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April showers bring book releases, apparently. So many books are coming out this month. It was hard to narrow down my list to a reasonable number of books. Here are the ones I'm looking forward to reading the most.
Note: Some of the release dates may change or be different in your part of the world. Don't come for me if they're wrong. I'm trying to keep up!
🌈 Best April 2023 Book Releases ☔
Good Different by Meg Eden Kuyatt
Middle Grade Contemporary Novel-In-Verse
April 4, 2023
Selah knows her rules for being normal.
She always, always sticks to them. This means keeping her feelings locked tightly inside, despite the way they build up inside her as each school day goes on, so that she has to run to the bathroom and hide in the stall until she can calm down. So that she has to tear off her normal-person mask the second she gets home from school, and listen to her favorite pop song on repeat, trying to recharge. Selah feels like a dragon stuck in a world of humans, but she knows how to hide it.
Until the day she explodes and hits a fellow student.
Selah's friends pull away from her, her school threatens expulsion, and her comfortable, familiar world starts to crumble.
But as Selah starts to figure out more about who she is, she comes to understand that different doesn’t mean damaged. Can she get her school to understand that, too, before it’s too late?
Why it caught my attention: I love novels-in-verse! I like how they strip away all the unnecessary stuff and get right to the heart of the story. I'm also envious of anyone who can write poetry because I was always the worst student in my college poetry workshops.
Chrysalis by Anna Metcalfe
Adult Literary Fiction
April 11, 2023
Chrysalis is the story of a mysterious young woman transforming first her body and then her digital presence, told by three distinct people, each differently mesmerized by her. Elliot, a recluse who notices her at the gym, witnesses her physical evolution as she becomes bigger and stronger, in order to still her body and mind. Bella, her mother, worries about the strange, dark effect her daughter's new way of life is beginning to have on others as she reflects on their relationship, a close cocoon from which her daughter has broken free. Susie, her ex-colleague and best friend, houses and feeds her as she makes the transition to self-created online phenomenon, posting videos of herself meditating for hours in strange physical positions and encouraging her followers to renounce their previous lives and join her in meditative solitude.
Why it caught my attention: As someone who is chronically online, I'm fascinated by the gaps between people's real lives and what they choose to share publicly. According to Goodreads, this book is about "what truth lies between the observers and the observed."
Bianca Torre Is Afraid Of Everything by Justine Pucella Winans
Young Adult Mystery / Thriller
April 11, 2023
Sixteen-year-old Bianca Torre is an avid birder undergoing a gender identity crisis and grappling with an ever-growing list of fears. Some, like Fear #6: Initiating Conversation, keep them constrained, forcing them to watch birds from the telescope in their bedroom. And, occasionally, their neighbors. When their gaze wanders from the birds to one particular window across the street, Bianca witnesses a creepy plague-masked murderer take their neighbor’s life. Worse, the death is ruled a suicide, forcing Bianca to make a choice—succumb to their long list of fears (including #3: Murder and #55: Breaking into a Dead Guy’s Apartment) or investigate what happened.
Bianca enlists the help of their friend Anderson Coleman, but the two have more knowledge of anime than true crime. As Bianca and Anderson dig deeper into the murder with a little help from Bianca’s crush and fellow birding aficionado, Elaine Yee (#13: Beautiful People, #11: Parents Discovering They’re A Raging Lesbian), the trio uncovers a conspiracy much larger—and weirder—than imagined. But when the killer catches wind of the investigation, Bianca’s #1 fear of public speaking doesn’t sound so bad compared to the threat of being silenced for good.
Why it caught my attention: I need more joy in my life, and Goodreads calls this book "absurdist" and "bizarrely comical." A funny story about murder? Sounds awesome to me.
The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel
When Eve and Vera stumble upon a four-thousand-year-old baby mammoth that has been perfectly preserved, their discovery sets off a chain of events that pits Jane against her colleagues, and soon her status at the lab is tenuous at best. So what does a female scientist do when she's a passionate devotee of her field but her gender and life history hold her back? She goes rogue.
As Jane and her daughters ping-pong from the slopes of Siberia to a university in California, from the shores of Iceland to an exotic animal farm in Italy, The Last Animal takes readers on an expansive, bighearted journey that explores the possibility and peril of the human imagination on a changing planet, what it's like to be a woman and a mother in a field dominated by men, and how a wondrous discovery can best be enjoyed with family. Even teenagers.
Far Out! by Anne Bustard
Historical Mystery
April 18, 2023
It’s 1964, the Space Race is well underway, and eleven-year-old Magnolia Jean Crook and the other residents of Totter, Texas, are over the moon about UFOs.
The whole town is gearing up for the First Annual Come on Down Day—in just one week, they are hoping to host any and all space aliens who would like to visit Earth. But right before the kick-off party, a meteorite goes missing—and MJ’s beloved grandmother Mimi, who is the vice president of the Totter Unidentified Flying Object Organization, is the prime suspect.
MJ is desperate to show the town that this Crook is not a thief. The only problem is that there is a lot of evidence against her, and Mimi herself isn’t helping things. She’s acting suspiciously, pulling disappearing acts, and worst of all, can’t seem to answer any questions about where she was or what she was doing.
But much like UFOs, extraterrestrial visitations, and sending people to space, the impossible has been known to happen.
Why it caught my attention: A quirky historical setting and a mystery? What's not to like? The Space Race is one of my favorite time periods to read about. I guess I like the blend of science and paranoia.
In The Lives Of Puppets by TJ Klune
Adult Science Fiction
April 25, 2023
In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots—fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They're a family, hidden and safe.
The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled "HAP," he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio—a past spent hunting humans.
When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio's former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic's assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.
Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?
Why it caught my attention: Someday I'll read a TJ Klune book and learn what the hype is about. People are obsessed with them. I want to be obsessed too!
The Lake House by Sarah Beth Durst
Young Adult Thriller
April 25, 2023
Claire’s grown up triple-checking locks. Counting her steps. Second-guessing every decision. It’s just how she’s wired. Her worst-case scenarios never actually come true.
Until she arrives at an off-the-grid summer camp to find a blackened, burned husk instead of a lodge—and no survivors, except her and two other late arrivals: Reyva and Mariana.
When the three girls find a dead body in the woods, they realize none of this is an accident. Someone, something, is hunting them. Something that hides in the shadows. Something that refuses to let them leave.
Why it caught my attention: Summer camp murder mystery! With a possibly paranormal twist? And characters who have to survive in the wilderness? Sign me up.
Ascension by Nicholas Binge
Adult Horror
April 25, 2023
An enormous snow-covered mountain has appeared in the Pacific Ocean. No one knows when exactly it showed up, precisely how big it might be, or how to explain its existence. When Harold Tunmore, a scientist of mysterious phenomena, is contacted by a shadowy organization to help investigate, he has no idea what he is getting into as he and his team set out for the mountain.
The higher Harold’s team ascends, the less things make sense. Time moves differently, turning minutes into hours, and hours into days. Amid the whipping cold of higher elevation, the climbers’ limbs numb and memories of their lives before the mountain begin to fade. Paranoia quickly turns to violence among the crew, and slithering, ancient creatures pursue them in the snow. Still, as the dangers increase, the mystery of the mountain compels them to its peak, where they are certain they will find their answers. Have they stumbled upon the greatest scientific discovery known to man or the seeds of their own demise?
Why it caught my attention: A mountain survival book with creepy horror critters? That's a very "me" plot. It reminds me of The Hunger by Alma Katsu, which is one of my favorite horror novels.
Which April book releases are you looking forward to reading?
Ooh, Ascension sounds really good! There are so many books coming out this month!
ReplyDeleteSeveral of these sound super interesting, especially Ascension.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many wonderful books coming out in April!
ReplyDeleteYeah got to go with woolly mammoth all the way. Any novel like that about prehistoric animals is like catnip, right? Good pick.
ReplyDeleteI NEEED Ascension in my life. NEED. I liked The Lake House. Puppets was good, but not as good as Under the Whispering Door for me? But the characters are FABULOUS and make it worth it!
ReplyDeleteI'm loving the cover for The Lake House! I hope you enjoy all of these when you get to them. <3
ReplyDeleteGOOD DIFFERENT is fantastic - hope you get to that one! I am currently listening to UNDER THE WHISPERING DOOR, so PUPPETS will surely be on my list soon! (I adore the covers on Klune's books and I can't resist them!)
ReplyDelete