hello, all!
i'm adding an "Anticipated New Releases" segment to my website. i was in a funk about how to be more creative with my YouTube and website and this is a great way to do it - and also to just remind myself to keep track of authors, new releases, and book news!
definitely would not recommend that you purchase all of these books. i definitely won't. but if something catches your eye, save it for later!
so let's get into it. April will bring us many great YA and contemporary fiction reads.
The Cost of Knowing by Brittney Morris
(expected April 6, 2021/Simon & Schuster)
from the moment i saw this book, i knew i had to read this one. this book has a young Black male MC, which already is rare in the sort of books i see uplifted.
this book follows Alex Rufus, who has the ability to touch an item or a person and see its future. this causes general to displease or anxiety from time to time (think That's So Raven).
but when Alex touches a photo, it warns him of his youngest brother Isaiah’s imminent death, a very different thing from what he is used to seeing, and this changes everything.
read more here.
Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabrina Khan
(expected April 6, 2021/Scholastic Press)
this YA novel follows a seventeen-year-old Pakistani immigrant, Zara Hossain, whose family has waited years for the visa process to end in them becoming U.S. citizens.
at school, Zara deals with Islamophobia and racism at her Corpus Christi, Texas high school. when her tormentor, star football player Tyler Benson, and his friends vandalize Zara’s house, Zara struggles with standing up for herself.
i don't love the cover. i really feel like they could have put more effort into the design but this book seems really interesting and important.
read more here.
Caul Baby by Morgan Jerkins
(expected April 6, 2021/Harper Collins)
i know Morgan Jerkins as a nonfiction author, having read her book This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America and owning her book Wandering In Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots.
i'm super excited to read Caul Baby, a fiction novel by her. beautiful cover. but also just an interesting plot: "Laila desperately wants to become a mother, but each of her previous pregnancies has ended in heartbreak. This time has to be different, so she turns to the Melancons, an old and powerful Harlem family known for their caul, a precious layer of skin that is the secret source of their healing power."
read more here.
We Are Bridges: A Memoir by Cassandra Lane
(expected April 20, 2021/Feminist Press)
an indie release that i am super excited for! this memoir explores motherhood and race, two topics i'm always interested in reading about: "When Cassandra Lane finds herself pregnant at thirty-five, the knowledge sends her on a poignant exploration of memory to prepare for her entry into motherhood. She moves between the twentieth-century rural South and present-day Los Angeles, reimagining the intimate life of her great-grandparents Mary Magdelene Magee and Burt Bridges, and Burt's lynching at the hands of vengeful white men in his southern town."
read more here.
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
(expected April 20, 2021/Penguin)
OKAY - first: the author is the lead singer of one of my favorite indie rock bands, Japanese Breakfast. please listen to their song "Everybody Wants to Love You."
but anyway, in this memoir, Michelle writes about being one of the few Asian-American kids at her Oregon high school and struggling with her mother's high expectations of her.
again, never been a huge fan of memoirs - except when i know and like the author. which i do in this case.
read more here.
Witches Steeped In Gold (#1)
(expected April 20, 2021/HarperTeen)
a Black (Jamaican, specifically) YA fantasy is always good news. in this book, the first of the series, two rival witches, Iraya and Jazmyne, join forces to defeat a rival.
read more here.
The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird
(expected April 27th, 2021/Penguin)
a sci-fi pandemic dystopian novel that imagines the end of men? okay, i'm listening.
in this book, a deadly virus hits earth that only harms men. this book is meant to explore the ways an absence of men changes society as we know it.
i think this book could be very interesting but it could also get very white feminist-y and transphobic. i've heard that this book does feature trans characters so let's see. i think there is a way to write this book without getting into gender essentialism but it could also fail too.
read more here.
let me know! what books are you looking forward to this April?
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