The best new books out today 📚

Hello, book lovers! Each week, dozens of new releases hit the shelves. Here are our favorites.

❤️📚

–The BuzzFeed Books team

Literary Fiction

Credit: Algonquin, Riverhead, Tin House

Let's Get Back to the Party by Zak Selih (Algonquin)

"It's 2015 in Zak Salih's debut novel, and high school art history teacher Sebastian Mote is ready to settle down. Thanks to the recent Supreme Court decision to support marriage equality, he's able to envision the future he wants. When he runs into an estranged friend, he's hoping to rekindle their connection, but he's surprised to find out that friend sees marriage for same-sex couples not as progress but as the death knell for queer culture, and an alarming step toward the LGBTQ community's adoption of heteronormativity. Their reconnection incites questions of identity and progress, which are even more complicated when both befriend gay men of different generations." —Arianna Rebolini

Get it from Bookshop for $23.87, Target for $25.95, or Amazon for $25.95

No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood (Riverhead)

"Dubbed by various news outlets as the poet laureate of the internet, Patricia Lockwood is a master of a kind of unhinged online humor in both her poetry and her hilarious 2017 memoir Priestdaddy, about growing up the daughter of a married, politically conservative Catholic priest. She makes her fiction debut with this novel about a social media star, not unlike Lockwood, who digests the last few years of internet detritus until her pregnant sister has a scary complication and reality kicks in." —Tomi Obaro

Get it from Bookshop for $23, Target for $22.49, or Amazon for $21.49

How to Order the Universe by María José Ferrada, trans. Elizabeth Bryer (Tin House)

"M, a 7-year-old, spends most of her time with her dad, a traveling salesperson in Chile, since her mother still lives with the trauma from the Pinochet dictatorship. To M, life on the road is whimsical and carefree — until they meet up with a photographer, E, who captures the ghosts of people the government has disappeared. When M discovers E's connection to her family, it upturns the family's secrets and her childhood innocence." —Kirby Beaton

Get it from Bookshop for $18.35 or Amazon for $19.95

Historical fiction

Credit: Berkley Books

Dangerous Women by Hope Adams (Berkley Books)

"Taking place aboard the real-life 1841 voyage of the Rajah, which transported 180 women convicted of petty crimes from England to Australia, this thriller explores what it means to be innocent when you've already been found guilty. When a woman is mortally wounded by an attack in the middle of the voyage, the imprisoned passengers realize someone among them is actually dangerous — but who?" —Kirby Beaton

Get it from Bookshop for $23.92, Target for $26.49, or Amazon for $23.67

Fantasy & Sci-Fi

Credit: Pantheon

The Memory Theater by Karen Tidbeck (Pantheon)

"The Memory Theater is as inventive and eerie as Swedish author Karin Tidbeck's previous works, though more fantastical and fairytale-like. Time doesn't exist in the Gardens and no one ages. The Masters who live there — reminiscent of the fae — hold endless revelries and have forgotten their origins. The Masters force children who wander into the Gardens to be their servants. They abuse them, and before a servant reaches adulthood, the Masters hold a hunt and eat them. Thistle is one such servant, and Dora is his best friend and sister. Dora is the daughter of a mountain and one of the Masters, but the Master refuses to acknowledge her. When it comes time for Thistle's hunt, he and Dora manage to escape the Gardens, and it's up to a witch and a theater troop to find Thistle's true name so that he can be free from the Garden's clutches. Meanwhile, one of the Masters has discovered time and has been banished from the Gardens. She's the one that holds Thistle's true name, but she's unlikely to give it to him." —Margaret Kingsbury

Get it from Bookshop for $23.87, Target for $25.95, or Amazon for $25.95

Romance

Credit: Berkley, Avon

First Comes Like by Alisha Rai (Avon)

"Beauty influencer Jia Ahmed may have millions of followers, but she has yet to find 'The One' among them. That is until a famous Bollywood star slides into her DMs. After months of flirty exchanges, she finally decides to meet him in person, but when they're face to face, he has no idea who she is. Dev Dixit doesn't take to being used in someone's catfishing scheme lightly and vows to get to the bottom of the misunderstanding...which includes spending time with Jia. But when the two are spotted together by paparazzi, the two fake a romance to keep their respective families and the public at bay. What starts as fake quickly becomes real, but can a relationship last if it was built on a lie?" —Shyla Watson

Get it from Bookshop for $14.71, Target for $12.67, or Amazon for $12.67.

Serena Singh Flips the Script by Sonya Lalli (Berkley Books)

"Serena Singh isn't selfish, but she lives her life for herself, much to the chagrin of her Indian parents who want her to get married and have children. But Serena is content doing her own thing until she meets Ainsley, a new coworker who she quickly befriends. Ainsley points out that while it's fine for Serena not to want the same things as her parents, she's closed herself off and has stopped letting people in. She decides to flip the script on some of her normal behaviors and soon she's happier than she's ever been — but change often comes with challenges." —Shyla Watson

Get it from Bookshop for $14.72, Target for $15.99, or Amazon for $15.99

Young Adult

Credit: Simon & Schuster, Delacorte, Heartdrum, Razorbill, HarperTeen, Viking

Reaper of Souls by Rena Barron (HarperTeen)

"Following the events of the epic Kingdom of Souls, Arrah not only has magic, but is the last surviving witchdoctor, returning to the tribal lands to search for help from her parents' people. But the Demon King is still out there, and Arrah's connection to him is not so easy to unravel." —Rachel Strolle

Get it from Bookshop for $17.47, Target for $18.99, or Amazon for $18.99.

Amelia Unabridged by Ashley Schumacher (Wednesday Books)

"Do you enjoy a good cry immediately followed by hugging a book close to your chest and taking a deep breath? Then this book is for you! Amelia and Jenna were brought together by the Orman Chronicles series, written by young (and reclusive) N.E. Endsley. When the pair get a chance to attend a book fest Endsley is at, what starts as a dream quickly goes wrong: Jenna gets a chance to meet the author, Amelia doesn't, and the two have a blowout fight. Before they can make up, Jenna is in a car accident and dies. But a mysterious rare edition of the Orman Chronicles makes its way to Amelia, who wonders if it's from Jenna, she tracks it to a small bookstore in Michigan where she comes face to face with Endsley, who is dealing with grief of his own." —Rachel Strolle

Get it from Bookshop for $17.47, Target for $14.29, or Amazon for $14.29

The Deepest Breath by Meg Grehan (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

"11 year old Stevie knows a lot of things about a lot of things, because knowing things makes her feel safe and in control. But the one thing she's trying to understand more than anything else and that's the feeling she gets when she looks at her friend Chloe. This novel in verse is an absolutely stunning picture of identity exploration, anxiety, and relationships." —Rachel Strolle

Get it from Bookshop for $15.63 or Amazon for $13.89

Now in paperback:

Real Life by Brandon Taylor: Wallace is a Black, queer, chubby, and introverted student attending a graduate science program in the Midwest. In other words, he's a character who doesn't get featured in a lot of campus fiction. In Brandon Taylor's debut novel, though, it is entirely through his eyes that we witness one notable weekend with his friends and colleagues, mining the social drama within the academic bubble of biochemistry. —Colin Gorenstein

Writers & Lovers by Lily King: Thirty-one-year-old Casey Peabody is grieving her mother's sudden death, recovering from a love affair gone wrong, and trying to finish the novel she's been writing for six years. While she watches her friends get married and start families, she's waiting tables, living in a shitty apartment, and clinging to her dream of living a creative life — but when she falls for two men at the same time, her precarious position shifts into a full crisis. —Arianna Rebolini

We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry: In 1989 Massachusetts, local field hockey team Danvers Falcons are desperate to make it to the state finals — enough to dip into the witchcraft that runs deep in their town's history, which held the first witchcraft trials in 1692. Following the plucky team through their whirlwind season, this sharp and hilarious novel explores strength and friendship. —Arianna Rebolini

Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang: Jing Jing is 24 years old and trying to figure out who she is. She's bored at her job as a tech reporter, dismissed and underpaid as a young Chinese American woman, and when her long-term boyfriend announces he's moving to Ithaca, New York, to attend grad school, she decides to go with him in hopes of achieving her own fresh start. But as Jing Jing contends with a town full of mostly white neighbors preoccupied with proving they're "good liberals," and starts spending time researching the history of Chinese women and interracial relationships in the US, she begins to explore her relationship with her own history and identity, questioning where her boyfriend fits into it. Her journey shifts as she moves from place to place — San Francisco, then Ithaca, then China — and Chang follows her in prose that flows so gracefully across themes of millennial ennui, capitalist disillusionment, immigration, love, and sacrifice. —Arianna Rebolini

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel: Rest assured, lovers of St. John Mandel's previous novel, Station Eleven (one of our best books of the decade and a soon-to-be HBO Max series). Her latest novel, The Glass Hotel, does not disappoint. Though it deals with a disaster of a different sort, St. John Mandel continues to weave together disparate storylines and characters in a moving reflection on how interconnected we are for better and for worse. Among the characters in this book are Paul, a recovering opioid addict, his half-sister Vincent, Walter, a concierge at a remote hotel on Vancouver Island, and Jonathan Alkaitis, a rich investment banker with a festering secret. It's my opinion that the less you know about the plot the better, but suffice it to say, I finished this book with a deep appreciation for St. John Mandel's mastery here. —Tomi Obaro

In the Land of Men by Adrienne Miller: Author and former literary editor of Esquire (the first woman to hold that position) Adrienne Miller writes an unflinching memoir about entering the male-dominated literary world as a 22-year-old in the '90s, diving into her formative relationship with David Foster Wallace. —Arianna Rebolini