The Biggest Books Out This Spring (BIPOC Edition)

The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong

Bestselling and award-winning poet-turned-novelist Ocean Vuong’s latest looks at found family, survival, and second chances. One summer evening, 19-year-old Hai stands atop a bridge, ready to jump, when Grazina, a dementia-stricken elderly widow, talks him into going down another path. So begins the pair’s journey together, which involves Hai becoming Grazina’s caretaker and him reckoning with himself and his place in his community. Zooming out, we see what it means to live in the margins in America, and how loneliness, love, and labor are foundational to this society.

Can’t Get Enough by Kennedy Ryan

I’ve been seeing the books within The Skyland series being talked about everywhere. I’ve even read the book that came before this one in one of my book clubs. Though this is the third in the series, you don’t really need to have read the previous two, since these follow a new woman each time. This one in particular is about Hendrix Barry, her friend group’s entrepreneurial member who has a dream life—which has meant sacrificing romance. But then she meets the knee buckle-inducing tech mogul Maverick Bell at a party, and it has her rethinking things. He’s not exactly who she should be with to stay on her life’s path, but we also know that “shouldn’ts” make things even more alluring.

In Reading Color

A weekly newsletter focusing on literature by and about people of color!

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

I know somewhere, Bigolas Dickloas is shaking. The co-author of one of the most beautifully written and creative sapphic sci-fi love stories ever has written a fantasy novella that I am so excited about. It’s about two sisters whose eternal bond goes beyond even death. The sisters in question are the latest daughters of the Hawthorn family, who live in a small town at the edge of Faerie and tend to the enchanted willows with song. When one of the sisters, Esther, rejects a man after her hand in favor of a Fae lover, it threatens everything they have ever known.

Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Through Nikki, who has returned to North Carolina at the request of her estranged grandmother, we learn about past queens of Appalachia. During the visit, Mother Rita tells Nikki about her great-great-great grandmother, Queen Luella, who lived on the very land they stand on. There was a kingdom called Happy Land, where formerly enslaved people made memories of African kingdoms flesh. Now, it’s up to Nikki to reclaim what they established, lest it be taken from her family like everything else.

Julie Chan Is Dead by Liann Zhang

There have been so many deliciously dark thrillers coming out lately that look at social media and influencer life, and this is the latest. Mega-popular influencer Chloe VanHuusen makes a video where she finds her long-lost twin and buys her a house…for the views, obvi. Then, Julie Chan, the twin and a supermarket cashier with not a lot going for her, finds her twin sister dead and decides to step into her life and have everything she could have ever wanted. This means designer clothes, a bomb skincare routine, and millions of followers. It also means struggling to fit into Chloe’s social circle and attending a weeklong island retreat where things get out of control, and Julie uncovers the dark forces that led to her twin’s death. Forces that may target her next.

A Carnival of Atrocities by Natalia Garcia Freire, translated by Victor Meadowcroft

Years ago, in a town between the steaming jungle and the frigid Andes—a town soon to slip out of existence—a girl was wronged. Mildred was born in Cocuán, and it was there that she had centered her life, but after her mother died, everything—her animals, her home, and her lands—was taken from her. Now, strange things keep happening; there’s collective delirium and a shadow of death that hangs over the town, and people think it’s Mildred come to take her revenge.