“I know it’s early to call it, but I’m certain Freda Epum’s debut The Gloomy Girl Variety Show will be one of the most important books published this year. Epum examines intersectional identities of being Black, disabled, female, and a first generation Nigerian American through an inventive and brilliant book structured as a search for the safety one can find in home.”
“Ten years after the heartbreaking events of bestseller Santopolo’s The Light We Lost, Lucy Carter Maxwell gets a second chance at life and love in this tear-jerking romance... Santopolo’s layered storytelling brings Lucy’s internal conflict to life while offering the perfect blend of heartache and hope. Readers should have tissues at the ready."
"In this lyrical coming of age novel, which follows Laskar’s acclaimed The Atlas of Reds and Blues, a young Indian American teenager feels caught between the traditional Bengali culture inside her house and the culture of the American South outside its doors...When a tragedy occurs on the cusp of adulthood, grief soaks into everything, altering the choices they make and the people they might otherwise have become. Told in second person, the narrative follows the evolution of the friends’ relationship."
"Cusick’s riveting and reverent history, packed with fascinating details and archival photos, focuses on often-forgotten players in the Space Race: chimpanzees, aka America’s first astronauts."
Vulture named its best comedy books of the year, and Jennifer Keishin Armstrong’s SO FETCH (Dey Street) came in at #7. Vulture says: "It was no small feat to make a teen movie with substance and a message at the height of superficial 2000s trash culture, and out of a nonfiction self-help book at that. This is all about how an idea can become something much bigger than itself."
