The death of genre? Why writers are dismantling old labels

It used to be so simple. You wrote a crime novel, or a romance, or a dystopia. Bookshop shelves were helpful about such things: spine out, genre in. Literary fiction sat in its elegant corner, cool, aloof, unbothered by the commercial hustle elsewhere. Genre fiction was the grafter, busy, popular, and a little bit suspect.

But something is shifting. Writers are slipping past those borders, and readers are following them. In fact, they’re relishing the trespass. Literary novels are embracing dragons and time travel. Crime writers are reaching for unreliable narrators and experimental prose. Romance authors are crafting love stories that refuse tidy arcs. In 2025, the lines feel not so much blurred as beside the point.

Four debuts that disturb and dazzle: New voices to read now

There is nothing better when it comes to books than discovering a favourite new writer, and this summer has seen the arrival of several striking debut novels that push boundaries, both thematically and stylistically. These are books that disturb, provoke and linger in the mind. They are just the kind of books that will stick with you.

What links them isn’t genre or setting but a willingness to confront discomfort: whether in the body, the family or society itself. These books ask readers to sit with pain and ambiguity, not to solve or resolve it, but to acknowledge it.