It’s May and I have two incredible books to tell you about.
The first is Real Americans by Rachel Khong and it’s my pick for the Fantastic Strangelings Book Club.
It’s an exhilarating novel of American identity that spans three generations in one family and asks, what makes us who we are?
Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn’t be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love.
In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can’t shake the sense she’s hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than answers.
Looking for something a little darker? Then I recommend Home is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose, my pick for the Nightmares from Nowhere Book Club.
It has a great cover that I loved until my kid asked, “What’s that supposed to be?” because they’ve never seen a VHS tape and now I feel old.
While going through their parent’s belongings, three siblings stumble upon a collection of home videos and decide to revisit those happier memories. However, the nostalgia is cut short when one of the VHS tapes reveals a night back in 1999 that none of them have any recollection of. On screen, their father appears covered in blood. What follows is a dead body and a pact between their parents to get rid of it, before the video abruptly ends. Beth, Nicole, and Michael must now decide whether to leave the past in the past or uncover the dark secret their mother took to her grave.
Need more than one book to get through the month? Here are a few new releases I enjoyed:
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley – A time travel romance, a speculative spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingeniously constructed exploration of the nature of truth and power and the potential for love to change it.
Lore Olympus: Volume 6 by Rachel Smythe. This graphic novel love story of two Greek gods—Hades and Persephone—brought to life with lavish artwork and an irresistible contemporary voice is now on volume 6 and I am addicted. Feel free to judge me. I own every volume.
Spitting Gold by Carmella Lowkis – A deliciously haunting debut set in 19th-century Paris , blending gothic mystery with romance as two estranged sisters—celebrated (and fraudulent) spirit mediums—come back together for one last con.
A Haunted Girl – This graphic novel collects the first 4 issues of a paranormal comic about teenage girl struggling with mental illness who is also responsible for the fate of all life on earth. It’s volume one so it’s unfinished, but a promising start.
PS. The discussion thread for The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers is open, but if you don’t do facebook I’ll leave my thoughts in the comments.
What book is calling to you this month?
