Wanted

Written by: Mark Millar

First line: This is my best friend having sex with my girlfriend over an Ikea table I picked up for a really good price.

Why you should read this book: Wanted is angry and violent and politically incorrect and it's an intelligent and thought-provoking piece of literature that does an astonishing quantity of world-building after first shattering all the world-building done by hundreds of other authors. Wesley Gibson is a pathetic, spiritually-castrated excuse of a man, until he learns that he's the heir to a secret world of criminal conspiracy, and that he can kill anyone on the planet with both ease and impunity. There are machinations and double-crosses and all kinds of plot, but really, what this story is about is a man achieving his potential, even if that potential is morally reprehensible in this world, because it makes perfect sense in his world.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Murder. Rape. Language. A complete dismantling of all your most beloved childhood tropes.