Happy New Year! 2024 is going to be the year of great reading, I’m manifesting that for all of you and all of the authors slotted to publish over the upcoming 12 months. We’re already starting off strong with the descriptions for these titles in January 2024.
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Just Happy To Be Here
Author: Naomi Kanakia
Release Date: January 2nd, 2024
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
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Tara is the first out trans girl at her elite private school. When she decides to join an old-fashioned sisterhood, she’s thrust into the middle of a debate on girlhood and whether the secret societies should even exist, all while trying to get her degree. This YA novel sounds like it’s going to tackle some difficult topics that I’ve seen come up multiple times in real life college sororities, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out in a high school here.
Nonfiction
Author: Julie Myerson
Release Date: January 2nd, 2024
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
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This book looks like it’s going to absolutely destroy me. A novelist mother has a difficult time coming to grips with her daughter’s seeming attempts to destroy herself. While this is happening in the present, the mother explores her past relationship with her own mother. This intergenerational tale of growing up and being a woman is a story of maternal love and the way it (or the lack of it) affect us all.
The Fetishist
Author: Katherine Min
Release Date: January 9th, 2024
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
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Katherine Min died in 2019, but her final book lives on through posthumous publication. I don’t know how I feel about books published after an author’s death, but if you are a Min fan this is your final chance to read her writing. The Fetishist follows the story of three people on a rash kidnapping plot designed to get revenge for one woman’s mother’s death.
Come and Get It
Author: Kiley Reid
Release Date: January 9th, 2024
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
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I promised I would get anything Kiley Reid wrote after reading Such a Fun Age a couple of years ago. Her debut novel was great, and I’m sure this one will be just as good. The book follows Millie, a resident assistant who takes a seemingly easy job to earn extra cash and is blindsided by everything that comes with it. Millie’s entanglement with her professor could jeopardize everything she built.
River East, River West
Author: Aube Rey Lescure
Release Date: January 9th, 2024
Genre: Historical Fiction / Contemporary Fiction
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This dual time period novel alternates between 14-year-old Alva, who hates that her American expat-mother is raising her in China, and Lu Fang—the father Alva never met—30 years before. This intergenerational book unpacks trauma, immigration, and what it’s like to feel like you’ll never be enough.
Behind You is the Sea
Author: Susan Muaddi Darraj
Release Date: January 16th, 2024
Genre: Short Stories
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I’m so excited to read this debut novel! Made up of short stories, Behind You Is The Sea takes us inside the lives of three different Palestinian immigrant families as they make a home for themselves in America. Given the incredibly high level of persecution Palestinians are facing today, getting some insight (even fictionally) into what lives are like for immigrants in America is more worthwhile than ever.
So Fetch: The Making of Mean Girls
Author: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
Release Date: January 16th, 2024
Genre: Nonfiction / Pop Culture
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I am admittedly Mean Girls obsessed. I love the movie and I can’t wait to see the musical when it hits theaters. I’m so excited to follow the history of such a legendary millennial movie, and how it has maintained so much cultural relevance in the year 2023.
No One Can Know
Author: Kate Alice Marshall
Release Date: January 23rd, 2024
Genre: Mystery / Thriller
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This thriller sounds so good! When Emma and her husband run short on money, Emma knows that the only option is to return to her childhood home. The house, which is co-owned by her and her sisters, is currently resting empty. Not because it’s fallen into disrepair, but because Emma’s parents were murdered in the fancy estate. In fact, people think that Emma herself is the murderer. I’m so excited to see where this goes and what webs get untangled for us.
Confrontations
Author: Simone Antangana Bekono, Translated by Suzanne Heukensfeldt Jansen
Release Date: January 30th, 2024
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
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This book, originally written in Dutch, follows the life of 16-year old Salomé when she arrives at a juvenile detention center in the Netherlands. She is forced to reckon with her current life, as well as the the life of her father who was recently diagnosed with liver cancer. Salomé refuses to atone to the racist prison psychologist, Confrontations “captures the paradoxical demands society makes on Black women, the way communities, schools, and the prison system perpetuate racism, and the cost of Black female defiance.”
The Mayor of Maxwell Street
Author: Avery Cunningham
Release Date: January 30th, 2024
Genre: Historical Fiction / Romance
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In Prohibition-era Chicago, a rich Black debutant gets swept up in the world of a low-level speakeasy. This historical fiction book looks incredibly mysterious and interesting, and I’m so excited to read it. I’m sick of war-era historical fiction, give me more early 20s scandal in a corrupt city. I can’t wait to read this.
What books are you looking forward to reading this month?
