Sponsored by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
This luminous and heartbreaking contemporary novel follows a girl caught between two brothers as the three of them navigate family, loss, and love over the course of two summers.
Oh, hey, it’s snowing again in Maine. Meet the new weather, same as the old weather. I don’t mind it, because it’s so pretty and I don’t have to go outside, so I can just sit inside with my books and look at it. Related: I have hit the pandemic wall. I cannot wait until we can all leave the house again and go wherever we want, so I have more exciting things to talk about besides the weather.
Moving on: Last week was so full of book news that it used up a lot of the supply, because there weren’t nearly as many this week. I guess every week can’t have a bazillion news stories. Still, I have a little exciting book news for you today and a look at an incredible upcoming horror book, plus a terrible joke, a cat picture, and trivia! Let’s get started, shall we?
Here’s Monday’s trivia question: Who is the protagonist of Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind? (Scroll to the bottom for the answer.)
Deals, Reals, and Squeals!
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The Obamas are bringing three novel adaptations to Netflix, including Exit West with Riz Ahmed.
Samantha Irby has joined the writer’s room for the upcoming seasons of Sex and the City.
Here’s the first look at Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s upcoming novel, Velvet Was the Night.
Emma Stone is re-teaming with Yorgos Lanthimos for an adaptation of Poor Things by Alasdair Gray.
Here’s the first look at the adaptation of Alissa Nutting’s Made for Love with Cristin Milioti and Ray Romano.
Paramount is fighting with the Capote estate to remake Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Starz is making The Serpent Queen, a drama based on the book Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France by Leonie Frieda.
The Brandy and Whitney Houston version of Cinderella is finally going to be streaming.
Fox is developing a one-hour CIA thriller based on Alma Katsu’s Red Widow.
Book Riot Recommends
At Book Riot, I work on the New Books! email, the All the Books! podcast about new releases, and the Book Riot Insiders New Release Index. I am very fortunate to get to read a lot of upcoming titles, and learn about a lot of upcoming titles, and I’m delighted to share a couple with you each week so you can add them to your TBR! (It will now be books I loved on Mondays and books I’m excited to read on Thursdays. YAY, BOOKS!)
Loved, loved, loved:
When the Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen (Harper Perennial, August 3)
Holy cats, this book knocked the top of my brain right off! I watched LaTanya McQueen discuss this novel in a Zoom meeting a few weeks ago and was immediately excited to read it, because it sounded fantastic. But it even exceeded my expectations!
When Mira is a teen, she and her friend, Jesse, decide to investigate the dilapidated ruins of a plantation in their town. The horrifying stories about the owners of the plantation and the people enslaved there have been passed down for generations. What Mira sees there, and what happens next, ends with Jesse being arrested for murder. Up until that time, Mira and Jesse and their friend, Celine, have been thick as thieves, growing up the poorest kids in town and bonding over their mutual struggles.
As soon as high school is over, Mira flees town. But now her former best friend, Celine, is asking Mira to return for her wedding—which is being held at the renovated plantation. Against her better judgement, Mira agrees to attend, partially in the hopes of reuniting with her first crush, Jesse, who she has also not seen since school ended. But the stories Mira’s mother told her about their own relatives being enslaved on the plantation are fresh in Mira’s mind, and when she begins to see things she can’t explain soon after arriving at the wedding, she knows that the rumors must be true. The horrors of history have come back—and people are going to have to pay.
This book is taut and intense and the pages just fly by! It is an important look at historic injustices, racism, the horrors of slavery, and accountability. I loved the complexities of the characters and how real the novel felt, even with the supernatural elements. And every few chapters is an “interstitial”, in the voices of the murdered enslaved people who haunt the plantation, that will break your heart. Make no mistake, this is a flat-out horror book, but one everyone should have to read, to remind us of all the people who suffered and the repeated attempts to erase our country’s past and the lives lost.
(CW include murder, physical violence, racism and racialized language, abuse, torture, sexual assault, and gore.)
What I’m reading this week.
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Something New Under the Sun by Alexandra Kleeman
The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling
The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You: Stories by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
The Corpse Flower by Anne Mette Hancock
The Brittanys by Brittany Ackerman
Groan-worthy joke of the week:
Why did the football coach go to the bank? To get his quarterback.
And this is funny:
I love animal humor the best of all.
Happy things:
Here are a few things I enjoy that I thought you might like as well:
- Superstore. Mateo is my new favorite character crush.
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Okay, so this is in no way a happy thing, but it’s just what I need playing in the background while I do jigsaw puzzles. I have now made it to the middle of season five and I am still into it. After watching so much Murder She Wrote recently, I’m enjoying the crimes coming to them, not just happening everywhere they go.
- Jigsaw puzzles! I have moved on to two-in-one puzzles, where you have to separate the pieces to make two entirely different puzzles.
- Numberzilla. Still not tired of this game.
- Purrli: This website makes the relaxing sounds of a cat purring.
And here’s a cat picture!
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They’re ganging up on me.
Trivia answer: Kvothe.
Remember that whatever you are doing or watching or reading this week, I am sending you love and hugs. Please be safe, and be mindful of others. It takes no effort to be kind. I’ll see you again on Thursday. – xoxo, Liberty