ALL THE BOOKS PUBLISHING THIS WEEK (3.26.24)
It's the final week of new March books, and I've read a lot of them!!
Every Tuesday is #pubday, the day we celebrate all the new books hitting bookshelves. It’s our final week of new releases for March, and we’re finishing off the month with some very strong titles, a few of which I absolutely recommend checking out:
READ THIS! WHAT HAPPENED TO NINA? by DervlaMcTiernan: a fictional retelling of the Gabby Petito murder, but told from the POV of the parents impacted and the lengths one is willing to go in order to protect their children. I found this domestic suspense extremely propulsive and unputdownable, and read the entire book in one sitting. It’s juicy and soapy and twisty, and while I didn’t love how McTiernan executed a first-act twist, I ultimately really enjoyed this one a lot and highly recommend it if you’re looking for a fast-paced slump-busting read.
READ THIS! NUCLEAR WAR by Annie Jacobsen: I consider this an absolute must-read book, but with one big caveat: it is easily the SCARIEST book I have ever read in my entire life. No joke. This book rewired my actual brain chemistry, and there is not one night I haven’t gone to bed and thought about this book. It’s that terrifying. Proceed with caution. There is before you read this book, and there is after. And the after opens your eyes to some truly terrifying real world implications.
READ THIS! HOW TO SOLVE YOUR OWN MURDER by Kristen Perrin: for those of you who devoured Benjamin Stevenson’s EVERYONE ON THIS TRAIN IS A SUSPECT and are now counting down the days until Lucy Foley’s MIDNIGHT FEAST, here’s a fun whodunnit to tide you over. I picked this one up after seeing a pretty positive review in the NYT the other day. It’s a solid English countryside whodunnit, and while I hate diary entry flashbacks in general, I thought the author did a nice job incorporating the 1960s storyline into the present-day mystery. A very solid recommendation.
SKIP THIS! DAY ONE by Abigail Dean: Abigail Dean is an excellent writer, but her books are so extremely dark. Her GIRL A is one of the best and bleakest books I’ve read in the last few years, and her latest, about a school shooting and the fallout as a result, checks similar boxes. Ultimately, this book moved at a brisk pace, was well written, and posed some complicated questions, but didn’t hit the mark for me. It’s just such a hard headspace to live in for 3 hours of reading, and I’m not sure the author managed to achieve what she set out to here…
More info on all the other books publishing below. If you enjoy what you read today, I hope you’ll consider a paid subscription!
A GREAT COUNTRY by Shilpi Soraya Gowda: For readers of The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett and Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, A Great Country explores themes of immigration, generational conflict, social class and privilege as it reconsiders the myth of the model minority and questions the price of the American dream.
ALL THE WORLD BESIDE by Garrard Conley: From the New York Times bestselling author of Boy Erased, an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the love story between two men in Puritan New England.
BUNYAN & HENRY by Mark Cecil: A large-hearted reimagining of beloved all-American legends, this epic debut novel brings men of myth Paul Bunyan and John Henry alive like never before, teaming up for an adventure quest with deeper interrogations of race, class, and industrialization.
DAY ONE by Abigail Dean: "A gripping examination of a community devastated by a school shooting and the “truthers” who deny it ever happened. Within that story is a girl who’s hiding what she knows about what happened that day. A chilling, thought-provoking read. Brilliant.”
JORDY’S RATING: 3/5
THE EMPEROR AND THE ENDLESS PALACE by Justinian Huang: