8 Must-Read Books Released in January
Probably because I’m still hungover from the hectic holiday season — figurative hungover, not literally hungover… although, probably, honestly, also at least a little literally hungover — the new year has a way of sneaking up on me and knocking me on my ass.
This year especially.
2020.
Seems… intense.
My introverted, change-avoidant heart would love nothing more than to pause the relentless progression of time.
More specifically, I want time to pause time, make people to go away, and surround myself with a suffocatingly large pile of books..
Is that really so much to ask?
In truth, I know my first two requests are… unreasonable.
But my final desire — that books fill every vacant corner of my home — is totally fucking doable.
And adding books to my overflowing shelves was particularly easy this month, as there were many amazing reads from which to select.
Here are the 8 we think you absolutely need to pick up.
8. The God Game
by Danny Tobey
Release Date - January 7, 2020
Genre - Science Fiction
It’s all just for fun. Or so Charlie and his friends think when they enter the G.O.D. Game.
Though the game is managed by underground hackers — which is, admittedly, a little sketch — and it’s run by an artificial intelligence that believes it’s God, it certainly can’t be that serious, right?
At first it seems fun, disappearing into the world of the game and completing missions.
And, unlike most other games, the rewards the teens can reap are just as real as they are enticing.
Money spewing from ATMs.
Long-desired revenge.
Envy-inducing new tech.
But as Charlie and his friends get deeper and deeper into the game, two things become clear.
First, that this is so much more than just a game.
And second, that quitting the game for good isn’t an option.
Suddenly the missions that once seemed fun and challenging are scary and increasingly impossible.
But there’s only two ways to get out of the G.O.D. Game. You either win, and win big, or you lose, and die.
With slick narration and a decidedly original premise, Tobey captures readers and holds them rapt. Readers can no more put down this book prior to finishing than the players in this cryptic game could electively call it quits.
7. Lady Clementine
by Marie Benedict
Release Date - January 7, 2020
Genre - Historical Fiction
In the early 1900s, women were expected to behave in a certain way.
Soft.
Subtle.
Sensitive.
Sweet.
Submissive.
All were qualities that women of the time — but most particularly women married to men of a certain station — were expected to embody.
But Clementine Churchill was none of these things.
She was powerful and strong and sure not only of her place in the world but of the power she necessarily welded as the wife of the man who would become prime minister, Winston Churchill.
As first World War I and then World War II changed the face of not only England, but also the world, Clementine exerted her will in ways that women were seldom expected to, necessarily impacting the course of history, despite her position in the shadow of her husband.
Marie Benedict engages and inspires with this story of a woman sure in her values and strong in her morals. A story few know, this one will remind readers of the power women have always held and the strength the erroneously named weaker sex has over the course of history.
6. This is Not How It Ends
by Rochelle B. Weinstein
Release Date - January 1, 2020
Genre - Women’s Fiction
When Charlotte met Philip she realized that, while there might be other fish in the sea, Philip was the fish for her. In a haze of love and lust, the duo moved to the Florida Keys and set about crafting an idyllic life together.
But as the date on which they had agreed to marry nears, Charlotte’s certainty fades.
Adding complexity to the already complex situation, she feels herself inexplicably drawn to Ben, a single father she meets after moving to the Keys.
A storm is approaching, literally.
As this hurricane strikes land, Charlotte finds herself in a position of personal turmoil. She has to decide, once and for all, to whom her heart belongs. And she knows that, regardless of the choice she makes, she will leave devastation in her wake.
A clean, simple, pure exploration of emotion and friendship, this Rochelle B. Weinstein novel acknowledges the frustrating complexity of love and the struggles inherent in commitment.
5. Don't Read The Comments
by Eric Smith
Release Date - January 28, 2020
Genre - Young Adult
To some, it might be just a game, but to Divya, it’s much more.
Thanks to her skill and stamina, Divya has managed to parlay her expertise in the popular game, Reclaim the Sun, into a profession. Thanks to sponsorships and endorsements, she’s finally able to help her struggling mother financially.
Though Aaron is just as obsessed with the game, his mother isn’t as enthusiastic about his dedication as Divya’s is. She doesn’t want Aaron to focus on gaming. Instead, she wants him to aspire to be a doctor, like her.
But as both Divya and Aaron get deeper into the game, the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of their parents becomes less and less important.
Because they come under attack.
When a relentless army of trolls — the figurative, internet kind, not the literal, under-bridge-dwellers — set their sights on Divya and Aaron, both must fight for what they want, what they need and what they deserve.
A reminder of how the internet has paradoxically made things both easier and harder, this novel helps adults understand the struggles kids face when living their lives online and helps teens see that they aren’t alone in these 21st century struggles.
4. A Beginning at the End
by Mike Chen
Release Date - January 14, 2020
Genre - Dystopian Science Fiction
Rob, Moira, and Krista are all trying to rebuild lives in post-apocalyptic San Francisco. But, like probably all survivors of the near-miss with global extinction, they are struggling under the weight of some heavy baggage.
Rob, now a single father to daughter Sunny, regrets a lie he told years earlier but doesn’t know how to remedy the issue. Mired in grief following the death of his wife, he told Sunny that her mother wasn’t dead but, instead, was away at a hospital and would, eventually, be reunited with the family.
Now this lie threatens to tear his family apart, as the rigid structures put in place to ensure the mental health and stability of the remaining population, could result in him losing his daughter forever.
Krista left behind a troubled past and is trying to make a name for herself — or at least a sustainable income — as an event planner/I’ll-do-anything-you-want-me-to-do-if-you-pay-me errand woman.
Having been burned by pretty much everyone she was ever close to in the past, she is reluctant to form real relationships now, when everything feels painfully tenuous and temporary. But when she unwittingly becomes invested in Rob and Sunny’s plight, she might be forced to do what she has so long avoided: care about someone but herself.
Moira used the disarray that logically accompanies a pandemic to press the reset button on her life. Once a young pop star, she vanished into the night years ago, reinventing herself as someone normal.
Someone simple.
Someone unremarkable.
And she likes this new her — the anonymity that being just another person provides — so, when she hears that her father — the man who thrust her into the limelight in the first place — is looking for her, she’s dedicated to ensuring he doesn’t succeed in finding her. But when she, too, becomes entangled in the mess Rob created, she feels compelled to sacrifice it all — even her hard-earned freedom — to help.
With complex characters stuck in an impossibly unique situation, Chen’s sophomore outing will leave readers pondering what they would do in a similarly precarious position long after they finish the novel.
3. How Quickly She Disappears
by Raymond Fleischmann
Release Date - January 14, 2020
Genre - Thriller
Though the protagonist of this novel, Elisabeth, grew up in Pennsylvania, she has, for quite some time, lived with her daughter and husband in Tanacross, a remote Alaskan village.
During her childhood, Elisabeth might have enjoyed many of the modern(ish) amenities she now lacks, but that doesn’t mean these formative years were entirely without issue. Most notably traumatic was the disappearance of her twin sister, Jacqueline, when Elisabeth was a pre-teen.
Given that it’s been twenty years since her sister’s disappearance, the logical consensus is that Jacqueline is dead. But Elisabeth knows that can’t be the case. She would, she believes, feel it in her bones if her sister — the other half of her — were dead.
While Elisabeth will never forget her long-missing sister, this disappearance isn’t something that is usually at the forefront of her mind.
That all changes when, in place of their usual mail carrier, a German man touches down on the Tanacross landing strip. Albert, as Elisabeth quickly learns he is called, isn’t in the village long before disaster strikes — or, more specifically, he instigates disaster.
Late one night, purportedly in an argument about cards, Albert kills a man.
Perplexing, following this murder, he is only willing to speak to one person: Elisabeth.
When Elisabeth goes to speak to Albert, he shares news that completely upends any order she has managed to build into her life. He knows what happened to Jacqueline, he tells her. And, if she is willing to play his game, he’ll take Elisabeth to her sister.
Though Elisabeth knows that she shouldn’t trust Albert — who literally still has blood on his hands — the promise of finally finding her sister proves too enticing a temptation to resist. So she goes along with him, willingly participating in a warped game of cat and mouse that threatens everything she holds dear.
Brilliantly atmospheric and deliciously twisty, this triller stands apart from the pack and is one readers will remember long after they finish.
2. The Other People
by C.J. Tudor
Genre - January 28, 2020
Release Date - Thriller
It all starts when Gabe, a relatively generic businessman and father, is driving home one day. During his frustratingly traffic-rich drive, he’s thinking about how much trouble he is going to be in with his wife. He had promised to get home early enough to spend quality time with his daughter, Izzy, but now thanks to traffic — and to other factors outside of his control — he won’t be.
He’s contemplating how he will make it up to her — and how much trouble he will really be in — when getting into yet another row with this wife becomes the least of his concerns.
He sees something that changes everything.
In a beat-up, bumper-stick-plastered, car in front of him he spots a young girl.
She looks scared.
She looks helpless.
She looks like his daughter.
Gabe’s concern amplifies quickly when he decides that the little girl he has spotted doesn’t just look like his daughter, she is his daughter.
And she sees him, too.
And she’s saying something.
“Daddy.”
His cellphone nearly dead and no charger in sight, he tries to follow the car, weaving dangerously through the London traffic, determined not to let the vehicle in which his daughter is trapped escape.
All too quickly, though, it becomes clear that, despite his best efforts, he won’t be able to keep up with this car. So, against his better judgement, he pulls off at a rest area and calls for help.
But there will be no help that day.
Or for years.
And now, three years later, Gabe is doing all he can think to do: traveling up and down the stretches of highway that surround metropolitan London, stopping at rest areas and hunting for answers that it seems increasingly likely he will never find.
Though his quest seems futile, even to Gabe himself, he continues, certain that, eventually, he will find something.
And then, he does.
A cryptic figure who Gabe knows only as “The Samaritan” directs Gabe to a lake.
A lake in which Gabe finds the car that he failed to catch all those years ago.
And, in that car, there is a body.
With a tightly woven plot and characters that you simply can’t help but love, Tudor knocks it out of the park with her third book.
1. Followers
by Megan Angelo
Release Date - January 14, 2020
Genre - Literary Fiction / Science Fiction
Without followers, you’re just shouting into the void. This is a lesson Orla, learns when she moves to New York City in the early 2000s and tries to make a go at crafting a literary career.
Although she aspires to write a novel — and works to achieve this goal with a medium-level commitment — she also has to pay the bills. So she takes a job as a blogger for a women's blog — Lady-ish.
It's not long into her tenure as a hard-hitting reporter, publishing exposes on important topics like Which Celebrity Maybe Got Lipo (according to a doctor who has neither treated nor met them) and Which Kardashian is Most Likely to Actually Spit on a Panhandler, that she comes to a realization. Suddenly she sees that it’s less critical that you be important than it is that you appear important.
As luck would have it, about the same time, she starts rooming with Florence — or, “Floss” as she likes to be called, because given names are for bitches.
Floss has moved to NYC with one goal: to become significant.
And, towards this end, she spends all of her waking time — which, for the record, is usually between the hours of 6pm and 5am — attending parties in outfits that cover as little of her body as possible and making herself visible to the people who, in her perception, matter most.
When Orla realizes that her CraigsList-selected roommate has this, goal she rather rapidly comes to the realization that their relationship could be a symbiotic one.
So Orla and Floss start working in tandem.
When Floss goes out, Orla reports on it.
When Floss posts a video, Orla amplifies it.
And when Floss’s followers start to grow, Orla celebrates it.
But this is just half of our story.
In the temporally distant future — more than 4 decades after Orla and Floss began their dual effort to make Floss famous — lives Marlow.
Marlow has, from a very young age, lived in Constellation, California.
And, in Constellation, only one thing really matters: your followers.
Everyone in Constellation is a personality, followed in real-time by people around the globe.
Their lives are choreographed, their relationships planned, their stories pre-determined by writers who sit in a room, sipping stale coffee while they literally fucking play God.
Because Marlow has never really known a different life, she’s never thought to push back against the forces that try to keep her on her prescribed path.
But when her a new plot-point is thrown into her story — one that will irrevocably change Marlow’s life — she feels stifled, suffocated, surrounded by people less concerned with her as a human and more concerned with her as a product.
Suddenly Marlow is no longer satisfied to play her prescribed role. She needs to escape from it all. But, when the whole world thinks they know who you are, can you ever really break free from that image?
Readers will walk away from this novel both invested in the characters Angelo so effortlessly crafts and engaged in contemplation of the implications of the exceedingly public lives we so often elect to lead.
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