Treasured Thursdays:Debuts I've Treasured

Treasured Thursday is a weekly event created by Touya over at The Reader's Garden that is all about our most treasured. I'm hosting it here now, for those of you who are interested in joining me. This week our topic is debut books we've treasured. 

Over the years there have been a couple debuts that stand out above the rest in my memory. First, Jennifer Weiner's fantastic read, Good In Bed. 

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For twenty-eight years, things have been tripping along nicely for Cannie Shapiro. Sure, her mother has come charging out of the closet, and her father has long since dropped out of her world. But she loves her friends, her rat terrier, Nifkin, and her job as pop culture reporter for The Philadelphia Examiner. She's even made a tenuous peace with her plus-size body.

But the day she opens up a national women's magazine and sees the words "Loving a Larger Woman" above her ex-boyfriend's byline, Cannie is plunged into misery...and the most amazing year of her life. From Philadelphia to Hollywood and back home again, she charts a new course for herself: mourning her losses, facing her past, and figuring out who she is and who she can become.
I have to say I adored this book, still do. Weiner has the ability to crawl inside her readers' heads and speak to them in a unique and wonderful way. I have yet to read a book by her that I have not loved. This was the very first book I read and felt like the author could have been telling me about myself. If you haven't read this book & you've ever felt out of place in your own skin, then you really MUST read it as soon as possible.

The next debut I treasure is a more recent one. Very recent.  Under The Never Sky by Veronica Rossi.

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Since she’d been on the outside, she’d survived an Aether storm, she’d had a knife held to her throat, and she’d seen men murdered. This was worse.

Exiled from her home, the enclosed city of Reverie, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wasteland—known as The Death Shop—are slim. If the cannibals don’t get her, the violent, electrified energy storms will. She’s been taught that the very air she breathes can kill her. Then Aria meets an Outsider named Perry. He’s wild—a savage—and her only hope of staying alive.

A hunter for his tribe in a merciless landscape, Perry views Aria as sheltered and fragile—everything he would expect from a Dweller. But he needs Aria’s help too; she alone holds the key to his redemption. Opposites in nearly every way, Aria and Perry must accept each other to survive. Their unlikely alliance forges a bond that will determine the fate of all who live under the never sky.

In her enthralling debut, Veronica Rossi sends readers on an unforgettable adventure set in a world brimming with harshness and beauty.
This book was simply amazing from beginning to end and I loved every second of it. It was the first really stellar book I read this year and I really cannot wait for the next installment! It's completely different than anything else I'd ever read and I really needed that to get me excited about reading for the coming year.

Thanks for reading, what are your treasured debut novels?  Feel free to leave your link & a comment!