50 Must-Read 50 Beta
← The Must-Read 50
Cover of This Tender Land by William Kent KruegerThis Tender Land
Modern · Fiction, Adventure, Young Adult

This Tender Land

by William Kent Krueger
2019 · 464 pages · Fiction
Reserve shelf
≈ 12 hours to read · about 3 weeks at 30 minutes a day

By the numbers

73.1Must-Read Score
  • Readers73 out of 100 · counts 42%
  • Critics0 out of 100 · counts 14%
  • Bestseller49 out of 100 · counts 34% (its stronger lane)
  • Buzz0 out of 100 · counts 10%

Critics and Bestseller are two ways to earn a place: a book's stronger one counts more. Buzz rewards recent bestseller weeks and prizes, so older books start at zero. The parts combine into the Must-Read Score, shown on a scale where the best book we found scores 99 and the last book to make the ranking scores 50.

On our reserve shelf: it's well reviewed, but isn't currently a prize winner, a lifetime bestseller or a book everyone's talking about, so we don't rank it. We check again every month, and it can still turn up in your 50 once you've read most of our ranked books.

Why it made the list

Bestseller
24 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2019

Reads as

Adventurous

How we rank

Already read it? Upload your Goodreads or StoryGraph history and get the 50 best books you haven't read, tuned to your taste.Get my 50

More by William Kent Krueger

Cover of The River We Remember by William Kent KruegerThe River We Remember
The River We RememberWilliam Kent Krueger
Cover of Ordinary Grace by William Kent KruegerOrdinary Grace
Ordinary GraceWilliam Kent Krueger

If you like this, read next

Cover of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. RowlingHarry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's StoneJ. K. Rowling
Cover of The Book Thief by Markus ZusakThe Book Thief
The Book ThiefMarkus Zusak
Cover of The Help by Kathryn StockettThe Help
The HelpKathryn Stockett
Cover of A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled HosseiniA Thousand Splendid Suns
A Thousand Splendid SunsKhaled Hosseini
Cover of Six of Crows by Leigh BardugoSix of Crows
Six of CrowsLeigh Bardugo
Cover of The Hunger Games by Suzanne CollinsThe Hunger Games
The Hunger GamesSuzanne Collins

Explore the best-of lists

All 36 best-of lists →