It’s Wednesday again, which means it’s time to play one of my favourite games: judge the book by the cover. Today I’ll be looking at Goodreads’ top 5 new releases of April in the fiction genre. Other new releases of April 2018 can be found by genre right here on Goodreads.
I’m guessing the first book is something very feminist and judging by the colours and the lines, taking place in those hippie 60s days. No idea what the second book is about, but I’m guessing it’s psychological. As for the third book, I first thought it was a heart on the cover, leading me to believe it’s some kind of medical drama. But I have no idea what the cover is actually supposed to represent. There’s a lot of red and it’s a creepy font, so I’m guessing it will be something darker, maybe something to do with some kind of violent crime? Hmmm, interesting fourth cover! I’m guessing the main characters are a little bit younger, young couples perhaps? A neighbourhood comparing lives? About the whole “is the grass greener on the other side”-thing? The fifth book is obviously a tear-jerker where someone is dying and someone else is fighting it. Those are all five books. Let’s see how I did!
- The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer
Publication date: April 3rd, 2018
Greer Kadetsky is a shy college freshman when she meets the woman she hopes will change her life. Faith Frank, dazzlingly persuasive and elegant at sixty-three, has been a central pillar of the women’s movement for decades, a figure who inspires others to influence the world. Upon hearing Faith speak for the first time, Greer–madly in love with her boyfriend, Cory, but still full of longing for an ambition that she can’t quite place–feels her inner world light up. Then, astonishingly, Faith invites Greer to make something out of that sense of purpose, leading Greer down the most exciting path of her life as it winds toward and away from her meant-to-be love story with Cory and the future she’d always imagined. - You Think It, I’ll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld
Publication date: April 24th, 2018
A suburban mother of two fantasizes about the downfall of an old friend whose wholesome lifestyle empire may or may not be built on a lie. A high-powered lawyer honeymooning with her husband is caught off guard by the appearance of the girl who tormented her in high school. A shy Ivy League student learns the truth about a classmate’s seemingly enviable life. Throughout the ten stories in You Think It, I’ll Say It, Sittenfeld upends assumptions about class, relationships, and gender roles in a nation that feels both adrift and viscerally divided. Indeed, she writes what we’re all thinking—if only we could express it with the wit of a master satirist, the storytelling gifts of an old-fashioned raconteur, and the vision of an American original. - How to Be Safe by Tom McAllister
Publication date: April 3rd, 2018
Former Teacher Had Motive. Recently suspended for a so-called outburst, high school English teacher Anna Crawford is stewing over the injustice at home when she is shocked to see herself named on television as a suspect in a shooting at the school where she works. Though she is quickly exonerated, and the actual teenage murderer identified, her life is nevertheless held up for relentless scrutiny and judgment as this quiet town descends into media mania. Gun sales skyrocket, victims are transformed into martyrs, and the rules of public mourning are ruthlessly enforced. Anna decides to wholeheartedly reject the culpability she’s somehow been assigned, and the rampant sexism that comes with it, both in person and online. - Other People’s Houses by Abbi Waxman
Publication date: April 3rd, 2018
At any given moment in other people’s houses, you can find… repressed hopes and dreams, moments of unexpected joy, someone making love on the floor to a man who is most definitely not her husband… As the longtime local carpool mom, Frances Bloom is sometimes an unwilling witness to her neighbors’ private lives. She knows her cousin is hiding her desire for another baby from her spouse, Bill Horton’s wife is mysteriously missing, and now this… After the shock of seeing Anne Porter in all her extramarital glory, Frances vows to stay in her own lane. But that’s a notion easier said than done when Anne’s husband throws her out a couple of days later. The repercussions of the affair reverberate through the four carpool families–and Frances finds herself navigating a moral minefield that could make or break a marriage. - Before I Let You Go by Kelly Rimmer
Publication date: April 3rd, 2018
The 2:00 a.m. call is the first time Lexie Vidler has heard her sister’s voice in years. Annie is a drug addict, a thief, a liar—and in trouble, again. Lexie has always bailed Annie out, given her money, a place to sleep, sent her to every kind of rehab. But this time, she’s not just strung out—she’s pregnant and in premature labor. If she goes to the hospital, she’ll lose custody of her baby—maybe even go to prison. But the alternative is unthinkable. As weeks unfold, Lexie finds herself caring for her fragile newborn niece while her carefully ordered life is collapsing around her. She’s in danger of losing her job, and her fiancé only has so much patience for Annie’s drama. In court-ordered rehab, Annie attempts to halt her downward spiral by confronting long-buried secrets from the sisters’ childhood, ghosts that Lexie doesn’t want to face. But will the journey heal Annie, or lead her down a darker path?
In general, the covers of fiction books are harder to judge, since it can go in so many directions. And sometimes, the cover gives so little information, like with the second and third book! But let’s see if I guessed right with the first book. Hmm, the blurb doesn’t really mention the time it’s set, so I can’t really say if I judged that right or not. Oh nice, the second book is a collection of short stories that sound interesting. It does seem to be quite psychological, but less in the Jekyll and Hyde way that I imagined. I was kind of right with the third book: there is a violent crime. I don’t even want to talk about the rest, because, again, it’s such a typical American contemporary book. School shootings, sexism, and online harassment all thrown together in one. Boring! I’m going to give myself the point for the fourth cover, though! Four families whose lives intersect and how they deal with all of it. Unfortunately, no point for the fifth book though. It’s not about death and I think it’s less tear-jerking and much more psychological and at times frustrating. Not something I’d read, because I’d be throwing the book through the room…
No new books on my to-be-read list this week!
Happy reading,
Loes M.