Category: Read This Book

Welcome to Read This Book, a weekly newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, backlist titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!

This week’s pick is The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui.

Content warning: Mention of rape, war violence

Thi Bui has grown up with the effects of the Vietnam War looming over her life like a shadow. Born in Vietnam, she and her family fled to the U.S. in the late 1970s as South Vietnam fell. Her mother was eight months pregnant when they left, and she gave birth to Thi’s younger brother in a refugee camp. The family landed in the U.S. shortly after, staying with relatives in the Midwest before making their way to a more temperate climate and an independent life in California. But their struggles don’t end there.

“How much of me is my own, and how much is stamped into my blood and bone, predestined?”

This is the question that haunts Bui, and her memoir. She starts her account in New York City in 2005, as she is in labor with her son. It’s a moment that should connect her to her own mother, and Bui is full of hope that it will mark a new phase in their relationship. But her mother is not present in the way Bui hopes, and she is once again reminded of the vast disconnect between herself and her parents. With beautiful artwork in black, cream, and a shade that intensifies from peach to burnt orange, Bui moves back and forth through time, showing readers glimpses of her parents’ pasts: her father’s harrowing childhood in a village marred by violence, and her mother’s more privileged upbringing that is nonetheless affected by colonialism and unrest.

She reconstructs her family’s history, their small and large tragedies, and analyzes how her family influenced the person she has become. Bui wrestles with some pretty big themes and issues–trauma, the immigrant experience, the complicated legacies our families pass down, and the difficulties of excavating a history that you didn’t live or were too young to remember in order to understand your present. Most pressing of all? The fear that she will somehow permanently affect her own son. This journey is not easy, but the result is a beautiful, moving memoir about strength, resilience, and the courage to start anew. Even if you don’t think graphic novels are your jam, I highly recommend giving this book a shot because the story and the artwork are both very powerful.

Happy reading,

Tirzah

Find me on Book Riot, the Insiders Read Harder podcast, All the Books, and Twitter.

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Welcome to Read This Book, a weekly newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, backlist titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!

This week’s pick is Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson!

“They didn’t want to set the world on fire. They just wanted to be less alone in it.”

Lillian is a twenty-something in 1995, living in her mom’s attic, working two jobs, and completely adrift. The one bright spot in her life is her regular but casual correspondence with her high school friend Madison, who has gone on to marry a senator and have a child. When Madison writes Lillian one day and asks her to please come visit her and help take care of Madison’s new step-kids, it’s a weird request–but Lillian agrees. The only catch? The kids catch on fire when they become upset. Strangely, this does little to deter Lillian and she goes on to forge a tentative bond with the kids, Bessie and Roland.

Reading this book was such a wonderfully odd and surreal experience. It’s full of pitch-perfect humor and deep thoughts about responsibility and caretaking, but it’s not a heavy book at all. Lillian is our narrator, and she often tries to come across more hardened than she really is, but her honesty and wit made me love her from the very beginning. She’s appropriately awed by her new privileged surroundings, but her status as an outsider is what allows her to really connect with Bessie and Roland. Although only secondary characters, they’re fully rounded and extremely lovable, if not jaded by the death of their mom and rejection by their father. They don’t believe in good things very easily, and Lillian has her work cut out for her. But when she does finally win them over, it’s a beautiful connection to behold–and when that connection is threatened, the stakes ramp up brilliantly.

Wilson has crafted a witty novel about finding connection, finding purpose, and finding the bravery to take responsibility, even when you’re not sure if you’re cut out for it. I highly recommend this novel if you love found family stories and humor. Bonus: I listened to the audiobook, brilliantly narrated by Marin Ireland, who just won the 2020 Audie Award for the best female performance of an audiobook for her work on Nothing to See Here. I am not kidding when I say I listened to it in one sitting, and when I finished I was shocked that so much time had gone by!

Happy reading!
Tirzah

Find me on Book Riot, the Insiders Read Harder podcast, All the Books, and Twitter.

If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, click here to subscribe.

Welcome to Read This Book, a weekly newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, backlist titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!

This week’s book is The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys.

Content warning: child death, some violence

I’ve been a big fan of Ruta Sepetys since I read her debut, Between Shades of Gray, which is about Stalin’s deportation and imprisonment of thousands of people from the Baltics during WWII. Sepetys writes wonderfully detailed historical fiction that is marketed as YA, but has lots of crossover appeal for adult readers. Her latest book, set in 1957 Madrid, did not disappoint!

Daniel Matheson is the son of a Dallas oil baron and a Spanish mother. When he graduates from high school, his parents take him to Spain, where’s he’s eager to spend his summer photographing the “real” Spain. That is not a simple task, as he learns when he tangles with the Guardia Civil on his first day. But it’s not until Daniel befriends Ana, a maid working at his hotel, that he begins to understand all that the country suffered the Civil War, and the deep wounds that have not been healed under Francisco Franco’s rule.

“When you discover the truth, you must speak it aloud and help others to do the same…Truth breaks the chains of silence. It sets us all free.”

This is a marvelous book with so many fascinating political and personal layers. Although most of the book is from Daniel’s outsider perspective, Sepetys uses multiple points of view to show the wide-ranging effect of war, violence, censorship, loss of freedom, and poverty on the people of Spain. This is a complicated history, and Sepetys doesn’t shy away from demonstrating how American influence enabled Franco’s hold on Spain, including snippets of primary resources in between chapters. Among the many injustices of the period, she anchors this story around the scandal of Catholic charities stealing infants from families with Republican ties and adopting them out to more suitable (and wealthier) families at home and abroad. This is a book with fascinating, varied characters who are struggling to survive the best they can under a tremendous burden of silence–and the possibilities that open up to them when they finally are allowed to speak the truth. I particularly enjoyed how Sepetys takes this book from 1957 to 1975, giving readers a unique perspective on the lasting impact of Franco on Spain. It’s a must-read for historical fiction fans!

Happy reading!

–Tirzah

Find me on Book Riot, the Insiders Read Harder podcast, All the Books, and Twitter.

If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, click here to subscribe.

Welcome to Read This Book, a weekly newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, backlist titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!

This week’s recommendation is A Madness of Sunshine by Nalini Singh. You may recognize Singh’s name from her romance novels, particularly her Psy Changeling series! However, this is a standalone mystery novel set in New Zealand, and while it sits firmly in the mystery/crime genre, it’s got a good romantic subplot that confirms Singh knows how to craft a sizzling romantic connection no matter the genre!

“Will wasn’t exactly hankering to belong anywhere. Which made him the perfect cop to send to Golden Cove.”

Golden Cove is a remote community that sits on New Zealand’s west coast. They have one police officer, Will, and he’s only been sent to Golden Cove to manage the tourists. But when Miriama, the community’s golden girl, goes missing on the eve of her departure for the big city, the town is shaken and Will has his first serious case to solve. Did she run away early? Did she get lost jogging in the woods or fall off a cliff? Or did something more sinister happen to her?

This book is told from two points of view: those of Will and Anahera, a woman who grew up in Golden Cove but left as soon as she could, haunted by her mother’s premature death. Anahera is recently returned, shell-shocked by a recent betrayal, and disconcerted to find that Golden Cove is both exactly the same and subtly different. But her status as an outsider with an in makes her perspective appealing to Will, and it’s not long before they’ve teamed up to investigate the darker suspicions they both harbor about Miriama’s disappearance.

Singh is an elegant writer, and she makes the rugged, beautiful, dangerous landscape of Golden Cove come to life. The setting pulls double duty as a foreboding presence and foil for the investigation, and the suspense and tension build at a steady pace as it becomes clear that Miriama won’t be found easily. This book is about how a tragedy can bring a community together–but also about how easily that sense of camaraderie can turn, exposing dark secrets and cracks in the polite facade. If you’re a fan of Tana French or Jane Harper, you need this book on your TBR! I’m hoping that Singh plans on writing more mystery and suspense books, because I’ll gladly read whatever she writes next.

Bonus: I listened to the audiobook, narrated by the talented Sakia Maarleveld! It’s an excellent read in both print and audio.

Happy reading!

Tirzah

Find me on Book Riot, the Insiders Read Harder podcast, All the Books, and Twitter.

If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, click here to subscribe.

Welcome to Read This Book, a weekly newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, backlist titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!

Because it’s Valentine’s Day, this week’s pick is a fun and feminist romance–Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore!

Annabelle Archer is smart, determined, and not at all satisfied to spend the rest of her days as her cousin’s glorified maid. She cleverly convinces him to let her attend Oxford as one of the first cohort of female students, where she receives a scholarship from a suffragist society. But in order to keep that scholarship, she must attend meetings and get involved in the suffragist causes. With an important election coming up, Annabelle knows the best way to advocate for women’s rights is to sway someone influential to their cause–someone like the Duke of Montgomery.

“Perhaps this is not a question of staying out of trouble, Your Grace. Perhaps this is about deciding on which side of history you want to be.”

This is a smart, funny romance about a lively young woman who knows that education will be her freedom, and works hard to achieve her dreams. Dunmore packs the book with fascinating historical insights about bluestockings, women’s suffrage work of the 1870’s, Victorian politics, and of course, high society. Annabelle’s connection with Sebastian, the Duke of Montgomery, is initially fraught–not because he doesn’t believe in women’s rights, per se, but because he’s a close advisor to Queen Victoria, and she is not in favor. Nonetheless, their attraction is evident even as they clash over matters of rhetoric, literature, and politics. Sebastian would have Annabelle, society be damned, but Annabelle isn’t about to let anyone, not even the man she loves, dictate her path, making for a suspenseful and clever twist of an ending. Read this book if you love a slow-burn romance, ladies who know their own minds, stubborn love interests, and feminism.

Bringing Down the Duke is the first in the A League of Extraordinary Women series, and Annabelle’s story makes for the perfect debut in what’s sure to be an excellent series. Bonus: The audiobook, narrated by Elizabeth Jasicki, is excellent!

And are you looking to get yourself a little something special for Valentine’s Day? Check out Book Riot’s new reading tracker and journal, Book Marks. It’s like a cross between a bullet journal and a reading log, with book recommendations from Book Riot!

Happy reading!

–Tirzah

Find me on Book Riot, the Insiders Read Harder podcast, and Twitter.

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Welcome to Read This Book, a weekly newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, backlist titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!

This week’s recommendation is In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado.

Content warning: domestic abuse, physical intimidation and emotional manipulation

“Love cannot be won or lost; a relationship doesn’t have a scoring system. We are partners, paired against the world. We cannot succeed if we are at odds with each other.”

Carmen Maria Machado is the author of Her Body and Other Parties: Stories, which was a National Book Award finalist in 2017 and one of my favorite reads of the year. She changes up genres in this latest release, which details the two very painful years she spent as a graduate student at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and was in an emotionally abusive relationship with another woman. This is so much more than a memoir, though—Machado plays with form and tropes to tell a complex and beguiling story of her relationship. Beginning with heady infatuation, complicated by differing values, her partnership slowly but surely turns dark, until Machado finds herself alienated and held hostage by the whims of a person whose demands don’t always make sense. The chapters are brief, and labeled as devices or tropes (Dream House as Inciting Incident, Dream House as American Gothic), allowing Machado to examine this time in her life from multiple angles, through varying lenses.

But more than a story of domestic abuse, this is also an important look at domestic abuse between same-sex partners. In writing this book, Machado began researching queer intimate partner abuse and what information she could find was scant or, more often than not, deliberately buried. And so, In the Dream House becomes a touchstone book about queer domestic abuse, demanding that we shed light on this very real and important issue, for as Machado writes, “We deserve to have our wrongdoing represented as much as our heroism, because when we refuse wrongdoing as a possibility for a group of people, we refuse their humanity.”

Machado’s writing is razor-sharp, playful, powerful, and this is ultimately a hopeful book with a happy ending. I read it in a single sitting (the short chapters make it easy to say, “Just one more…”) and I could not stop thinking about the writing for days afterward. For audiobook listeners: Machado narrates the audiobook herself, although due to the experimental structure of this book, you might want to read a physical copy. (Or pick up both. You won’t regret it.)

Happy reading!

–Tirzah

Find me on Book Riot, the Insiders Read Harder podcast, and Twitter.

Welcome to Read This Book, a weekly newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, backlist titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!

This week’s pick is a YA fantasy: Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson!

“You belonged in the library, as much as any book.”

Elisabeth Scrivener, orphan, is an apprentice in one of the kingdom’s Great Libraries. She aspires to be like her hero, the Director of the Great Library of Summershall, and has grown up believing that sorcery and those who practice it are evil. It is a source of pride for Elisabeth that librarians collect and keep dangerous, sentient grimoires locked in vaults to protect innocent people…until the night a dangerous grimoire escapes, killing the Director and implicating Elisabeth in the crime. In order to clear her name, she must ally herself with a notorious sorcerer Thorn…and save the world along the way.

This is a book-lover’s fantasy. Who wouldn’t want to grow up in magical library where knowledge is prized, magic is safeguarded, and librarians wield swords? From the very beginning, you can feel the love of books radiating through the chapters, evoking that giddy feeling of exploring a new library or walking into a well-stocked bookstore. Elisabeth is a plucky, almost gullible protagonist at the beginning of the novel, but she wises up quickly and deepens into an interesting, complex character who works to confront the misguided information she was fed as a child. Her character growth is satisfying, especially when it involves a slow-burn romance with a sarcastic but secretly soft-at-heart love interest and befriending his slippery (but charming!) demon servant. But don’t worry, the romance takes a backseat to Rogerson’s quick-moving plot that reveals a conspiracy unfolding in a rich and fascinating world.

What’s so great about this book is that we have a heroine who is unabashedly bookish, intellectually curious, and has enough self-awareness to admit when she is wrong, but she doesn’t let injustice grind her down. This is an excellent pick for anyone who enjoys a genuinely fun fantasy in the vein of classics by Robin McKinley and Diana Wynne Jones, but with an updated, modern feel. And bonus—it’s a standalone, so there’s no need to commit to a long series arc! I highly recommend it for fantasy lovers and fantasy dabblers alike.

Happy reading!

–Tirzah

Find me on Book Riot, the Insiders Read Harder podcast, and Twitter.

Welcome to Read This Book, a weekly newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, backlist titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!

This week’s pick is a backlist title that made me cry like a baby–My Real Children by Jo Walton.

“It was when she thought of her children that she was most truly confused.”

This is a strange book with an unconventional structure that opens with our protagonist, Patricia Cowan, as a very old woman. She lives in a nursing home and is often very confused. She has dementia, but she doesn’t simply forget details and events—she remembers two different timelines of her adult life. She remembers becoming a dissatisfied housewife, and having a successful writing career. An unhappy marriage with a man, and a passionate partnership with a woman. Raising four children, and raising three children. Living in a peaceful society of openness and acceptance, and navigating life in a world plagued by war.

Just when the reader is nearly as confused as Patricia, Walton takes readers back to 1933, when the world still resembles the one we know today. In elegant and mesmerizing prose, Walton recounts Patricia’s childhood and early years through the war, leading us up to a telephone box in the school where Patricia works, where her beau demands that she give him an answer to his marriage proposal. It’s in this moment that Patricia’s story, and her timeline split.

I was initially drawn to this book because of its exploration of alternate worlds and histories, but while reading I found myself equally if not more fascinated by Walton’s brilliant characterization of Patricia. In one timeline she is Pat, and the other she is Trish, and even though her lives diverge wildly, she is still, at her core, the same person. She raises two different families that she loves fiercely. She finds a career, friends, and passions, albeit not in the same order. She faces horrible tragedies. Her two lives are profoundly moving and made all the more fascinating because of how they differ from our own world, first in small ways and then in very large shifts.

The temptation to compare Patricia’s two lives is strong, both in the reader and in Patricia herself. In one life, there is world peace but little (and hard-won) personal fulfillment. In another, true love with her soulmate and a satisfying career against the backdrop of violence and unrest that eventually overwhelms her happy life. The details are fascinating to read, and I found myself thinking that this is a great book for someone who is curious about speculative fiction but wary of diving into something that diverges too far from reality.

Ultimately, Walton isn’t asking the reader, or Patricia, to choose which is more real or which life is worthier. In fact, she makes it clear that it’s impossible for Patricia to make such a choice, because “whichever way she chose, it’d break her heart to lose her children. All of them were her real children.” What’s most compelling isn’t the premise, but the story of Patricia building her families and her intense love for them both. This novel is a reminder that the same person can live two very different lives, and have a far-reaching impact on her world. By the end of her life, Patricia passionately believes that “you can do whatever you want to, make yourself whatever you want to be.”

Just remember, your choices have consequences.

Happy reading, book nerds!

–Tirzah

Find me on Book Riot, the Insiders Read Harder podcast, and Twitter.

Welcome to Read This Book, a weekly newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, backlist titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!

This week’s pick is a new release that just squeaked in at the end of 2019, but definitely should not be forgotten as you head into 2020–Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid!

Content warnings: racism

Emira Tucker is nearly 26 and adrift. A Black college graduate, she’s the only one in her family who hasn’t found her passion, and she cobbles together a living between a part-time typing gig and babysitting three-year-old Briar for the wealthy, white Chamberlain family. One night, she’s stopped in a grocery store and accused of kidnapping. Although the incident is resolved before the police arrive, the exchange is caught on camera by a bystander, who shares the video with Emira before agreeing to delete it.

“I don’t need you to be mad that it happened. I need you to be mad that it just like … happens.”

Such a Fun Age is a stellar novel (and a debut, no less!) about class, racism, and privilege that is both funny and upbeat, but also sharply critical of white people who go out of their way to prove just how woke they are. It’s told from the perspectives of both Emira and Briar’s mother, Alix, and the contrast is stark but endlessly fascinating. Alix is a former influencer turned motivational speaker who is floundering in her career. After the incident in the grocery store, she tackles getting to know Emira with the same relentless enthusiasm that she goes after a shot at partnering with the Hillary Clinton campaign, not totally ignorant of her manipulative tactics but certain of her virtue. Emira is not fooled by Alix’s newfound interest in her, but she doesn’t want to make the tape public–she has bigger things to worry about, like how to be an adult and find a job with health insurance. Both Alix and Emira come across as sympathetic and fully-realized characters, although as the tensions ramp up between the two women, Alix shows her true colors.

This is a novel with heart and a healthy dose of reality, and like Chekhov’s gun, the existence of the tape hangs in suspense over the entire story. Reid’s writing skewers white people who seek out friendship with people of color for diversity cookies, and who embrace a version of reality that only serves them. At the same time, Emira’s story is about survival, surrounding yourself with a healthy support network, and knowing who your true friends are. Both stories are resonant and sometimes painfully relatable. I highly recommend it if you loved An American Marriage, but are looking for a read that isn’t quite so emotionally heavy. Bonus: The audiobook performance by Nicole Lewis is excellent!

And hey, if you love literary fiction and want more, Book Riot has just launched a new litfic podcast called Novel Gazing! Check it out.

Happy reading, book nerds!

–Tirzah

Find me on Book Riot, the Insiders Read Harder podcast, and Twitter.

Welcome to the first edition of the Read This Book! This is a weekly newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, back list titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!

This week’s Read This Book recommendation is Pet by Akwaeke Emezi.

Content warnings: child abuse

“Angels can look like many things. So can monsters.”

Welcome to Lucille, where Jam and her best friend Redemption grew up hearing about how the angels got rid of the monsters before they were born so they can live in a safe, accepting, diverse society. Lucille lives by the words written by the poet Gwendolyn Brooks:

“…we are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s
magnitude and bond.”

But one day, Jam’s mother paints a monstrous creature that comes to life. Its name is Pet, and it tells Jam there is a monster in Lucille that they must hunt. Jam is understandably confused, and reluctant to help—especially when Pet reveals the monster is lurking in Redemption’s house.

To Jam and Redemption’s understanding, monsters are the billionaires who destroyed the environment, the crooked police who abused their powers, the criminals who took advantage. None of those things exist in Redemption’s house. But as much as she doesn’t want to believe Pet, Pet doesn’t let Jam shirk this duty. Jam and Redemption must hunt this monster. The monster must be dealt with.

Pet is a slim, strange novel that may feel deceptively simple when you first begin reading. It unfolds like a fable, but with each paragraph Emezi skillfully builds a highly suspenseful story about the monsters that lurk in plain sight and the obligation that we have to look out for others, especially the most vulnerable. With lyrical writing, they also paint an alluring world that is inclusive and accepting in an unfussy way—people in Lucille exist on a spectrum of gender, sexuality, ability, and mobility, and all of these differences are acknowledged and included. Pet is a book that will make you think, make you gasp, and keep you on the edge of your metaphorical seat. Adults will be absorbed, but it’s also an excellent novel for teens and upper middle grade readers to talk about community, abuse, the responsibilities that we have to others, and how appearances can be deceiving. I believe this book is, at its core, about the dangers of not recognizing a monster (or evil) when you see it, and finding the bravery to see the truth.

It’s no wonder that Pet was a National Book Award finalist for 2019—this book pulls no punches. Emezi knows exactly when to pull away and when to get in close, no matter how much throwing the light on a monster may scare you. And even though Pet didn’t take the award, you simply must read this book.

Bonus: Pet makes an excellent audiobook! It’s narrated by Christopher Myers, founder of Pet’s publisher, the imprint Make Me a World. Myers brings energy, compassion, and an urgency to this book that is deeply compelling.

Happy reading, book nerds! See you next week.

Tirzah

Find me on Book Riot, the Insiders Read Harder podcast, or on Twitter!