I love book recommendations. If you ever see me at the circulation desk and we have a passing conversation about books, you'll probably see me jot down a title. I subscribe to multiple blogs, belong to several online book groups, and follow authors on social media. I read picture books, middle-grade chapter books, young adult books, graphic novels, memoirs, and both fiction and nonfiction for adults. One of my favorite parts of my job at the library is simply handling the books. Every day I scan titles into my Goodreads account, and I'm forever finding scraps of paper in my pockets, crammed with lists of books. Still, there are books I mean to read that get neglected. (I swear, this is the year I'm going to get through all of Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache mysteries!)
Here are five books you might have missed in 2021:
Razorblade Tears by A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance. Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah's white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss. Derek's father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed of his father's criminal record. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy. Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys. Provocative and fast-paced, S. A. Cosby's Razorblade Tears is a story of bloody retribution, heartfelt change - and maybe even redemption.
Read Razorblade Tears... because it reads like the best of the classic buddy action movies, with the deft addition of 2021 social issues. Frustrated with the police investigation into their son’s murders, Randolph and Buddy Lee take matters into their own hands. This one is a cinematically violent page-turner touching on racism, homophobia, classism, and parenting. Let me know who you’d cast in the movie version!
Light from Uncommon Stars by Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in Ryka Aoki's Light From Uncommon Stars, a defiantly joyful adventure set in California's San Gabriel Valley, with cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship over fresh-made donuts.Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate. But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn't have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan's kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul's worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.
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