A high school senior secretly creates a massive multiplayer online role-playing game dedicated to black culture but is attacked in mainstream media after a player is murdered. Perfect for fans of The Hate You Give and Ready Player One. You'll be ready to SLAY when you're done.
April
Charlotte Runcie’s SALT ON YOUR TONGUE is an artfully woven tapestry of history, mythology, personal essay, and reflection that dives into the historical and literary ties between women and the sea. The book is framed by Runcie’s pregnancy with her first child and her own obsession with the ocean. As her child grows, Runcie visits the weathered seascapes and portside ruins of Scotland, while revisiting the importance of sirens, and fishwives, ancient saints, and seabirds. This book is a calm in the storm of womanhood, a peaceful place to contemplate all that that means.
Meaghan
Twelve-year-old Baby, the daughter of a young heroin addict, lives mostly on the streets of Montreal. Her story is gritty, tender, funny, disturbing, and unexpectedly hopeful. Also, Baby’s voice is unlike anything else I’ve read. A stunning coming-of-age novel.
Catherine, Writer in Residence for Adults
This book has a quiet power that will haunt you, much as the PCT haunted Healy. Be prepared to read this book in one sitting, and then pine for the trail.
Marika
This book is seriously entertaining without anything ever happening. The story moves forward but you’re unsure of how or why. Tsukiko shuffles through life awkwardly, whilst Sensei lives with intention. Their paths cross in a bar one night and somehow they end up picking mushrooms in a mountain later.
Sinny
This is a great place to start if you're a horror lover looking for more authors to read. There are so many mentioned in this book, not just the big names. I appreciate the trigger warnings that accompany discussions of some works, as there are some topics you may want to know about ahead of time. A beautiful ode to women horror and speculative fiction writers (including pulp fiction!).
Stacey
Gatwood beautifully describes the tragedy that comes with female adolescence and sexuality in the most raw and immersing fashion. Incredible poet, incredible woman- an all time favorite. Each word spoke to me on a level that I didn’t even know words were capable of reaching. Life of the Party is a page-turner for sure and is something I will forever hold close to my heart.
Hannah
Solid State is a compulsively readable and definitive account of the writing and recording of the Beatles’ landmark final album, Abbey Road. Filled with fascinating details demonstrating the creativity and ingenuity of the group, George Martin, and their recording engineers, and even with all that has been written about them, this book is simply a must read for any fan.
Dale
You know about Ebeneezer Scrooge, but how did he get that way? In this version, Jacob Marley is to blame. Come for the retelling of Dickens, stay for the allusions to other famous books of the 19th century.
Sarah
Not everything is Sisyphean. No one ever wants to imagine themselves as the boulder.” Hanif’s words have stuck with me since I first heard them, and they keep summoning me back. They convict and inspire as they weave magic and music and messy relationships into something that feels like life but is also more. If you’re not reading Hanif you are missing out.
Caleb
If you read science fiction and fantasy, you should pick up this book. Every anthology Parisien & Wolfe edit is excellent, and The Mythic Dream is no exception.
Rebecca
A book within a book that blends contemporary mystery with gothic suspense and maybe a ghost story – this is a perfect October read.
Katie
This book will make you laugh and destroy you emotionally, often at the same time. You've never met a hero like Gideon before. Plus, you can't go wrong with lesbian necromancers in space.
Shana
A beautifully baffling book about the peripatetic wanderings of your own mind through the hotels, hallways, & postcards of the protagonists, or about the instability hiding in every apparently solid building, or maybe even how you don’t know an event is significant until some disconnected and celestial phenomenon illuminates it.
Josh
Part travel narrative, part nature writing, part good old-fashioned unexplained mystery, as a Sasquatch skeptic goes into the woods with an open mind.
Sarah