Hi everyone. I'm rincey and i'm one of
the contributing editors over at book
riot. I'm back to do a new release
tuesday video.
Today i'm talking about books that are
coming out on tuesday, September 1st.
Holy cow, there's a lot of really good
books coming out today. When i was
originally like putting this list
together, i had like
over 10 books picked out to talk about
this week. I will not be talking about
all of those books because I
do not have the time for that. But uh,
yeah, there's
really good stuff coming out this week.
So here we go. So first up i have
transcendent kingdom by yaa gyasi.
My like number one pick, pre-ordered this
months ago
book for this release week. So in this
book you are following this character
named gifty who
is a sixth year phd candidate in
neuroscience at stanford.
She is studying reward seeking behavior
in mice and dealing with the sort of
neurological behaviors in relation to depression
and addiction. And this research is
partially inspired by
her own family life. Her brother was a
gifted athlete who died of a heroin
overdose after an injury
got him hooked on oxycontin. And her
mother deals
with suicidal thoughts and often doesn't
leave her bed.
And so gifty is basically looking into
the science behind
all of the suffering and loss that she
sees in and around her life. But even as she
is turning to science
to try to find some answers to the
questions of the things that have
happened in her life,
she also finds herself kind of grappling with
this desire for faith and kind of her
own childhood faith
and her upbringing in an evangelical
type of church
and kind of the promises of salvation
that that brought.
So yaa gyasi wrote the book homegoing,
which was her debut novel and was
extremely highly acclaimed.
I loved that book so much and i still
recommend it to people all the time. If
you haven't read homecoming yet,
please do so. It will 1000% be worth your time.
I know a lot of people have been really
eagerly anticipating this one including,
like i said earlier, myself.
um And even just like the early reviews
of this have been
pretty overwhelmingly positive. So i'm
very excited for my copy to come in the
mail. And so if you
have picked up homegoing and really
loved yaa gyasi,
then transcended kingdom is finally out.
So next up i have what is basically my
second most anticipated book for this week and
that is when no one is watching by
Alyssa Cole. Sydney Green
is brooklyn born and raised but her
neighborhood seems to be changing
basically every time that she blinks.
Condos are sprouting up
like weeds and all of the neighbors that
she has known and grown up with
seem to be disappearing. To hold on to
her community's
past and present, sydney decides to create
a walking tour through the neighborhood
talking about
its history and some of the historical
buildings that are left. And she finds an
unlikely and unwilling assistant in one
of her new neighbors,
Theo. But sydney and theo's deep dive
into history quickly becomes a dizzying
descent into paranoia and fear. The neighbors may
not have
moved to the suburbs after all. And the
push to
'revitalize' the community may be more
deadly than anticipated. So this book is
being pitched as basically
rear window meets get out. Alyssa Cole is
probably best well known for writing
romance novels. She writes some of my
favorite contemporary romance books
and i am really excited that she's
writing a thriller and this sounds like
super interesting. Like it's
taking basically this idea of like
gentrification in these major cities
but putting a little bit of a horror
thriller twist on it. So again, like i
said, i'm super excited for this one and
if you enjoy thrillers, i think that you would
enjoy this one as well.
And again that's called when no one is
watching by Alyssa Cole.
Next i have before the ever after by
Jacqueline woodson.
For as long as zj can remember, his dad
has been everyone's hero. As a charming and
talented pro football star,
he is as beloved to the local
neighborhood kids that he plays with as
well as to
his adoring fans. But lately, life at zj's
house is anything but charming. His dad
is having trouble
remembering things and is getting angry
all the time.
ZJ's mom explains it that it's because
of all of the head injuries that he has occurred
through his career. And zj understands
that but it doesn't make it sting any
less when his dad forgets his name. As zj
contemplates this
new reality that they are living in, he
has to balance
both family traditions and recollection
of these glory days.
But also wondering what their past
amounts to if his father can't even
remember it.
So this is a new middle grade book from
Jacqueline Woodson.
It's being pitched as being for like
fifth, sixth graders. So kind of like that
early middle school
age range. Jacqueline Woodson writes some
really beautiful books. So
i was like super excited when i just saw
in general that she has a new book
coming out. But then this topic feels
just so like
real and addresses things that i don't
think is really talked about very much. Like
there's kind of this open secret in
terms of like the nfl and professional
football
and kind of the effects of doing that
sport long term. But it isn't really,
in my opinion, discussed enough. So yeah
I'm kind of intrigued to buy this book a
whole lot. So again that book is called
before the ever after and it is out
today. Next up i have the last story of
mina lee by nancy jooyoun kim.
Margot Lee's mother mina isn't returning
her calls.
It's a mystery to 26 year old mina until she
returns to their koreatown apartment
outside of LA
and finds that her mother has
suspiciously died. This discovery
sends margot digging through their past,
unraveling the tenuous invisible strings
that held their mother's life together
as a korean war orphan and an
undocumented immigrant and kind of how
little that
margot really knew about her mother.
Interwoven with margot's present-day
search is a story of mina's first year in los
angeles. While she's barely earning a living
stocking shelves at
a korean grocery store, she doesn't
expect to fall in love.
But that love story sets into motion a
series of events
that affects things for years to come.
Leading up to the truth of what actually
happened on the night that she died. So
this is a book told through the perspective
of a mother and a daughter who have
always struggled to understand each
other. It looks like kind of the devastating
realities of what it's actually like to
be an immigrant in the united states. And
it also looks like kind of like the
promises and perils of the
american dream and this myth that's
created of the ability to sort of
reinvent yourself
when you come to this country. So if you
are someone who enjoys these sort of
like literary fiction books that look at
things like immigration but also
just general books that explore
identity and family and secrets and
things along those lines,
then you might be interested in picking
up the last story of mina lee.
Next i have his only wife by peace adzo medie.
Afi is a young seamstress in ghana. She
is smart, pretty, and convinced by her
mother to marry a man that she does not know.
Afi knows who he is of course. Elikhem is
a wealthy businessman that his mother
has chosen afi
in the hopes that she will distract him
from relationships that
his family has deemed inappropriate. But
afi is not prepared for the shift in her
life that takes place when she moves
from her small town
to ghana's capital. A place of wealth and
sophistication and where she has
nothing to do all day besides cook meals
for a man that she doesn't know whether
or not will actually come home.
She has agreed to this marriage in order
to provide financial security for her
mother who desperately needs it.
And so she must see it through. Or does
she not?
So this is being described as like a
sharply funny
debut novel that looks at this woman who
is traversing through modern life
with its sort of taboos and traditions
and injustices.
Living in a world where men want their
wives to just be good cooks, beautiful,
and good mothers, and to be women who
respect their husbands and grant them
forbearance.
So if you enjoy books that have the sort
of critical lens
on modern life, then i think this one
might be up your alley. And again that's
called his only wife. Next up
i have having and being had by eula biss.
In this book
eula biss writes that her adult life can
be split into
two distinct parts: the time before she
owned a washing machine and the time
after. After buying her first home-- after
buying her first home, she basically does
this self-audit
and questions basically the world that
she has just
bought into. And the result is basically
this radical
interrogation of her work, leisure,
and capitalism. Ranging from topics like ikea
to beyonce to pokemon, across bars
and laundromats and universities, this is
asking of both herself as well as those
who are also of a similar class in what
have we invested. So Eula biss is probably
best well known for writing the book on
immunity, which was
a combination of memoir and
essay looking
at basically vaccinations and kind of
the world around people who
don't believe in vaccinations and kind
of why that came to be and kind of like
the history behind vaccinations a little
bit. And in this book she seems to be kind of
looking into her own
sort of world that she's built in and
kind of the structures
in place that she's a part of and kind
of analyzing it a little bit, looking at
things like
race and class and money and property
and work and all of that stuff and kind
of her own biases and the biases
of people who are probably relatively
similar to her. I'm definitely very
intrigued to kind of see
what her sort of observations are around
these things because i definitely think
that as a like white woman in america, there
are certain things that you
are and aren't supposed to have and are
and aren't supposed to support with your
money and things like that.
And it'd be interesting to just kind of
see like sort of what her conclusions
are. And not necessarily that like her
opinion is going to be the right opinion,
but just sort of seeing like what she
thinks of all this stuff because
i definitely think it's really-- sounds
really interesting. So again that book
is called having and being had. And the
final book that i have this week is
cemetery boys by Aiden Thomas.
When his traditional latinx family has
difficulties accepting his true gender,
yadriel becomes determined to prove
himself a true brujo. With the help of
his cousin and best friend maritza, he performs the
ritual himself
and then sets out to find the ghost of
his murdered cousin
and set it free. However the ghost that
he summoned is actually Julian Diaz,
the school's resident bad boy. And julian
is not about to go quietly into death.
He's determined to find out what
happened and to tie off some loose ends
before he leaves. Left with no choice,
yadriel agrees to help julian so that they can
both get what they want. But the longer
that yadriel spends with Julian,
the less he wants him to leave. So this is a
young adult paranormal book that is
featuring a trans
latinx boy. Adrien thomas is a queer
latinx author themselves.
T hey've basically been advocating for
more diversity in
media in general and was inspired
basically by a tumblr post of
what would happen if a ghost that you
summoned wouldn't go away.
This book is being described as magical
as well as like tender and loving. So
if you are a fan of paranormal
young adult with a little bit of romance
thrown into it, then you can go ahead and
pick up cemetery boys today. So that is
everything i have for you all this week.
Let me know down in the comments below
which books you all are excited about
that are coming out today. I'm excited
about so many books. So i'm sure that you all
are as well. Otherwise i will see you
again next tuesday with another set
of new releases. Bye.
