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| Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa AnapparaStarring: nine-year-old Jai, who turns detective when his classmate disappears from their unnamed Indian slum, and the two friends he charms into helping him, Pari and Faiz.
Why you might like it: The characters are engagingly complex; the neighborhood is poverty-stricken but full of life; the writing is descriptive, warm, and witty despite the heartbreaking lack of support for India's poor.
Read it if: Katherine Boo's depiction of a Mumbai slum in Behind the Beautiful Forevers stayed with you long after finishing. |
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The Majesties
by Tiffany Tsao
A sole survivor of a Chinese-Indonesian family struggles on the edge of a coma to regain consciousness while reexamining tragic elements in her family that may have driven a beloved sister to a shocking act of violence.
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| Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel BumpWhat it's about: the coming of age of young Claude McKay Love, raised by his civil rights activist grandmother and her gay best friend on Chicago's South Side.
Why you might like it: Told in short vignettes and very much focused on themes of racial injustice, this debut offers sharp humor, clever dialogue, and a relatable protagonist in awkward, uncomfortable Claude.
Reviewers say: Debut author Gabriel Bump "delivers a singular sense of growing up black that will resonate with readers" (Library Journal). |
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Saint X
by Alexis Schaitkin
When a brief but fateful encounter brings her together with one of the men originally suspected of killing her sister, Claire, hoping to gain his trust and learn the truth, forms an unlikely attachment with this man whose life is forever marked by the same tragedy.
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Apeirogon
by Colum McCann
Two fathers, a Palestinian and an Israeli, navigate the physical and emotional checkpoints of their conflicted world before devastating losses compel them to work together to use their grief as a weapon for peace. By the best-selling author of TransAtlantic.
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The Lost Book of Adana Moreau
by Michael Zapata
Decades after a 1929 Dominican immigrant writer passes away believing her final manuscript was destroyed, a Chicago lawyer discovers the book and endeavors to learn the woman’s remarkable story against the backdrop of Hurricane Katrina.
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House of Trelawney
by Hannah Rothschild
Four women from an eccentric and dysfunctional family of English aristocrats navigate historical events, from wars to economic recessions, that have driven their once-grand Cornwall estate into ruin. By the author of The Improbability of Love.
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| Weather by Jenny OffillWhat it's about: the impending end of the world, as worried about by university librarian Lizzie, who's taken a second job for a podcaster who focuses on futurism. Other worries include: politics, her brother's drug addiction, her son's journey through New York's public school system, her knee, her mostly good relationship with her husband.
The style...might not be for everyone: it's told in observational fragments, and despite many witty, sharp comments, this quick read is drenched in anxiety and hopelessness. |
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The Girl with the Louding Voice
by Abi Daré
Adunni, a 14-year-old Nigerian girl who longs for an education, must find a way for her voice to be heard loud and clear in a world where she and other girls like her are taught to believe, through words and deeds, that they are nothing.
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| The Authenticity Project by Clare PooleyWhat it's about: the connections made between strangers in a London neighborhood as they make deeply personal entries in a little green notebook.
For fans of: warmhearted tales of strangers coming together over shared experiences and honest conversations, like Anne Youngson's Meet Me at the Museum or Erica Bauermeister's The School of Essential Ingredients. |
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Real Life
by Brandon Taylor
Keeping his head down at a lakeside Midwestern university where the culture is in sharp contrast to his Alabama upbringing, an introverted African-American biochem student endures unexpected encounters that bring his orientation and defenses into question.
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| Shuggie Bain by Douglas StuartThe setting: Glasgow, Scotland, in the 1980s and early '90s.
Starring: young Shuggie Bain, bullied for his effeminate manner and living in oppressive poverty, whose beautiful mother is an alcoholic whom he loves deeply despite her flaws.
What it's like: dark, gritty, and with dialogue relayed in a Glaswegian dialect, this bleak coming-of-age story "will crack you open" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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