April snuck up on me as it happened immediately after our spring break; I’ve been playing catch up ever since. Personally there are a lot of exciting book related things this week: our library’s big school reading event is happening and it’s my kids’ school book fair. Which means I get to still engage in one of my favorite times of elementary school! We’re going unsupervised (meaning without my husband) so we’ll see how many books we come home with :)
Book Buzz
This month’s list of new books is heavy on the mystery/thrillers, which I am not mad about!
The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson; April 2. From the author of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, her latest is a “…gripping mystery thriller following one teen's search for the truth about her mother's shocking disappearance--and even more shocking reappearance--during the filming of a true crime documentary.”
The Black Girl Survives in This One edited by Desiree S. Evans and Saraciea J. Fennell; April 2. “ Fifteen chilling and thought-provoking stories place Black girls front and center as heroes and survivors who slay monsters, battle spirits, and face down death”.
We’re Never Getting Home by Tracy Badua; April 16. “HBO's Insecure meets Dazed and Confused in this messy, tender YA novel about a friendship breakup, set against the backdrop of a chaotic night at a music festival”.
Kill Her Twice by Stacey Lee; April 23. “…a YA murder mystery noir set in 1930s Los Angeles's Chinatown”; the cover alone has drawn me in!
A Whisper in the Walls By Scott Reintgen; April 23. Sequel to A Door in the Dark which Barnes & Nobles calls “Think Game of Thrones meets dark academia”. Based on that description alone I think I’m going to have to read both of these books!
From the Librarian’s Desk
For whatever reason, this has been a really slow reading month for me so far. Hoping to turn that around; I have multiple books going at once (which may be the issue!) but can’t seem to get into a reading rhythm.
Here are the 3 books I’m currently reading; all of them are really good, so I think the problem is that I keep reading a bit of each so it’s taking me longer!
While I Was Away by Waka T. Brown is a middle grade memoir that my daughter and I are reading as part of a before school book club. Waka is sent to Japan for 5 months as a child to live with her grandmother and improve her Japanese, against her wishes.
The Danish Secret to Happy Kids by Helen Russell (ARC; expected release July 9). Russell also wrote A Year of Living Danishly about her move from London to a small town in Denmark, after her husband gets a job at Lego. This book was the catalyst for my obsession with Denmark (we finally went last spring and I am ready to move there, winters and all!). Even if you don’t have kids or aren’t into parenting books (I’m not) this is more a study of the culture of kids in Denmark, along with funny moments from Russell navigating her adopted country.
The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson (ARC; will be released April 30!). I confess I’m only about 2 pages into this because I realized I needed to focus on the other books I had started. Larson is one of my favorite non-fiction authors as his books read like fiction; accessible while still deeply researched. Larson’s most popular book is Devil in the White City (about the Chicago World Fair and America’s first serial killer) but my favorites are In the Garden of Beasts (the American ambassador and his daughter’s actions in Berlin during the rise of Hitler) and Dead Wake (the sinking of the Lusitania).
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