Close your eyes and picture the end of the world. Is it a flood? A war? A disease? After reading these August new releases, your version of the world's end might be radically altered. A theme running through the new releases of August is endings — either of the world, or of characters' worlds.
In some speculative books out this month, like Severance by Ling Ma and Vox by Christina Dalcher, protagonists have to navigate worlds drastically reshaped by a global events, like pandemic ( Severance), or a policy that limits women's speech to less than 100 words a day ( Vox). Haemi Lee, the central character of Crystal Hana Kim's wrenching debut If You Leave Me, sees her conception of "normal" completely erased by war. But endings can also be narrower, more personal — and no less wrenching. Two exquisite novels out this month, Let Me Be Like Water by S.K. Perry and The Third Hotel by Laura Van Den Berg, explore the grief of losing a partner, and losing the life that had been yours together.
Perhaps the most extreme ending is the one which looms over the memoir Judas by Astrid Holleeder. In the novel, Holleeder, a criminal lawyer, explains her decision to testify against her brother, Willem "Wim" Holleeder, one of the Netherlands' most notorious criminals. Holleeder writes in hiding. Every day, her life is in danger.
Many of the books in this round-up depict uprooted lives. Luckily, there's Maeve Higgins' Maeve in America, which will provide the laughter to soothe your soul.
Judas: How a Sister's Testimony Brought Down a Criminal Mastermind, Astrid Holleeder
August 9
Guaranteed, you’ve never read a memoir like Judas,already a runaway hit the Netherlands where it was first published. Judas is the story of Astrid Holleeder, the criminal lawyer who decided to testify against her brother, crime kingpin Willem “Wim” Holleeder, knowing it would put her life in grave danger. Holleeder is currently in hiding as she waits to testify. Reading Holleeder’s matter-of-fact account of the years leading to this decision gives the uncanny sensation of reading a death wish.
Open Me, Lisa Locascio
August 7
Open Me will remind you, viscerally, of the heady joys (and terrors) of being 18 and discovering the boundlessness of your pleasure, discovering what your body could do. Due to an administrative mix-up, rising freshman Roxane Olsen is sent to Copenhagen for a summer program, not Paris with her friend. Instead of linking up with the student group, Roxane ends up running away with an older man who takes her to his remote hometown. When the skewed power dynamics in that relationship become too much to bear, Roxane meets another alluring man. If you’re seeking an erotic coming-of-age story, this is it.
Maeve in America, Maeve Higgins
August 9
Let's get this out of the way: Maeve Higgins is funny. So funny you will laugh multiple times while reading each of these essays, replete with uncanny imagery and off-the-wall situations. So funny that, at 31, she was confident enough in her career as an Irish comic to make it in America. Higgins expertly threads important social commentary amid the hilarity. Maeve in America is a satisfying essay collection that is as stimulating as it is funny. It’s a great book to read and then to give to a friend.
This Mournable Body, Tsitsi Dangaremba
August 7
Tambudzai, the young Zimbabwean woman at the center of Tsitsi Dangaremba's masterpiece Nervous Conditions, continues her story in This Mournable Body. It's Zimbabwe at the end of the 20th century, and Tambudzai's bright-eyed excitement has dulled with the realities of the world. After a string of dissatisfying jobs, Tambudzai agrees to work for an ecotourism company. She's sent to her parents' homestead and instructed to "spin" it for tourists.
Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens
August 14
Kya Clark was raised by the South Carolinian marsh. Thanks to Owens' vivid descriptions, we're immersed in the sights and sounds of Kya's home. Not that Kya had much of a family to raise her. Kya’s mom walked out, her older siblings dispersed, and her father drank his days away. Though she’s shunned by the small town for being a "marsh girl," Kya finds comfort in the company of two local boys entranced by her beauty. When one boy ends up dead in 1969, the town immediately persecutes Kya. Delia Owens’ debut novel is a nature-infused romance with a killer twist.
A River of Stars, Vanessa Hua
August 14
You’ll be rooting for Scarlett Chen, the protagonist of Vanessa Hua's A River of Stars, from page one. Scarlett is pregnant with the long awaited son of a rich Chinese mogul. He sends her to a maternity center in United States so his heir can be born on American soil. But after an ultrasound reveals the truth about her baby, Scarlett escapes from the center of Chinese women waiting to give birth and heads into the vast unknown of America. It's a page-turner about immigration, motherhood, and the lengths we'll go for the lives we want.
Flights, Olga Tokarczuk, trans. Jennifer Croft
August 14
Flights is the first Polish book to win the Man Booker International Prize. Don’t expect a conventional narrative when approaching Flights. This innovative read is broken up into a variety of short, esoteric chapters about travel and the human body, set in time periods from the 17th century to today.
Severance, Ling Ma
August 14
The end of the world begins so subtly that Candace hardly notices. Instead, she goes to work at her dull office job, to which she’s inordinately committed. Soon, a fatal virus spreads that kills people through an erosion of memory. Ling Ma’s literary apocalypse novel alternates between Candace's past in New York and the present, where she's traveling with a band of survivors controlled by an authoritative former IT technician. Ma creates a cohesive portrait of a woman slightly disconnected from the world, even before the virus.
Let Me Be Like Water, S.K. Perry
August 14
On the surface, Let Me Be Like Water isn't about much: A twenty-something woman named Holly moves from London to the coastal town of Brighton, and ingratiates herself with the community. However, because of this simple plot construction, Let Me Be Like Water is able to be a novel about everything — or rather, the things that matter. The novel explores grief, love, friendship, and the process of moving on from a future you were sure was yours. Let Me Be Like Water is a truly cathartic, “chicken soup for the soul” read.
Vox, Christina Dalcher
August 23
If the news doesn’t terrify you enough, Christina Dalcher’s chilling dystopia, Vox, will do trick by page three — our guarantee. Dalcher, a linguist by trade, creates a future America in which women and girls are limited to speaking 100 words a day or less. Jean, a mother of four, struggles under the oppressive regime. When the government enlists her expertise to develop a kind of serum and promises to remove her word-count bracelet, she experiences temporary freedom. But what is the cost of helping the government? Vox is a real page-turner that will appeal to people with big imaginations and enough of a masochistic streak to last them through more than one season of The Handmaid’s Tale.
The Air You Breathe, Frances de Pontes Peebles
August 21
This epic novel will transport you to places as far-flung as Brazil’s heyday of samba and Los Angeles’ Golden Age of Hollywood. But what will keep you reading is Frances de Pontes Peebles' description of a friendship that bridged socioeconomic classes during their youths, and shifted and persisted throughout the girls’ lives. Dores is 9 years old and working as a chambermaid when she meets Graça, the daughter of a sugar baron. One a singer and the other a songwriter, they’ll chart each other’s paths towards fame, a journey laced with treachery and excitement.
Praise Song for the Butterflies, Bernice L. McFadden
August 28
Until the day her family's fortune turns, 9-year-old Abeo had lived a privileged life in the fictional West African nation of Ukemby. She enjoyed dinners out, driving in the Mercedes, and visits from her American aunt. Then, after months of hardship, her father turns to the Ukemben religion he'd abandoned and sells his daughter to a priest, hoping the sacrifice will turn the family's luck around. Praise Song for the Butterflies is written like a fable — one of devastation, but triumph, too. Bernice L. McFadden's novel sheds light on the long practice of trokosi, ritual servitude to priests.
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