Wow! Where has 2020 gone? Despite being a globally challenging year overall, it’s still been an amazing year for book releases.
Fiction seems to be the most compelling genre—see: Lily King’s Writers & Lovers and Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half—as millions attempt to immerse ourselves in a book to escape the current political climate and COVID-19 crisis.
Then there are the more therapeutic books, like Lili Reinhart’s Swimming Lessons and Maggie Smith’s Keep Moving, that encourage us to practice more positive self-love.
There has been a long list of the 2020 book releases we’re looking forward to the most. But here are just a few tasters… enjoy!
Writers & Lovers
Following the breakout success of her critically acclaimed and award-winning novel Euphoria, Lily King returns with an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman.
Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she’s been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey’s fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink.
The Vanishing Half
The story begins in the 1940s but ends in the 1990s. It focuses on twin sisters, Desiree and Stella Vignes. From them, Bennett weaves threads back in time (as we learn about their parents) and forward (as the story follows their daughters). The novel takes on many themes of race and racism, including racial violence, racial identity, colorism, and racial passing. It also includes a transgender character and addresses transphobia. Finally, the book will speak to every reader regardless of identity, as it includes themes of family, trauma, leaving home, and becoming the person you choose to be.
The Vignes twins are from a fictional town in Louisiana called Mallard, which was created by their great-great-great grandfather—a former slave freed by his father, who owned him. The town was made for exclusively light-skinned black people such as himself. The population became lighter and lighter over time as its residents married only amongst themselves. Even so, prejudice ran rampant—both within the town, as the people of Mallard looked down on those with darker skin than themselves, and from outside the town. Desiree and Stella’s father was lynched by a gang of white men, and their mother spent her life cleaning for white people.
The residents of Mallard almost never leave.
The same families have lived in the town for generations. But the twins, at age 16, disappear one night and run off to New Orleans. After a year, however, they end up separated. The reader learns that Stella has “passed over” as white. She forms a new life entirely, entering into a white world and never looking back. Desiree, meanwhile, “married the darkest man she could find.”
But the novel doesn’t end there. It jumps to the lives of Desiree and Stellas’ daughters, one of whom is dark like her father, the other white and blonde. Their lives eventually intersect in an unexpected way. These events create ripples that reach back to their mothers. The jump in time emphasizes the ways that society’s views in regards to race had changed—or stayed the same—between the two generations.
The Vanishing Half offers a striking commentary on race that is deftly woven into the storylines of the characters.
It exposes the immense price paid by black people in a society that considers them lesser than, even if they look white. It also examines the cost of secrets, and how they can tear people apart. The way Bennett talks about loss, grief, and empathy is also incredibly moving. On top of all that, it is a fantastic read that will have you flying through the pages. I read The Vanishing Half in three days, and if you pick it up, I guarantee you will love it too.
Swimming Lessons
The second novel from the author of Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize and was a 2016 Richard and Judy Book Club Pick.
‘Thrilling, transporting, delicately realised and held together by a sophisticated sense of suspense … more than matches the power of Fuller’s debut … Powerful, pleasing and pleasurable.’ Sunday Times
Keep Moving
“A Poet for Times of Trouble.” –The Wall Street Journal “Keep Moving speaks to you like an encouraging friend reminding you that you can feel and survive deep loss, sink into life’s deep beauty, and constantly, constantly make yourself new.” –Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Untamed and Love Warrior
Cosmopolitan’s “Best Nonfiction Books of 2020”
Marie Claire’s “2020 Books You Should Pre-Order Now”
Parade’s “25 Self-Help Books To Get Your 2020 Off On The Right Foot”
The Washington Post’s “What to Read in 2020 Based on the Books You Loved in 2019”
For fans of Anne Lamott and Cleo Wade, a collection of quotes and essays on facing life’s challenges with creativity, courage, and resilience.
When Maggie Smith, the award-winning author of the viral poem “Good Bones,” started writing inspirational daily Twitter posts in the wake of her divorce, they unexpectedly caught fire. In this deeply moving book of quotes and essays, Maggie writes about new beginnings as opportunities for transformation. Like kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with gold, Keep Moving celebrates the beauty and strength on the other side of loss. This is a book for anyone who has gone through a difficult time and is wondering: What comes next?
