September 2020 Book Releases To Read & Skip

In post World War II Japan, Nori, the illegitimate daughter of a Japanese aristocrat and a Black American GI, is hidden away on her grandmother’s estate to hide the family shame. All Nori knows is the attic she is confined to until she meets her legitimate half-brother, Akira, a boy who shows her the world contains so much more.Of all the September 2020 book releases I’ve read, Fifty Words for Rain and is vying for one of my best books of the year. You’ll love this complicated story about family shame and the need for acceptance. Now I just need everyone to read it so I have someone to discuss the ending with! 5 stars. Read more →

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Dutton through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

After a failed bank robbery, a banker robber on the run accidentally ends up with a room full of hostages at an open house. After letting all of the hostages go, the police storm the apartment, only to find it empty. Now the police must interview the dysfunctional group to figure out what exactly happened.Less mystery and more character study, Backman does an excellent job purposefully playing with your assumptions about the character. However, I didn’t love the book, partly because the unusual narration kept everything at an arm’s length. You don’t even learn the characters’ names until partway through the story.

In all, Backman basically preaches to the reader about how we need compassion because we are all flawed, which some people will love but I found a bit offputting. 3 Stars. Read more →

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Atria through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

When Dawn Edelstein is in a plane crash, her last thoughts are not of her husband, but of a man she hasn’t seen in fifteen years. When she miraculously survives, Dawn has a choice to make. Should she return to her husband and try to work out their marriage? Or should she run away to Egypt to pursue a man and a degree that she left behind?If I could describe The Book of Two Ways in one word, it would be boring. From the start, Picoult drowns you in information. To make it worse, it’s not even interesting information.

Each chapter I hoped it would get better, but it only got worse. Flirting that takes two pages to explain is not cute. Eventually, I gave up completely and decided that any way you slice it, Picoult’s story was mind-numbingly dull. Trust me, you’ll regret picking up this book. DNF. Read more →

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Random House through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Sydney Green is dismayed by the gentrifying of her Brooklyn neighborhood. The more she researches her neighborhood’s history, the more she wonders: Were the residents pushed out, or is there something more sinister going on?Cole took a promising premise and completely tanked it, failing to use any nuance or subtlety. Unwilling to commit to the unreliable narrator genre, Cole’s portrayal of Sydney ends up just being off. Add in a forced romance and you have two highly unlikeable protagonists. Further, the rest of the white characters were unabashedly racist, with no attempt to hide it.

The plot slowly lurches forward in fits and starts until everything slams you at the ending, where things just get stranger and stranger. My advice: stay far away from this September book release. 2 Stars. Read more →

I received a complimentary copy of this book from William Morrow through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Guy Raz has a new September book release based on his popular NPR podcast. Having interviewed hundreds of successful entrepreneurs, Raz has all the insights you need to build your business. Reminding me of Malcolm Gladwell or Charles Duhigg, Raz outlines the steps to building a successful business with interesting anecdotes. Yet, Raz isn’t as strong a writer as either Gladwell or Duhigg so I felt the book lacked the magic of their books. My suggestion: skip the book in favor of the podcast. 3 Stars. Read more →

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Kyle and Kimberly were the perfect high school sweethearts. Until graduation night when Kyle’s world is completely upended. Just as Kimberly breaks up with him, they get into a car crash and she is killed. Kyle feels completely lost until he meets Marley, a girl grieving her own loss. Although not as good as Five Feet Apart, All This Time was still an enjoyable contemporary young adult read. Watching Kyle process through his grief and understanding Kim’s need to find herself away from her relationship with Kyle were both great themes for teens to read. Inconsistencies in Marley’s character that nagged me throughout the book were cleverly explained with the story’s twist. Yet the twist veered the story in a direction I didn’t particularly love, crafting a completely unrealistic fairy-tale ending. 3 Stars. Read more →

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Simon and Schuster through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

At an exclusive French ski resort, the shareholders for the up-and-coming social media company Snoop must decide on an offer a billion-dollar sale. One person doesn’t make it back to the lodge after skiing, and things go from bad to worse when an avalanche hits threatening them all. Would someone be willing to resort to murder to get their way? Read more →

In the Midnight Library, there are two books – one book for the life you’ve lived and one for the one you could have lived. Nora Seed must decide which book to choose from. What if she had made different choices? Would her life truly have been better?  Read more →

In her fifth year studying neuroscience at Stanford, Gifty is determined to find the cause of suffering, studying depression and addiction in mice. The further she dives into the science, the more her childhood faith seems to call to her. Can faith or science alleviate the suffering she sees in her family of Ghanaian immigrants struggling with depression, addiction, and grief? Read more →

Elissa R. Sloan’s debut novel hints at the dark side of superstardom. Overnight, Cassidy Holmes and her band The Glossies become a pop phenomenon. But with success comes overbearing media attention, band drama, and utter loneliness that eventually results in Cassidy’s suicide. Jumping back and forth between past and present, The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes is being hailed as a heartbreaking novel reminiscent of Daisy Jones & The Six. Read more →

Update: See my full review on my Reading List. 

A retired widow visited by a childhood friend. A man introducing his newborn daughter to his estranged father. A taxi driver in Hawaii receiving an alarming phone call. Three unrelated storylines tie together in unexpected ways in this novel of family and friendship. Read more →

While surveying an uncolonized planet, xenobiologist Kira Navárez discovers a relic that thrusts her into first contact with an alien race. First contact isn’t at all what Kira imagined, and now she finds herself the last and best hope for humanity at the brink of extinction. Read more →

Thirty years after publishing The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett has written a prequel revealing the events that led up to his epic work. At the end of the Dark Ages in England, one man’s determination to make his abbey the center of learning changes the lives of a boatbuilder, a noblewoman, and the monk in unexpected ways. Read more →

At the cutthroat school of magic, Scholomance, students are expected to graduate or die. The main rules: don’t ever walk the hallways alone for monsters lurk everywhere. When El begins to learn the school’s secrets, she thinks she can rid the school of monsters. Unfortunately, her powerful magic might accidentally rid the school of students, too. Read more →

Vernell LaQuan Banks and Justyce McAllister grew up together in Atlanta. While Justyce attends Yale, Quan is imprisoned in a juvenile detention center, awaiting trial for the shooting death of a police officer. In a series of letters to Jusytce, Quan relays his life story – a troubled childhood, bad timing, and prejudiced police work. A hard look at the injustice in the justice system, this sequel to the bestseller Dear Martin is a must-read among the September 2020 book releases. Read more →

Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling returns with the fifth book in her Cormoran Strike detective series. While visiting his mother, Private Investigator Cormoran Strike takes on the cold case of a mother who mysteriously disappeared forty years ago. Meanwhile, his trusty colleague Robin Ellacott is going through a messy divorce while struggling with her feelings for Strike. Read more →