best-books.publishersweekly.comSummer Reads 2024 from Publishers Weekly : Publishers Weekly

GENRES Summer Reads 2024 Top 10 Fiction Mystery Romance SF/Fantasy/Horror Comics Nonfiction Picture Books Middle Grade Young Adult 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 Summer 2024 Summer 2023 Summer 2022 Summer 2021 Summer 2020 Summer 2019 Summer 2018 Summer 2017 Summer 2016 Summer 2015 Summer 2014 Summer 2013 Summer 2012 Best Books: 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 Summer Reads: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 Here in the Northeast, it feels like it started raining in January and never stopped—which is another way of saying summer can’t come soon enough. While we wait for the skies to clear and the sun to return, there’s still time to decide what books to pack for that cross-country road trip, weekend getaway, poolside afternoon, or whatever else you have planned. To help make the choice a little easier, our staff experts and reviews editors have combed through the titles publishing from May to August and handpicked a surefire hit parade for readers of all stripes. Memorial Day will be here before you know it, so don’t delay—your next favorite book is waiting. Happy reading! – David Adams, adult reviews director STAFF PICKSCHILDREN’S PICKSBury Your Gays Chuck Tingle (Nightfire) Tingle continues his horror hot streak with this sharp satirical peak behind the scenes of Hollywood. After gay screenwriter Misha Byrne refuses to kill off the queer characters in his TV series at the request of the network’s new AI algorithm, monsters from his past horror movies start hunting him down. Is it an elaborate prank or something more sinister? The answer makes for clever and wildly entertaining reading. 1974: A Personal History Francine Prose (Harper) San Francisco. The 1970s. The Vietnam War. On the Venn diagram of subjects I can’t resist, Prose’s first memoir is as dead center as dead center gets. In it, she recounts her brief yet intense relationship with Pentagon Papers leaker Tony Russo, who spent nearly 50 days in jail for refusing to testify against his friend and collaborator, Daniel Ellsberg. It promises to be just the kind of paranoid trip into the dark underbelly of the American experiment I love to take. — David Adams, adult reviews director A Gamble at Sunset Vanessa Riley (Zebra) The Wilcox family cannot afford another scandal—so when rebellious wallflower Georgina Wilcox is caught kissing aspiring composer Lord Mark Sebastian, the couple must pretend to be engaged to preserve their reputations. With a lively take on the fake dating trope, a diverse cast, and an impressive degree of historical detail, Riley’s sparkling Regency series opener should scratch an itch for any Bridgerton fan. The Jellyfish Boum, trans. from the French by Robin Lang and Helge Dascher (Pow Pow) The cartoonist behind the delightful Boumeries webcomic delivers a poetic graphic novel, which applies her nimble, fluid art style to a lightly uncanny tale about a bohemian young woman who suffers from a jellyfish floating in her eye. The creature isn’t imagined, it’s diagnosed as such by an optometrist. As the floating blobs multiply, she tries to hide her affliction from the cute girl she’s crushing on—until she can no longer ignore the oddly beautiful darkness coming for her. American Diva: Extraordinary, Unruly, Fabulous Deborah Paredez (Norton) Mixing memoir and cultural criticism, poet Paradez unravels why such megawatt stars as Tina Turner and Serena and Venus Williams have been maligned for the same larger-than-life personas and talent that bring them fame and adoration. Written with panache that befits its subject, this is an impassioned look at what it means to be a powerful woman on the public stage. Blood in the Cut Alejandro Nodarse (Flatiron) Heat practically radiates off the page in this Florida noir about a Cuban American ex-con who tries to save his family’s butcher shop—and thus, his family—from collapse. With indelible descriptions of its Miami setting and a three-dimensional look at life in the city’s Little Havana neighborhood, this hard-nosed thriller heralds the arrival of a major new talent. Brownstone Samuel Teer, illus. by Mar Julia (Versify) When her mother accepts a principal role in a dance tour, almost-15-year-old Almudena must stay with her father, whom she’s never met, while he renovates a dilapidated brownstone in this affecting summer-of-1995-set graphic novel told via the teen’s resourceful and unfettered perspective. Julia’s fluid illustrations, saturated in rich earth tones, breathe life into the vibrant metropolitan neighborhood of Teer’s satisfyingly transformative story about connection and identity, which culminates in an emotionally grounded tale about a teen struggling to determine where—and with whom—she belongs. Emergency Quarters Carlos Matias, illus. by Gracey Zhang (HarperCollins/Tegen) When Ernesto begins walking to school without his parents, his mother presses a quarter into his hand every morning: For emergencies.” His peers spend their pocket money, but Ernesto holds onto his daily quarters, until an emergency” at the barber shop offers a wonderfully surprising opportunity for independent decision-making. In this sparkling picture book, Matias and Zhang supply life-giving sensory details around Ernesto’s Queens community and his own canny balancing of prudence and pleasure. All Fours Miranda July (Riverhead) July turns artistic desire and sexual fantasy into riveting fiction in her latest novel. It begins with a middle-aged artist’s cross-country road trip from Los Angeles to New York City but quickly turns into something delightfully weird, as the narrator remodels a roadside motel room and uses it to sort out the next phase of her life. Carnival Chaos (Moko Magic #1) Tracey Baptiste (Freedom Fire) Three Brooklyn cousins discover they are protector spirits during carnival season in this Afro-Caribbean-inspired story. When strange things start happening to Misty and her cousins, such as flames shooting from their mouths after eating mango anchar, the trio must harness their newfound powers to save carnival festivities from impending disaster. Baptiste imbues the adventures with nuance, emphasizing the high spirits of an exuberant festival season and its importance to the tweens’ culture. Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil Ananda Lima (Tor) These ambitious interconnected stories create a consistently surprising portrait of a Brazilian American woman who is inspired to become a writer by a sexual encounter with the devil. Formally playful, whimsically supernatural, and darkly witty, poet Lima’s prose debut sucked me in from the first page. — Phoebe Cramer, reviews editor Bear Julia Phillips (Hogarth) San Juan Island feels like a nice place to visit but a difficult place to live, as evidenced by its portrayal in bestseller Phillips’s evocative and nimble novel. Here on this Pacific Northwest hideaway, two sisters respond in very different ways to the arrival of a grizzly bear, and their unsettled question of whether the bear is friend or foe elicits nail-biting suspense. Dinner at the Brake Fast Renee Beauregard Lute (Quill Tree) After her father’s treasured photograph disappears from the family’s breakfast-only diner, the Brake Fast Truck Stop, Tacoma resolves to track it down in this spirited, electrifyingly original odyssey through Washington State. Rich characterizations, a perceptive voice, and standout compassion and candor distinguish this captivating road trip tale by Lute, which explores the sometimes heartbreaking reality of living with a depressed parent, levied by Tacoma’s ever-present yearning to eat something other than breakfast foods. Broiler Eli Cranor (Soho Crime) Fresh off an Edgar Award for best first novel, former college footballer Cranor delivers another muscular Southern noir set in his home state of Arkansas. The action centers on a chicken...