Fall is a crazy time in publishing. Every company is releasing their “biggest, hottest” (and award-worthy) titles, so there are usually a bunch of big hitters debuting at the same time. It can be a lot to navigate—but never fear, Get Lit is here! Check out our official September picks, and get reading!
This post was originally published on GetLiterary.com.
Do you love to watch Black Mirror on Netflix? Do you love dystopian fiction that’s set in the so near future that it seems like the narrative is something that could happen just a little too soon for your liking? Junior and Henrietta live on a farm in rural America with only each other for company. One day, a stranger from the big city arrives with unsettling news that causes a rift in their marriage. Junior has been randomly selected to live on a space colony, and he has no choice but to go. The most unusual part? Arrangements have already been made so that when he leaves, Hen will be left with an exact replica of Junior—a copy of him in every way, from his mannerisms to his appearance, someone who will hold his place until he returns to her. I could not put Foe down, and it’s the type of novel that as soon as you finish reading it, you want to talk to someone else who has read it to compare notes!
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Actress, activist, and all-around amazing America Ferrera has edited a new book called American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures. Working with thirty-one of her friends, peers, and heroes, America put together this collection of firsthand stories about what it’s like to grow up feeling caught between more than one culture, and perhaps feeling like you don’t belong to any. The contributors are people we know—they are actors, comedians, athletes, politicians, artists, and writers—and include Lin-Manuel Miranda, Roxane Gay, and Olympic skater Michelle Kwan. But they’re also immigrants, children or grandchildren of immigrants, indigenous people, and people who otherwise grew up with deep and personal connections to more than one culture. Their stories are about the struggle to establish a sense of self, find belonging, and feel seen in America. The collection runs the gamut from the heartfelt to the hilarious, and as a first-generation baby and an American, I’m here for all of it.
From award-winning actress and political activist America Ferrera comes a vibrant and varied collection of first person accounts from prominent figures about the experience of growing up between cultures.America Ferrera has always felt wholly American, and yet, her identity is inextricably linked to her parents’ homeland and Honduran culture. Speaking Spanish at home, having Saturday-morning-salsa-dance-parties in the kitchen, and eating tamales alongside apple pie at Christmas never seemed at odds with her American identity. Still, she yearned to see that identity reflected in the larger American narrative. Now, in American Like Me, America invites thirty-one of her friends, peers, and heroes to share their stories about life between cultures. We know them as actors, comedians, athletes, politicians, artists, and writers. However, they are also immigrants, children or grandchildren of immigrants, indigenous people, or people who otherwise grew up with deep and personal connections to more than one culture. Each of them struggled to establish a sense of self, find belonging, and feel seen. And they call themselves American enthusiastically, reluctantly, or not at all. Ranging from the heartfelt to the hilarious, their stories shine a light on a quintessentially American experience and will appeal to anyone with a complicated relationship to family, culture, and growing up.
Looking for a light + fun rom-com story? Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating is exactly that. Josh was Hazel’s TA in college and they quickly became friends, but lost touch after graduating. Seven years later, they run into each other again at a mutual friends’ backyard BBQ.
After Hazel’s apartment floods and a cheating girlfriend turns Josh’s life upside down, their meddling friend—Emily, who also happens to be Josh’s sister—suggests that Hazel stay with Josh. Living together leads them both to realize that they need to get back into the dating game…. The hilarity ensues when Josh and Hazel decide to set each other up on progressively terrible double blind dates.
Most men can’t handle Hazel. But her best friend Josh isn’t most men. Don’t miss New York Times bestselling author Christina Lauren’s new novel about two people who are definitely not dating…no matter how often they end up in bed together.
Hazel Camille Bradford knows she’s a lot to take—and frankly, most men aren’t up to the challenge. If her army of pets and thrill for the absurd don’t send them running, her lack of filter means she’ll say exactly the wrong thing in a delicate moment. Their loss. She’s a good soul in search of honest fun.
Josh Im has known Hazel since college, where her zany playfulness proved completely incompatible with his mellow restraint. From the first night they met—when she gracelessly threw up on his shoes—to when she sent him an unintelligible email while in a post-surgical haze, Josh has always thought of Hazel more as a spectacle than a peer. But now, ten years later, after a cheating girlfriend has turned his life upside down, going out with Hazel is a breath of fresh air.
Not that Josh and Hazel date. At least, not each other. Because setting each other up on progressively terrible double blind dates means there’s nothing between them...right?
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#Adulting is hard. Managing your finances to make sure that you can pay your bills, be a bridesmaid in your besties’ weddings, and have some money to put towards your 401(k) can be a challenge. In Refinery29 Money Diaries, people from around the country are letting you look inside how they spend their money. They reveal how they spend, save, and hide the purchases they make from their SOs.
But the author won’t just tell you how others are spending/saving their money. She also shares tips on how you can save and pay off those nightmarish student loans and still have some fun with your girlfriends.
Does it feel like you’re NEVER going to finish paying back your student loans? Do you spend more on coffee per month than you put into your 401(k)? Do you avoid looking at your bank balance because it’s easier to live in denial? The first step to getting your financial life in order is tracking what you spend.Money Diaries, the breakout series from Refinery29, offers readers a revealing and often surprising look at the personal finances of others: what they spend, how they save, and even the purchases they hide from their partners and friends. Featuring all-new Money Diaries, valuable advice on how to get rich (and afford life in the meantime) from a handpicked team of female financial advisers, and money challenges that will save you up to $500, Refinery29 Money Diaries will empower you to take immediate control of your own money, including: • Why budgets are bulls&!t and what to do instead • How to make repaying your loans as painless as possible • How to start an emergency fund even if you’re living paycheck to paycheck • How to effectively ask for a raise and make sure you’re being paid fairly • How to have fun without going broke • The joy of saving for future you With a vision of what your dream bank account balance looks like, some expert advice to help you achieve it, and the support of a powerful community with the same goal, you’ll be a step closer to taking control of not just your wallet, but your life.
Love, sex, drugs, and dreams. This is Katerina, at least on the surface. From the author of A Million Little Pieces, a sensational memoir injected with fiction, comes a work of fiction brimming with the personal truths of a memoir.
Alternating between time lines, Katerina is, at its narrative core, a love story. When Jay, an emerging writer entrenched in the debaucheries of being an angsty American youth in Paris, meets the gorgeous, sharp-witted Katerina, there is no turning back. The romance is sweeping, erotic, hopeful, yet crushing. Twenty-six years later, Jay lives in Los Angeles with his wife and children. He is rich, famous, and entirely disenchanted with his life when he receives an anonymous message, which draws his consciousness back to 1992 Paris.
Author James Frey is controversial, and his characters also inspire a conflicting range of emotions. There are no good guys or bad guys in Katerina. There are only people struggling with themselves and occasionally with each other. With these characters, it’s clear that James Frey has something to say, and his urgency and signature style is wholly refreshing. Ultimately, Katerina is polarizing, and you’ll hear lots from both sides of the fence, but it will get you thinking and talking. That is Frey’s brilliance.
From the New York Times bestselling author of A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning comes Katerina, James Frey’s highly anticipated new novel set in 1992 Paris and contemporary Los Angeles.A kiss, a touch. A smile and a beating heart. Love and sex and dreams, art and drugs and the madness of youth. Betrayal and heartbreak, regret and pain, the melancholy of age. Katerina, the explosive new novel by America’s most controversial writer, is a sweeping love story alternating between 1992 Paris and Los Angeles in 2018. At its center are a young writer and a young model on the verge of fame, both reckless, impulsive, addicted, and deeply in love. Twenty-five years later, the writer is rich, famous, and numb, and he wants to drive his car into a tree, when he receives an anonymous message that draws him back to the life, and possibly the love, he abandoned years prior. Written in the same percussive, propulsive, dazzling, breathtaking style as A Million Little Pieces, Katerina echoes and complements that most controversial of memoirs, and plays with the same issues of fiction and reality that created, nearly destroyed, and then recreated James Frey in the American imagination.
Caitlin's Pick
It’s going to be a challenge to find something to read as good as The Lost Queen by Signe Pike for quite some time. Fall is the perfect opportunity to dive into this captivating work of medieval historical fiction, packed with battles, royal politics, a forbidden romance, and a little bit of magic. The story follows Languoreth, twin sister of the man that would inspire the Arthurian legend of Merlin, from girlhood into her reign as queen. Pike masterfully transports the reader into the forests and fortresses of 6th-century Scotland. She provides a strong female protagonist for a time period not often seen from a woman’s perspective as Languoreth has to choose between duty and desire and maneuver various challenges on her rise to power. I could not put this book down: I found myself waking up before my alarm (and my kids) just so I could devour a few more pages. I may have even lugged the book around with me to squeeze in just a sentence or two on the elevator rides between meetings—research for work, right? Luckily for me (and you), this is the first installment of the trilogy, so hopefully I won’t have to wait too long for my next fix!
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She may have first stolen our hearts in movies like Legally Blonde and Sweet Home Alabama, but we’ve only grown to love Reese Witherspoon more over the years as we’ve seen the incredible work she puts in behind the scenes too. Not only has she poured her to-die-for sense of style into a southern lifestyle brand, Draper James, but she has also proved herself once again to be a powerhouse media influencer with her female-centric production company Hello Sunshine, which developed Big Little Lies (maybe you heard about it???) for TV at HBO. Oh, yeah, and she happens to be a fellow book lover whose Hello Sunshine Book Club picks are instant must-reads. So to say that I was excited to hear she’d written a book would be a massive understatement, and Whiskey in a Teacup totally delivers.
Warm and inviting, Whiskey in a Teacup reads like a love letter from Reese to her fans, combining reflections on her childhood and family life with insights into her personal approach to decorating and entertaining. Expect peeks into her beautiful Nashville home, family recipes, hot-roller technique, and so much more. If you enjoy following Reese Witherspoon on Instagram, believe me when I say you haven’t seen anything yet!
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Get Lit Pick
Looking to switch things up in your TBR? We’re loving the new Instagram trend of poetry accounts. One of our favs is Atticus. His new collection The Dark Between Stars features poetry that explores the dualities of our lived experiences. And tries to answer the question of how to live with purpose.
