Author: Tirzah Price

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 Late to the Party by Kelly Quindlen!

If you’re a regular listener to All the Books!, then you might have heard me gush about this book in our April 21st episode! Maybe it’s because I’ve been in a reading slump, or because I just needed an infusion of something happy, but I really loved Late to the Party! It’s about 17-year-old Codi, who is a queer teen with two amazing best friends Maritza and JaKory, who are bisexual and gay respectively. They’re great friends who genuinely enjoy hanging out, watching movies, and just chilling–but they aren’t partiers, and neither of them have ever been kissed. They’re itching for an epic teen experience, but they don’t know how to go about it, and Codi feels a lot of anxiety about stepping outside of her comfort zone.

But when she shows up late to a party she didn’t even want to attend in the first place, Codi meets a neighbor, Ricky, who turns out to be gay as well. For some reason, they just click and a great friendship is born, but it’s not like Codi’s friendship with JaKory and Maritza. It’s something newer, more exciting. Ricky introduces Codi to his friend group, where Codi finds acceptance and new crush, and they go on to have an epic summer…but Codi doesn’t tell JaKory and Maritza about any of it.

I think what I loved most about this book is that it’s a really deft exploration of friendships and identity, especially when it comes to sexuality and LGBTQ+ issues, without defaulting to a tired coming out narrative. For these teens, coming out isn’t really a huge issue–finding acceptance and connection is what’s important. Quindlen balances a large cast of secondary characters beautifully, and they all felt like real, genuine people that I knew in high school. The plot unfolded so organically, and it actually made me quite a bit nostalgic for high school shenanigans and the rush of first crushes. The friendship angle was also really nuanced, as Quindlen explored how friendships can be both soul-sustaining but also limiting at times. If you’re in the mood for something on the lighter, funnier side, with great LGBTQ+ characters, themes of friendship and identity, then you cannot go wrong with Late to the Party!

Happy reading, and have a great weekend!

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 pick is Passing Strange by Ellen Klages!

Content warning: Domestic abuse, homophobia

Passing Strange is a really excellent SFF novella that begins with an elderly woman settling her affairs in present day, but is largely set in 1940 San Francisco. It follows five women, all queer, who are eking out a living and supporting each other through racial and legal oppression. The book centers around three of these women: Helen is a Chinese immigrant and newly minted lawyer who is barred from working at a firm, so she keeps busy setting up wills and legal documentation to protect women who live together. Haskel is a talented but emotionally guarded artist who makes her money illustrating racy covers of pulp magazines under a male pseudonym. Emily is new to town, making a living by cross-dressing and singing in bars, which is very dangerous in an age where police are all too happy to arrest people for social deviance. When Haskel and Emily fall in love and their romance is revealed, Helen and the rest of the gang must go above and beyond to protect them.

I think this is an excellent (short!) pick for anyone who really likes historical stories and is interested in getting into fantasy. The magical elements are fairly light, but they play an absolutely crucial role to the plot. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I’ll just say that it was a twist I didn’t see coming–and when it finally played out, I was thrilled. But the real magic to me was how Klages brought 1940 San Francisco to life in these pages. You can feel the love the author and the characters have for the city, and the scenes feel perfectly designed to showcase the city in all of its excitement and grit, from well-known landmarks to seedier underground bars. This is also an excellent pick if you like books about a sisterhood of women who support and love each other, with a dash of epic romance. It doesn’t end tragically, although the ending might not be what you expect.

Bonus: This is a novella, so if you read it you’ll fulfill one of the Read Harder 2020 challenges! (It’s over 120 pages, but that’s okay!)

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 pick is the powerful memoir Know My Name by Chanel Miller.

Content warning: sexual assault, trauma, PTSD, suicide ideation

Many people recognize the name Brock Turner, but fewer know the real name of Emily Doe, the woman that Brock Turner assaulted behind a dumpster at a party on the Stanford University campus. Her name is Chanel Miller, and in this incredible memoir, she shares her story and reclaims her name. She recounts the events of the night that Brock Turner assaulted her, and the immediate effects as she came to terms with what happened and how her life was changed. She takes readers through the confusing, isolating experience of pressing charges, and her harrowing experience in court, and after, when Brock was only sentenced to six months in jail. But it’s so much more than just her side of what happened–it’s also about everything that happened to her in between those moments, her life before the assault, her art, how she processed her assault mentally and emotionally, and how she reclaimed her voice.

“If a victim speaks but no one acknowledges her, does she make a sound?”

Chanel Miller is an incredible writer–articulate, thoughtful, and deeply caring. She was destined to be published, and while my heart breaks to think of what she went through, I am at least glad for her book. She not only puts a real human face to a terrible crime, but she illuminates how difficult it is for many victims to come forward and how arduous it can be to navigate the legal system, even under the best of circumstances. She’s honest about the strain this event put on her and her entire family, but she is adamant about not being seen only as a victim–she’s a sister, friend, ally, artist, and writer as well. Her memoir is a brilliant homage to all of those parts of herself that were erased in the media coverage of her trial, and an inspiring call to action for people to continue to stand up to injustice everywhere. The subject matter isn’t always easy, but you’re in good hands with Chanel, and I would happily read anything she writes from here on out.

Bonus: I listened to the audiobook, which is narrated by Chanel Miller herself. I HIGHLY recommend this experience!

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 pick is The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan.

Content warning: child abuse, murder, assault

Last week we received the very welcome news that a new Tana French novel called The Searcher will be hitting shelves this fall, and I couldn’t be more thrilled–I love her atmospheric Irish mysteries. My love of French is what drove me to seek out more Irish mysteries, which is how I discovered Dervla McTiernan’s books! Her mysteries have been helping me ease the wait time in between French’s releases.

The Ruin is McTiernan’s debut novel, and it introduces us to Cormac Reilly, a detective who has relocated from Dublin to Galway to be with his girlfriend, Emma. While Emma has her dream job, Reilly’s work situation is less than ideal–he’s stuck on cold cases, and he can’t figure out why his new coworkers seem to have it in for him. But when a recent suicide death reveals a startling connection to a death and disappearance that Reilly worked as a rookie, his interest is piqued. Especially when the victim’s girlfriend claims he wasn’t suicidal. And then when the victim’s missing sister makes a surprise appearance, everyone is pointing fingers, but only Reilly can get to the truth.

This is a mystery with real presence–the setting and heavy suspicions that follow most of the characters really heighten the tension. Cormac Reilly is a steady, reliable, likable protagonist, even though he’s not without his faults. The book is told mainly through his perspective, but McTiernan also seamlessly slips into the points of view of a handful of other characters surrounding the mystery, giving the reader a wider view of the story. The unraveling of this mystery is also very much dependent on the strengths, pitfalls, and hang ups of the characters investigating, and everyone has their own motivations and secrets. And yet for a mystery that starts with a cold case, much of the action and high stakes are very real and in the present, and McTiernan threw a couple of twists that I certainly didn’t see coming! I definitely recommend this book for Tana French fans, but also Jane Harper fans and to anyone who enjoys character-driven procedurals!

McTiernan has written two other books about Cormac Reilly, but you’ll want to read these books in order! Start with The Ruin, follow up with The Scholar, and then look for The Good Turn. It’s out now in Australia and the UK, but no U.S. release date yet, much to my eternal disappointment. (I’m still crossing my fingers for a fall 2020 release!)

And if you’re looking for one place to stay up to date on the effects of COVID-19 on the book world, we’ve got a story stream for you.

Be safe, and 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 pick is You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins.

This is an excellent multigenerational novel spanning decades and continents, and it made the National Book Award longlist. I read it a few years back and it has really stuck with me. It begins in the 1970s, when a Bengali family moves from London to New York City because of the father’s job. Ranee is used to moving her family around, but she’s not thrilled about this latest move and leaving behind a place she’d just gotten used to. For her teenage daughters Tara and Sonia, New York is both exciting and terrifying. It’s in New York that they come into their own identities and passions, and make choices their traditional mother disapproves of. And years later, their own daughters Chantel and Anna reckon with the choices their mothers and grandmother made as a new millennium dawns.

“Where am I from? Can the answer be stories and words, some of theirs, some of mine?”

This is a beautiful and moving story composed of chapters that move back and forth between Tara and Sonia, and then Chantel and Anna. The chapters feel like beautiful vignettes at first, and then slowly build to a story arc that tells of the excitement and pain of being an immigrant, and all of the tragedies and triumphs that come with assimilating. When Sonia marries a Black man, she passes on to her daughter the particular challenge of being multiracial, and honoring her two families and their traditions.

What I loved best about this book is that although the women of this family face difficulties and find themselves estranged from one another at times, it’s not a tragic story and their lives aren’t marred by darkness. There is struggle, but there is also love and sisterhood and hope, as well as pride and acceptance in where they come from and all that they’ve been through. I found it difficult to decide which sister and which time period I liked the most, but there is something very satisfying about seeing a character through years of struggle to a triumphant moment. Technically, this is a YA novel, but I think because of its unconventional structure that adult readers will really enjoy it, too.

That’s it from me–but be sure to check out our coverage of how COVID-19 is affecting the book world. We’re updating it as news unfolds.

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.