Winter Book Preview Archives

The Janes: An Alice Vega Novel

by Louisa Luna

<em>The Janes</em> hooked me from the opening words: meet our girl. I loved the narrative voice, the setup, even though I had no clue who this girl was. And as it turns out, I didn't find out until the book’s closing pages, which had me frantically flipping back to page 1 to read the opening again. (I love it when a book does that.) Our girl is watching tv, and she sees a news story, sees a boy crying, speaking the name of a detective. On page 4 we meet this Alice Vega. She takes a job, but to do it, she calls in her old friend Max Caplan. The two make a great team, they have great rapport, their dialogue is so fun to read. It’s a hard book, because the subject matter is hard, but Luna handles her characters with sensitivity. I knew going in that it was the second book in a series, but I was assured that it could stand alone just fine on its own.

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line

by Deepa Anappara

The story is narrated by 9-year-old Jai, who lives with his family in a Delhi shantytown near the end of Delhi's purple line. Jai loves the police reality shows his family watches on tv, so when one of his classmates disappears, he and his two school friends decide to investigate the case the same way they've seen it done on tv. Jai thinks he's smarter than his friends, and it's fun and funny to watch their interactions. I found out only after I’d read the book that Anappura drew on a rash of real-life disappearances in metropolitan India when constructing her plot. Djinn Patrol reminded me of Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce novels, thanks to its young narrator, and I had a much easier time getting in the story once I reminded myself that, like in the Flavia stories, a small child is telling me this story.

The Resisters: A Novel

by Gish Jen

Gish Jen's new book combines two things that I've previously loved in books, even though they're not my typical go-tos: dystopian fiction and baseball. The story is set in the indeterminate future, when society has broken down into what are essentially two castes: the Netted, and the Surplus. The Netted are the privileged ruling class, the producers whose role in the world is to create. And the Surplus only exist to consume what the Netted produce. Now they are work-less. To the Netted, that's the same as worth-less. Our narrator for this tale is Grant, a former professor and member of the Surplus class. Grant lives with his wife and their daughter, Gwen, now 17 years old. From the first line, we know that Gwen has never been a typical child. Gwen loves baseball—which is unfortunate because the sport has been outlawed. Word gets out about Gwen's amazing arm and pretty soon she's being recruited to cross over to the world of the Netted. The world Jen has created here is such a fascinating place to spend time in. Release date: February 4, 2020.

Writers & Lovers

by Lily King

A young writer turns her life around in this 2020 novel from the author of Euphoria. Casey Peabody’s life is a catastrophe: she’s grieving her mother, buried in debt, floundering in her love life, and fed up with waiting tables while she labors to finish the novel she’s been working on for six years. But then slowly, slowly, she starts to pull it together. This novel has it all, while never feeling weighed down: a story of growing up, finding love, grieving loss, and a tribute to the writing life. This book was slow to hook me, but once I was in, I was IN. It also has one of the most exuberant, satisfying endings I've read in ages.

Chirp

Don’t Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life

by Anne Bogel

We've all been there: stuck in a cycle of what-ifs, plagued by indecision, paralyzed by the fear of getting it wrong. Nobody wants to live a life of constant overthinking, but it doesn't feel like something we can choose to stop doing. It feels like something we're wired to do, something we just can't escape. But is it? Anne's answer is no. Not only can you overcome negative thought patterns that are repetitive, unhealthy, and unhelpful, you can replace them with positive thought patterns that will bring more peace, joy, and love into your life. In Don't Overthink It, you'll find actionable strategies that can make an immediate and lasting difference in how you deal with questions both small—Should I buy these flowers?—and large—What am I doing with my life? More than a book about making good decisions, Don't Overthink It offers you a framework for making choices you'll be comfortable with, using an appropriate amount of energy, freeing you to focus on all the other stuff that matters in life.

Chirp

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Such a Fun Age

by Kiley Reid

Good Girls Lie

by J.T. Ellison

Some people attract drama. Or, perhaps more accurately, they create it. That’s the guiding belief of the Charlottesville detectives called in to The Goode School, the exclusive all-girls boarding school in the quiet town of Marchburg, Virginia, where senators and ambassadors business moguls send their daughters for their education. But then a series of unexplained deaths rocks their community. And when one particular girl seems to be the epicenter of the chaos and tragedy, well—the detective on the case knows she needs to take a close look. In alternating points of view, we learn that Ash Carlisle has plenty of secrets she’d like to keep. What’s more, we learn that Ash isn’t the only one with something to hide, far from it. As the narrators shift, the new perspective subtly changes what you, the reader, think you know. And Ellison pushes the story further than you ever imagined it going. Ellison says she always wanted to write a good campus novel, one that would allow her to draw on her own educational experience at a women’s college. Reader take note, this book merits a heap of trigger warnings.

Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis

by Ada Calhoun

I feel like I’m a bit young to be reading about women having midlife crises, but I took a chance on it, primarily because I trusted my friend who recommended it, who happens to be several years younger than me. I found this book completely fascinating and far too relatable. In separate chapters, Calhoun examines many of these issues individually, like finding work, caregiving, job instability, money panic, choosing a single life, or a childless life, or not choosing to be single and childless yet finding that's your reality, and then divorce, perimenopause, the comparison trap—if you're getting the picture, you can see it's not easy stuff. It was a lot of information, and a lot of it was pretty depressing, but it was also engrossing, and unexpectedly reassuring. I laughed the laugh of recognition when Calhoun writes, "Oddly, knowing that I have every reason in the world to be freaking out has made me much more relaxed."

Target

Followers

by Megan Angelo

Critics are calling this an 'eerie masterpiece" and "a masterful exploration of the dark side of social media." Flash forward to 2050, where for quite a few people, life resembles The Truman Show. Marlow is one of the sponsored celebrities whose entire life is on display, almost 24/7, for all her followers. Her life is paid for by the retailers and pharmaceutical companies that sponsor the show, that in effect sponsor Marlow’s life. She cherishes the hour from 3 to 4 am, when the network goes on ad break and she knows she’ll be off the air. To give you more of the flavor of this book, read you the epigraph. It consists of two quotes. The first is from Nietzsche; the second quote is from Kylie Jenner.

Winter Book Preview

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