The Best New Book Releases Out May 23, 2023

This latest release from Taylor is a character study that gets into the nitty gritty of the lives of a few graduate students in Iowa. Their work and academic lives are juxtaposed with their messy personal lives as they hurtle towards (hopeful) self discovery. Poet Seamus hooks up with the son of a patient at the hospital he works at; couple Goran and Ivan argue about a lack of intimacy in their relationship (while Ivan dabbles in amateur pornography), and more. Common themes of discontent caused by class differences and sex are shared by these and the other characters throughout the novel.

Fans of the first book starring Avery Keene, While Justice Sleeps, will love this second installment, which finds the character reeling from the consequences of the first installment. Keene gets involved in a new conspiracy after another law clerk, Preston Davies, approaches her and gives her an encrypted file. Davies then winds up dead. What she knows is that the file given to her has a list of the names of federal judges…which may have something to do with the blackmailing of Davies’ boss, another federal judge.

Built From the Fire expands on the history of the Tulsa Race Massacre, which is still not as widely taught as it should be, through the story of the Goodwin family and other community members. After the massacre killed an estimated 300 people, locals rebuilt the city into a Mecca. It housed a mix of Black people of differing socio-economic class and occupations, and even attracted icons like W.E.B. Du Bois and Muhammad Ali. Ed, a son from the Goodwin family, ends up buying the newspaper The Oklahoma Eagle, where he tried to document the Greenwood neighborhood’s progress despite white racism. This is a personalized account of Goodwin’s family and a persevering community.

In 1975, when she was 7, Turner got ready for salvation in the form of a trip to Venus. When that didn’t happen, she eventually caught the eye of the Lyman cult’s “queen,” Jessie, who took her under her wing. Then, when she was 11, her, her sister, and their estranged mother were kicked out of the cult and forced to acclimate to the rest of society. In this memoir, Turner, now a screenwriter and director, speaks on what it was like being ripped out of one way of life and forced into another.

Reyes, author of the many award-nominated (and winning!) The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School  is back with a YA revenge centered around an autistic girl. While Ariana Ruiz, who has selective mutism, wants to be noticed by her classmates, she gets what turns into unwanted attention from the popular Luis Ortega. After sex at a party leaves her feeling like something’s wrong, rumors about her start circulating. But then she finds an odd note in her locker that calls for Luis’ predatory nature to be exposed, and she meets a group of other students who all have Luis in common. In the group she finds friendship, possible romance, and a chance for sweet revenge.

Alexander offers up a memoir formed by poems, recipes, letters, and prose to create a multi-perspective way of looking at his life. He takes readers from his early days of being a newlywed to his working in a jazz club and to the more recent passing of his mother. Through the different forms he uses throughout this memoir, Alexander paints a vulnerable and honest look at the myriad kinds of love.