period with biting takes and a keen eye. She explores why we’re so nostalgic for the 2000s, why what we were promised never came true, and what we can learn from our past.