Vance, a former U.S. Attorney and author of the Civil Discourse newsletter, debuts with a forceful call for America’s civil institutions to be bolstered to resist, and eventually leave behind, Trumpism. The most important element of the fight, she argues, is defending the rule of law (i.e., the principle that even the president is accountable to the law) against “would-be dictator” Trump, who in his second term is explicitly attempting to undermine the legal system. (Such efforts on the part of the Trump administration include both “outright refusal to comply with a court’s decision” and “delegitimizing” judges who rule against the administration’s new policies.) Vance gives a useful and accessible account of how the rule of law has been created, debated, and challenged in the U.S. for centuries, from the Federalist Papers to the civil rights movement. Her advice can feel a little obvious, urging readers to protect the right to vote and not “permit the public discourse to be framed” in a way advantageous to Trump’s agenda (such as saying negative things about public sector workers). Still, there’s an edifying quality to such blunt resistance talk. Readers in need of a morale boost will want to check this out. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 12/05/2025 | Details & Permalink

Cognitive scientist Shankar debuts with a pragmatic, research-based guide to surviving life’s biggest disruptions. Upon learning, after years of trying, that she and her husband couldn’t have children, Shankar sought out others who’d experienced major upheavals to their life plans and spoke with them about how they’d successfully negotiated such changes. Examples include Olivia Lewis, a college student who battled through the aftermath of a catastrophic stroke by letting go of her obsession with others’ approval and investing in her recovery; Dwayne Betts, who was inspired to start writing poetry in prison by a fellow inmate who was making the most of his sentence; and Matt Gutman, a broadcast journalist who escaped a spiral of self-recrimination following an on-air error by “zooming out” to consider other people’s takes on the situation. Though not all of Shankar’s insights are groundbreaking, her explanations of the cognitive science involved are lucid and memorable. For instance, writing of how Gutman sought external feedback on his mistake, she observes that “emboldening others to poke holes in our narratives” can “create small openings through which we can forge new mental pathways.” Readers facing their own hinge points will be informed and inspired. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 12/05/2025 | Details & Permalink

Pennsylvania senator Fetterman reflects on his political rise and simultaneous struggles with depression and a stroke in this uncomfortably raw memoir. The account opens with Fetterman contemplating suicide on a bridge during his 2022 Senate campaign. From there, he traces his political trajectory—from winning the mayoral race in Braddock, Pa., by just one vote to his longshot Senate victory against Mehmet Oz (with two chapters devoted to the devolution of his relationship with then Pennsylvania attorney general Josh Shapiro over their roles on the Board of Pardons). Throughout he expresses ample ire at the Democratic Party, including over its “policies against men.” But the political largely takes a backseat to the personal, as Fetterman focuses on his family and staff’s attempts to help him during his health battles, from cajoling him to go to the hospital during his stroke (“John, you are dying,” his brother Gregg told him) to encouraging him to be hospitalized for severe depression. These recollections are moving, but at times Fetterman’s openness can be disconcerting, including his dwelling on his “unplanned” birth, his second-guessing of his Senate run (“I should have quit”), his attempts to skip his own swearing-in ceremony, and his unraveling paranoia while in the Senate (“I began to convince myself there was a plot to have me committed”). It makes for a disquieting dispatch from a sitting senator. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 12/05/2025 | Details & Permalink

LaQuette follows Vanessa Jared’s Got a Man with a spirited second-chance romance. After a contentious divorce, nurse anesthetist and proud mama bear Janae Sanders is just fine with the only man in her life being her teenage son, James. But she’s sorely tempted after her high school rival and secret crush returns to town. Following a stint in the NBA and 20 years teaching in New York City, Adam Henderson (who, back in the day, nursed his own crush on Janae) heads home to tiny Monroe Hills, Pa., to look after his father and take a job as the high school’s interim superintendent. Tasked with tightening the budget, he cuts the arts program that James loves. Janae, president of the PTA, jumps in to find a way to save the program. Though at odds, Janae and Adam’s chemistry is undeniable. Despite his ornery father’s objections, Adam is all in on a relationship but Janae fears putting her heart on the line. LaQuette’s protagonists leap off the page, and she makes their path back to each other vibrant and believable. This is good fun. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 12/05/2025 | Details & Permalink

Former Doubleday executive editor Howard debuts with a thrilling biography of writer, editor, and literary critic Malcolm Cowley (1898–1989). Born and raised in rural Pennsylvania, Cowley graduated from Harvard before moving to Paris in the 1920s, where he fell in with the Lost Generation, an experience he later documented in his influential memoir Exile’s Return. He spent much of the 1930s as the literary editor of the New Republic. Radicalized by the Great Depression, he became a prominent supporter of communism, which eventually cost him his editorship in 1941. Then in financial straits, he was given a lifeline by the Mellon Foundation in the form of a grant that enabled him to mount “one of the most important rescue missions in American literary history”: a critical reassessment of the works of William Faulkner, who had fallen into near-obscurity by the mid-1940s. The project culminated in Viking’s 1946 publication of The Portable Faulkner, a compendium edited and introduced by Cowley that repositioned Faulkner as a great American novelist on par with Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Faulkner went on to win the Nobel Prize in 1950.) Howard chronicles Cowley’s many other literary contributions, including how he worked tirelessly to convince Viking to publish Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Deeply researched and thoroughly entertaining, this is a must-read for literature fans. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 12/05/2025 | Details & Permalink

Mount Shasta, Calif., high school senior Izumi Tanaka is a normal 18-year-old American girl: she enjoys baking, watching Real Housewives, and dressing like “Lululemon’s sloppy sister.” But Japanese American Izzy, conceived during a one-night stand in her mother Hanako’s final year at Harvard, has never known the identity of her father. So when she and her best friend find a letter in Hanako’s bedroom, the duo jump at the chance to ferret out Izzy’s dad’s true identity—only to find out he’s the Crown Prince of Japan. Desperate to know her father, Izzy agrees to spend the summer in his home country. But press surveillance, pressure to quickly learn the language and etiquette, and an unexpected romance make her time in Tokyo more fraught than she imagined. Add in a medley of cousins and an upcoming wedding, and Izzy is in for an unforgettable summer. Abrupt switches from Izzy’s perspective to lyrical descriptions of Japan may disrupt readers’ enjoyment, but a snarky voice plus interspersed text conversations and tabloid coverage keep the pages turning in Jean’s (Empress of All Seasons) fun, frothy, and often heartfelt duology starter. Ages 12–up. Agent: Erin Harris, Folio Literary Management. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Kelkar’s (Bindu’s Bindis) novel features Oceanview Academy middle schooler Sonali, whose stoicism contrasts with her love of Bollywood movies’ melodrama. Stuck in a Los Angeles home with constantly arguing parents and her sensitive nine-year-old brother Ronak, Gujarati American Sonali, 11, tries to make sense of her world through the Hindi movies she’s seen all her life. Ever since an earnest public attempt five years ago to stop her parents’ fighting led to widespread embarrassment in front of family, Sonali has resolved to hide her emotions and do her best to ignore her parents’ arguments. But her efforts prove futile when her parents decide to try the “nesting” method of separation, where they take turns living in the house with Sonali and Ronak. The contemporary narrative takes an entertaining fabulist turn as Sonali’s life begins to transform into a Bollywood movie, with everything she feels and thinks made apparent through her “Bollywooditis.” Sonali’s first-person perspective is sympathetic as she navigates friendship and family drama, and Kelkar successfully infuses a resonant narrative with “filmi magic,” offering a tale with universal appeal through an engaging cultural lens. Ages 8–12. Agent: Kathleen Rushall, Andrea Brown Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

When she was six, Justice Kasric watched her blue-eyed merchant father play chess with the Faerie King. Now 15, Justice believes the event was merely a dream. She spends her days yearning for adventure, watching from the sidelines while her 16-year-old sister Faith, as slender and golden-haired as Justice but not as curious, becomes the toast of Victorian London society. One night, however, their father shatters their comfortable lifestyles when he forces the family—Justice, Faith, their younger brother Henry, and their constantly medicated, distant mother—into a locked carriage that takes them to a shadowy mansion. Justice’s discovery that the Faerie have invaded the human world and are targeting her family gains further urgency when she learns that her parents are on opposite sides of the conflict. Together, the Kasric siblings—including older brothers Benedict and Joshua—must find a way to save their family. While characters lack depth at times, and insufficient historical details don’t fully evoke the Victorian setting, Klaver’s (the Supernatural Case Files of Sherlock Holmes series) rich, lyrical descriptions augment the fantastical source material in this engaging series starter. Ages 13–up. Agent: Lucienne Diver, the Knight Agency. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Nine years before this novel begins, eight-year-old best friends Esme Randal and Kayla Price snuck out of their cabin at Camp Pine Lake in Texas. They swore never to discuss the terrible events that followed, but when the girls, now 17, return to the camp as counselors-in-training from their hometown of Lewisburg, Pa., that proves easier said than done. Someone begins sabotaging camp activities, and ominous—and increasingly public—threats appear, referencing that fateful summer. The only other person who knows Esme and Kayla’s secret is a local girl named Lillian Campbell, whom they left to fend for herself that night in the woods. They’re loath to voice their suspicions of revenge lest they get in trouble or look bad in front of hunky fellow counselors Jake and Olly, but as events escalate, they realize they may not have a choice. Narrating from Esme’s increasingly apprehensive first-person perspective, Preston (The Twin) pays homage to classic summer camp slasher films. The underdeveloped, predominantly white cast relies heavily on stereotype, and the clichéd tormenter’s motive feels unearned, but horror fans will likely appreciate this paranoia-fueled tale’s gruesome, shocking close. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jon Elek, United Agents. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Inspired by her own family’s refugee journey from Vietnam to Hong Kong, Văn’s (If You Were Night) spare picture book, powerful in its deliberate simplicity, follows a black-haired, pale-skinned child as they, their guardian, and two younger siblings join other asylum seekers for a perilous maritime voyage. In a third-person voice, Văn anthropomorphizes objects, relaying their wishes: “The dream wished it was longer,” one spread reads, as a balding, mustached guardian holds the protagonist close, and a guardian with a bun rouses the second child to dress them. “The clock wished it was slower,” the subsequent pages read, as the two children tearfully hug their mustached guardian goodbye. The narrative continues as the now family of four make their way onto the boat and beyond. A final-act switch to first-person perspective drives home the journey’s personal nature. Intricate, lissome fine-lined art by Ngai (Dazzle Ships) recalls classical Asian compositions, Japanese woodblock prints, and an evocative sensibility in a gradated, surrealistic color palette. A seamless interweaving of elegant prose and atmospheric art marks this affecting immigrant narrative. Back matter includes heartfelt author’s and illustrator’s notes. Ages 4–8. (May)

Correction: A previous version of this review misquoted the book's text.

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink