A whole bunch of books to get excited for this week.
Truth Is: A Novel in Verse by Hannah V. Sawyerr
Amulet
Seventeen-year-old Truth Bangura wants nothing more than to know a life beyond her hometown. Writing and performing is her only solace in a life overwhelmed by a drifting relationship with her best friend, an emotionally turbulent home environment, and the reality that her below average grades make her true dream—escaping her mother’s grasp after graduation—uncertain.
When Truth learns she’s pregnant by her ex-boyfriend, she makes one decision she’s finally sure about: an abortion.
Determined to move forward, Truth turns to the pages in her notebook with the support of her slam poetry team—including the poet with a voice smooth as summer jazz, who’s been catching her eye during practice.
At an open mic night, Truth finally gains the courage to perform a piece that dives into her rocky relationship with her mother–and reveals the choice she never told her. But when a video of Truth’s performance is posted online and starts going viral, her decision quickly becomes everyone’s business–including her mother’s.
Told through searing free-verse, journal entries, and interspersed fill-in-the-blank poetry prompts, Hannah V. Sawyerr’s Truth Is reminds us there is always a choice. There is always hope. And there is always a way forward.
A Steeping of Blood (Blood and Tea #2) by Hafsah Faizal
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Arthie Casimir has had her tea. Now she’s out for blood.
White Roaring is sharpening its fangs after the deadly night that left the city in shambles. The press are dead, the public is calling for justice, vampires are in danger, and amid the turmoil, the Ram announces a celebration.
Still reeling from the bloodshed, Arthie Casimir has no time to mourn the death of anyone, let alone her own. She has no time for love, either, even though it had saved her life. As Arthie navigates new emotions and new allies, she must reassemble her scrambled crew and scrape what little they have left to fight one last time―and she will need to face the ghosts of her past to do it.
In Ceylan.
My Mother the Mermaid Chaser by Jamie Jo Hoang
Crown Books for Young Readers
San Jose, 2008: Paul yearns to know more about the mother who abandoned his family, but she is the only topic no one discusses. Now’s he’s in Vietnam, feeling displaced and considered an outsider. Plus, a ghost is haunting him even though he doesn’t believe in ghosts. His cousin and the grandmother he’s never met before now keep telling him that he’ll get answers only if he’s willing to open his ears.
Vũng Tâu, 1975: Ngọc Lan is eleven when her family breaks apart: her brother is drafted into the army; her father leaves on the last helicopter to the US. She and her sister are sent from Vietnam on a harrowing journey by boat. Only Ngọc Lan will survive. But what is the American dream when you are haunted by the death of your sister, missing your homeland; seeing ghostly mermaid sightings; lost in an abusive marriage; struggling as a parent?
Told in the alternating perspectives of Paul and Ngọc Lan, My Mother, the Mermaid Chaser is a haunting story about the intergenerational effects of war, estranged family bonds, and how a teenager discovers a new connection to a lost part of himself.
Flip by Ngozi Ukazu
First Second
Chi-Chi Ekeh has one huge problem: She keeps having crushes on rich white boys who have no idea she exists. Enter Flip Henderson, the most popular boy at school, who receives Chi-Chi’s private video proposal to go to senior prom.
But when Flip rejects Chi-Chi in front of their entire class, what happens next is completely unexpected: Chi-Chi―shy nerd and scholarship student―switches bodies with Flip. Suddenly Chi-Chi is 6’1” and cool, while Flip gets a crash course on Chi-Chi’s life―that is, k-pop, hair-braiding, and being a poor kid of color at a rich white private school.
With graduation looming and their body swaps lasting longer and longer, Chi-Chi and Flip must form the most unlikely friendship their school has ever seen. But will they survive senior year? And, most importantly, can they find a way back to themselves?
From bestselling author of Check, Please! comes Flip, a thrilling and fantastical tale about self-acceptance, black girlhood, and how walking a mile in someone else’s shoes can teach you how to finally see yourself.
Everything But Typical: Influential Neurodivergent People Who Have Shaped the World written by Margeaux Weston, illustrated by Jessica Cruickshank
Bloomsbury
Neurodivergent people have unique brains. They defy norms in the way they think, learn, process information, and engage with others and the world around them. These differences may help them not only to see the world in uncommon ways, but to forge one-of-a-kind paths.
Get to know neurodivergent people making their mark in all kinds of careers: a record-breaking Olympic gymnast, a visionary science fiction writer, a resolute climate activist, an innovative trading card game creator, and many others.
Everything But Typical is a tribute to people who saw the world differently and conquered it in their own way-and an inspiration for young readers who will grow up to do the same.
Figures profiled in the book include Simone Biles, Satoshi Tajiri, Armani Williams, Billie Eilish, Greta Thunberg, Amanda Gorman, Jason Arday, Octavia Butler, Camonghne Felix, Barbara Corcoran, Atoosa Rubenstein, Selena Gomez, David Beckham, Pharrell Williams, Miles Chamley Watson, Jamie Grace Harper, Tony Snell, Daniel Radcliffe, Clay Marzo, Lisa Ling, Muhammad Ali, Zayn Malik, and Dav Pilkey.
Exquisite Things by Abdi Nazemian
HarperCollins
Shahriar believes he was born in the wrong time. All he’s ever wanted is to love and be loved, but 1895 London doesn’t offer him the freedom to be his true self, and Oscar Wilde’s trial for gross indecency has only reaffirmed that. But one night—and one writer—will grant Shahriar what he’s always wished for: the opportunity to live in a time and place where he can love freely. Rechristened as Shams and then as Bram, he finds what feels like eternal happiness. But can anything truly be eternal?
Oliver doesn’t feel that 1920s Boston gives him a lot of options to be his full self. He knows he could only ever love another boy, but that would break his beloved mother’s heart. Oliver finds freedom and acceptance in the secret queer community at Harvard that his cousin introduces him to. When he meets a mysterious boy with eyes as warm as a flame, his life is irrevocably changed, forever.
Spanning one hundred and thirty years of love and longing, this tale of immortal beloveds searching for their perfect place and time is a vibrant hymn to the beauty of being alive, a celebration of queer love and community, and a reminder that behind every tragic thing that ever existed, there is something exquisite.