Do you expect to open up a book, get into it, get really invested and then BOOM! have it tear you to shreds emotionally? I sure do.
Maybe that’s because I am a literary masochist.
Regardless of how you expect to feel when reading a book, it’s both a pleasure and a pain in the ass when it makes you feel things from every direction—love, racial intersectionality, the body…but also the teenage (and comedic) version of Jordan Peele’s Get Out.
Now that I have your attention on the literary rollercoaster that is this week’s new releases, it’s time to—as Auntie Tabitha Brown says—get into it.
I mentioned a teenage version of Get Out, and you will not be disappointed. Sixteen-year-old Jake Livingston grapples with two very real traumas every day in Ryan Douglass’ The Taking of Jake Livingston: racist high school teachers and talking to the dead. Author Douglass looks at race and trauma and death with a comical and horror-esque twist.
Additionally, collections of poetry and essays from Salava Nolan, Jonah Mixon-Webster and the paperback release of Morgan Parker’s debut poetry collection examine the intersectionality and liminal spaces that exist within the Black community and the Black body.
But if you’re looking for really good guidance—and really good trouble—John Lewis’ Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation will guide, protect and make you rethink every decision and choice you’ve made about yourself and others around you.
It all sounds quite fun, right?
Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation; John Lewis (with Kabir Sehgal, foreword by Andrew Young – Nonfiction)
Good. Trouble.
Congressman John Lewis was—and continues to be—a beacon of hope stemming rom the civil rights movement. His ever-present humility still inspires millions and during his last months of life—even while battling cancer—he carved out time to make sure he put his knowledge, memories and belief systems on paper to help live out his legacy for decades. Carry On is organized by topic, including protests during the pandemic, forgiveness, justice, faith mentorship, justice, courage, and more. It is a collection of the “late Congressman’s thoughts for readers to draw on whenever they are in need of guidance.” His own confidence and belief in the people are now documented on the page as a way to help find inspiration, a friend, a mentor and an expert. With this book, he performs a “crucial passing of the baton,” that we may or may not have known we needed.
July 13, 2021, Grand Central Publishing
Don’t Let It Get You Down: Essays of Race, Gender and the Body – Savala Nolan (Essays)
Savala Nolan knows what it means to exists in two spaces at once—she knows what it is to be painfully thin and close to obese; to be within the dregs of poverty and skirting above everyone else on wealth; to be Black and Mexican and White. Don’t Let It Get You Down goes into these liminal spaces and race, class and body t0 present a “clear and nuanced understanding of our society’s most intractable points of tension.” The collection is comprised of twelve essays where Nolan relies on her “early romantic pursuits” of white guys—particularly the rich and preppy ones—which weren’t about attraction, but about self-erasure. She looks at the despair of being Black in America and the effect of police brutality on Black children and the unique stigma against “large Black females.”
For fans of Kiese Laymon’s Heavy and Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist, Don’t Let It Get You Down will pull you in and make you reexamine all that you thought you knew about intersectionality and mixed-race spaces in America.
July 13, 2021, Simon and Schuster
Love After Love: A Novel – Ingrid Persaud (Fiction)
It’s hard to remain a blended family when the ties that hold you together are built on secrets and lies. When Betty Ramdin’s husband dies, her colleague, Mr. Chetan, moves into her home in Trinidad with Betty and her son, Solo. Their love, which exists after the grief of their late father and husband, unravels as Solo learns of his mother’s secret. Fleeing to New York, Solo navigates the busy and hectic city life as an undocumented immigrant. Mr. Chetan remains the only fraying link between Solo and his mother—but what happens when that link disintegrates and there’s nothing left but the illusion of love?
July 13, 2021, One World
Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night – Morgan Parker (Introduction by Danez Smith) (Poetry)
The paperback release of Morgan Parker’s 2015 debut poetry collection, Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night, shows us—again—her mastery in verse and how she became “one of the most beloved writers working today.” This book moves around hard topics with humor, grief, anxiety and Jay-Z. She shows us the difference between “highs” and “lows” and how they never quite go away, instead shifting depending on where one is in life. Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night is the introduction to everything we love about Morgan Parker’s work.
July 13, 2021, Tin House Books
Stereo(TYPE): Poems – Jonah Mixon-Webster (Poetry)
Jonah Mixon-Webster, a Flint, Michigan native and expert at working within the spaces of body, race, region, class and sexuality, debuts his first poetry collection, Stereo(TYPE) which reexamines our “most sacred mythologies.” His understanding of the intersectionality of race, body, class and sexuality allows him to look at all of the angles of the clean water crisis that still persists in Flint and “conceptualizes poems as transcripts and frequently asked questions.” Diving into modern realities and dreamlike states, Mixon-Webster sees the beauty within the madness while sussing out the pain and suffering that exists within.
July 13, 2021, Knopf
The Right Side of Reckless – Whitney D. Grandison (Fiction)
Regan London is in desperate need of a new perspective. She’s being pressured into staying in her “perfect” relationship, be a “good girl” and do all the right things. But that pressure has brought her to a breaking point.
Guillermo Lozano is determined to get a fresh start. He did the time for his crimes and it’s now time to right his wrongs and move forward with his life. His job at the local community center pushes him directly in line with the one girl who is off-limits, and though her parents warned her to stay away, Guillermo and Regan’s spark is undeniable and overwhelming.
From all angles, the disappointment and disapproval are palpable, and their relationship might push Guillermo out of town and out of Regan’s life for good. But sometimes in order to keep from breaking your heart, you have to break the rules and be just a bit…reckless.
July 13, 2021, HarperCollins
The Stone Face – William Gardner Smith (Introduction by Adam Shatz) (Fiction)
At first, Paris, France is made out to be a racial wonderland for journalist Simeon Brown. After losing his eye to a racist attack, Simeon flees Philadelphia and falls under the spell of the City of Lights. Babe, another American expatriate, helps Simeon make new friends and acclimate to the glowing world of Black intellectuals he has always wanted to be with.
But as his stay extends, the racial safe haven of Paris beings to crumble, and Simeon sees it for what it really is. As the French government struggles to gain control of the Algerian revolution, Algerians start getting randomly stopped on the street, beaten and jailed because of their “supposed” connection to the revolution. At once feeling like both a scared Black boy in a strange land and a radical advocate for human rights, Simeon finds his voice again, refusing to remain on the sidelines—even while struggling to remember “where his true loyalties lie.”
July 13, 2021, New York Review of Books
The Taking of Jake Livingston – Ryan Douglass (Young Adult)
Want to know what’s worse than being a sixteen-year-old boy? Being a sixteen-year-old boy who can see dead people… everywhere. Add being a Black student dealing with racist teachers on a daily basis, and you have hell. And this hell is where Jake Livingston lives. But the arrival of Allister—a very handsome Black student—means change is on the horizon for Jake.
Or is it?
Most of the time, Jake can help the ghosts he encounters with their problems and help them peacefully move into their next life. Unfortunately, Sawyer Moon, a teenager who shot and killed six kids before taking his own life, is seeking vengeance, turning his hate and anger against Jake. The rug is whipped out from under him as Sawyer begins to haunt Jake and everything he knew about the “dead word goes out the window.” Jake is thrown into a game of survival—one he is unsure he can even win.
July 13, 2021, Penguin Random House
While We Were Dating – Jasmine Guillory (Fiction)
Business and pleasure don’t mix, right?
Anna Gardiner, an actress on a mission to become a household name, seems to think so. While she’s biding her time waiting to hear about a movie role, Anna takes a job on an ad campaign. Ben Stephens doesn’t have time for anyone or anything except his businesses, but when he lands a role on the same ad campaign, it’s hard to go against the undeniable connection between him and Anna.
What starts as casual and flirty banter between the pair quickly turns into something more when Ben has to help Anna during an emergency, and hushed truths are revealed—truths that haven’t even been revealed to those closest to them.
So, what do they do when their relationship starts to grow—fast—and they get the opportunity to be together, turning their “real-life fling into something more for the Hollywood spotlight”? Will Ben be content existing only in the shadows? Would Anna consider stepping down to make things work? Or were they right about “business and pleasure” all along?
July 13, 2021, Berkley
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