8 new books that everyone is about to be obsessed with
Ending Summer 2022 with 8 new releases you have to at least know the titles of, curated by The Manicured Shelf.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
While we often associate gaming with a certain extremely online “gamer” like Ninja or other popular Twitch streamers, gaming is becoming a huge part of our culture. I myself have been “gaming” since I could read (Leap Ahead 1st Grade counts!) Gaming is now everywhere and with AI and the metaverse, that trend is only set to continue. Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow tackles these very themes.
DESCRIPTION: On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. They borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo: a game where players can escape the confines of a body and the betrayals of a heart, and where death means nothing more than a chance to restart and play again. This is the story of the perfect worlds Sam and Sadie build, the imperfect world they live in, and of everything that comes after success: Money. Fame. Duplicity. Tragedy.
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, games as artform, technology and the human experience, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
Jennette McCurdy is finally getting to tell her story. As the title suggests, it’s an uncomfortable but important memoir about the unacceptable and devastating abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother and the exploitative entertainment industry. In an era where we’re beginning to discuss what the ethics are around children online (shoutout corn kid), Jennette’s book shows us the dangerous dark side of children performing for the public.
DESCRIPTION: A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life.
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.
In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.
Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair
Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Fresh off last year’s release Malibu Rising and the recent virality of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (thanks to its associations with certain Taylor Swift fan theories) Taylor Jenkins Reid is back at it again. The prolific author is once again tapping into themes straight out of the cultural zeitgeist, this time with the story of Carrie Soto, a tennis great grappling with retirement. This could be just the read we need to get us in the mindset to celebrate Serena Williams' final season.
DESCRIPTION: In this powerful novel about the cost of greatness, a legendary athlete attempts a comeback when the world considers her past her prime.
Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular.
By the time Carrie retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Slam titles. And if you ask her, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father as her coach.
But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning, British player named Nicki Chan.
At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record. Even if the sports media says that they never liked the 'Battle-Axe' anyway. Even if her body doesn't move as fast as it did. And even if it means swallowing her pride to train with a man she once almost opened her heart to: Bowe Huntley. Like her, he has something to prove before he gives up the game forever.
In spite of it all, Carrie Soto is back, for one epic final season. In this riveting and unforgettable novel, Taylor Jenkins Reid tells a story about the cost of greatness and a legendary athlete attempting a comeback.
Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley
Sloane Crosley is one of my favorite essayists. I highly (and have on this very blog) recommended her book of essays I Was Told There’d Be Cake. However, I was admittedly unimpressed with her last novel, 2015’s The Clasp. That said, my faith in her wit as a writer and prowess as a storyteller, combined with the premise of Cult Classic was enough to convince me to give her latest a chance. I’m looking forward to what is sure to be a hilarious novel chock full of self-aware social commentary.
DESCRIPTION: One night in Chinatown: Our heroine, Lola, is at a work reunion dinner with her former colleagues when she ducks out to buy cigarettes and runs into an ex-boyfriend. And then . . . another. And another. The city is suddenly awash with ghosts of heartbreaks past, and what would normally pass for a coincidence becomes something much stranger. The soon-to-be-married Lola must contend not only with the viability of her current relationship but with the fact that both her best friend and her former boss, a magazine editor turned guru, might have an unhealthy, ahem, investment in the outcome. Memories of the past swirl and converge in mystical ways both comic and eerie as Lola is forced to decide if she will buy into romance, and possibly into a weird startup-slash-cult.
Both suspenseful and delightfully funny, this new novel from Sloane Crosley combines the breathtaking twists and turns of a psychological thriller with the will-she-won't-she of romantic comedy. Cult Classic is an original: a masterfully crafted, surrealist meditation on love in an age when the past is ever at your fingertips and sanity is for sale.
If you couldn’t tell based on my last recommendation, I love a satirical novel about wellness culture. I think it’s the LA local in me. This thriller promises to be reminiscent of Liane Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers which I (controversially) liked more than most people.
DESCRIPTION: When the glam gurus around town start turning up gruesomely murdered, Ronnie has her answer: all is not well in wellness town. As Marley’s blind ambition veers into madness, Ronnie fears for her life. Lifelong New Yorker Ronnie Khan never thought she’d leave Queens. She’s not an “aim high, dream big” person—until she meets socialite wellness guru Marley Dewhurst. Healing yoga, transcendent hikes, epic juice cleanses…Ronnie consumes her new bougie existence like a fine wine. But is it, really? Or is this whole self-care business a little sour? Marley isn’t just a visionary; she’s a revelation. Seduced by the fever dream of finding her best self, Ronnie makes for the desert mountains of Sedona, Arizona. From Amina Akhtar comes a viciously funny thriller about wellness—the smoothies, the secrets, and the deliciously deadly impulses.
I normally don’t go for horror novels but as a former Twi-hard, I have a soft spot for vampires. I can’t wait to devour this book with an incredibly creative and intriguing premise…
DESCRIPTION: Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories. But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.
Bad Sex: Truth, Pleasure, and an Unfinished Revolution by Nona Willis Aronowitz
As I look forward to turning 30 this month, I’m feeling incredibly grateful for my ability to live the life that I do and have the autonomy and opportunities that I have. Lately, I’ve been reflecting on the women in the past who have made that possible and thinking about what I’d like to make possible for the next generation. Despite the political and social backlash to women’s liberation I think the movement is about to be stronger than ever. And, books like Nona Willis Aronowitz’s are important to consider as we navigate the “post-Roe” world.
DESCRIPTION: From Teen Vogue sex and love columnist Nona Willis Aronowitz, a blend of memoir, social history, and cultural criticism that probes the meaning of desire and sexual freedom today. At thirty-two years old, everything in Nona Willis Aronowitz’s life, and in America, was in disarray. Her marriage was falling apart. Her nuclear family was slipping away. Her heart and libido were both in overdrive. Embroiled in an era of fear, reckoning, and reimagining, her assumptions of what “sexual liberation” meant were suddenly up for debate. In the thick of personal and political turmoil, Nona turned to the words of history’s sexual revolutionaries—including her late mother, early radical pro-sex feminist Ellen Willis. At a time when sex has never been more accepted and feminism has never been more mainstream, Nona asked herself: What, exactly, do I want? And are my sexual and romantic desires even possible amid the horrors and bribes of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy?
Nona’s attempt to find the answer places her search for authentic intimacy alongside her family history and other stories stretching back nearly two hundred years. Stories of ambivalent wives and unchill sluts, free lovers and radical lesbians, sensitive men and woke misogynists, women who risk everything for sex—who buy sex, reject sex, have bad sex and good sex. The result is a brave, bold, and vulnerable exploration of what sexual freedom can mean. Bad Sex is Nona’s own journey to sexual satisfaction and romantic happiness, which not only lays bare the triumphs and flaws of contemporary feminism but also shines a light on universal questions of desire.
If there’s one thing BookTok loves it’s an Emily Henry romance novel (aka “smut,” “spicy novel” or “🌶️book”). The queen of BookTok herself, Colleen Hoover (aka CoHo), even said that Emily Henry is one of her favorite authors. Her latest release, Book Lovers, was on everyone’s fyp and in everyone’s beach bag. I’m hoping to squeeze it in (along with one more beach day) before the summer is officially over.
DESCRIPTION: A by-the-book literary agent must decide if happily ever after is worth changing her whole life for in this insightful, delightful new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation.Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute. If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.