These Are The Best New Books To Read This Spring

"The rain will eventually come, or not. / Until then, we touch our bodies like wounds," so reads a verse from the titular poem in Diaz's second fantastic poetry collection. It's a line that captures the myriad tones and themes of her work, which Diaz, who is queer, Mojave, and Latinx, deftly balances. Poems like "Top Ten Reasons Indians Are Good at Basketball" (one reason: "When Indian ballers sweat, we emit a perfume of tortillas and Pine-Sol floor cleaner that works like a potion to disorient our opponents and make them forget their plays") live alongside poems mourning the decimation of her Native heritage ("Manhattan Is a Lenape Word"). The result is a collection that refuses easy sentiments and is all the more effective for its nuance and range. -T.O.

Maisy Card's debut is - as you might guess from the title - absolutely haunting. The book opens with a scene of an old man on his dying day, reckoning with a secret that's plagued most of his life - the man known as Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley, who faked his death more than 30 years ago and abandoned his life in Jamaica to start anew in the US. From there, Card moves into the past and future, exploring the stories of Paisley's ancestors and descendants - enslaved women in colonial Jamaica, his struggling daughters in modern Harlem - and the ways each generation's trauma bleeds into those that follow. Card's writing is inventive and captivating, dipping into different narrative styles and playing with magical realism and folklore. -A.R.

Calling something "readable" can have negative connotations, but it's still hard to pull off! Russell achieves that feat in her compelling story of Vanessa Wye, a woman whose decadeslong predatory relationship with her high school teacher has lasting repercussions for her years later. The novel jumps back and forth in time between the late '90s, when 15-year-old Vanessa first meets and eventually ends up in a sexual relationship with her high school English teacher Jacob Strane, to 2017 during the height of #MeToo, when 32-year-old Vanessa is pressured to publicize a relationship she spent years convincing herself wasn't abusive. Russell is particularly adept at capturing the tortuous psychological effect this relationship wreaks on Vanessa - all the ways in which Strane manipulates her into thinking she has any kind of power over him. The result is a - yes - very readable, slow-burning thriller. -T.O.

"With the last of my loved ones now long dead, I find funerals kind of fun," so begins Shah's mordantly funny debut novel about Ant, a man making his way back to the Midwest for a childhood friend's funeral. Offering him a ride is Vince, cousin of the deceased. They make their way in the midst of a snowstorm, popping oxys, and not really saying anything meaningful to each other. But beneath their macho posturing is a world of hurt and loss, which Shah manages to capture in just under 100 pages. -T.O.

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. -T.O.

On March 27, 1964, the very young state of Alaska was struck by what is still the most powerful earthquake in American history, and Anchorage - a city that had been a beacon of progress in this new frontier, a manifestation of its residents' optimism - was literally torn apart. This Is Chance! is the riveting account of the following three days - the resilience and resourcefulness of a town that hadn't yet established a system or infrastructure to handle such an emergency, and the bravery of Genie Chance, an ambitious and underestimated radio reporter whose impromptu three-day broadcast became the beating heart of a community struggling to survive. It's a beautifully wrought and profoundly joyful story of compassion and perseverance. -A.R.

In 2000, during her first year at Brown University, journalist Casey Schwartz tried Adderall for the first time - and for the next 10 years she'd grapple with an addiction to it. In Attention, Schwartz recounts her relationship with the drug, contextualizing it within a culture that fetishizes and obsesses over attention - where to place it, what deserves it, how to navigate an economy built on taking it. Schwartz deftly weaves together scientific research and reporting, personal narrative, and textual analysis, creating a hybrid story - and if attention is the best way to perform love, then indeed this is a love story from Schwartz to the notion of attention - that is as critical and philosophical as it is personal. -A.R.

First, let's acknowledge the fact that a new novel by Julia Alvarez, the bestselling author behind beloved classics How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies, is major news. Second, and more importantly, her new adult novel is really good! Antonia, a retired English professor, is struggling to cope after the sudden death of her husband, Sam. When twin crises occur - an undocumented immigrant working on the farm next door asks if she could help his girlfriend, who is also undocumented, and Antonia's older, headstrong sister Izzy goes missing - Antonia is forced to grapple with what it means to be a good, present person in a world full of so much incomprehensible tragedy. -T.O.

Fourteen-year-old Lacey May lives in Peaches, California - formerly an idyllic paradise, now a drought-stricken town whose residents live under the spell of a cult leader who claims to be God, with a grandmother too enthralled by Pastor Vern to see how dangerous he is. When Lacey realizes Pastor Vern's plan to bring rain back to the valley involves impregnating local teens, she runs away in search of her mother - confronting cruelty, but also discovering unexpected friendships and personal resilience along the way. It's a harrowing but elegantly wrought exploration of trauma and autonomy. -A.R.

The best hosts on late-night TV have given us all a spring present with their first book, which offers primers on everything from dating (it's hard) to how to survive New York City when you're dead broke. You don't even have to be a fan of their podcast or their late-night show to see why they have become so popular; I laughed out loud several times while reading this. -T.O.

Perfect Tunes is a candid, big-hearted story about choices and consequences, following young Ohioan Laura, whose story begins when she is a 22-year-old recent transplant in early 2000s NYC. She's chasing her dream of making it as a singer-songwriter, spending her nights waitressing and doing drugs and/or having sex with Dylan, an up-and-coming musician. In the span of just a few months, everything changes - the Twin Towers fall, Dylan drowns while high, his band asks Laura to step in as lead singer, she declines, and finds out she's pregnant. The rest of the book tracks the aftermath of these events, jumping ahead in time to see Laura struggling as a single mom, while her former roommate - who ended up joining the band in Laura's stead - enjoys the critical success Laura so desperately desired. The years progress, and Laura's daughter starts asking about her cult icon father - and through their complicated, parallel journeys of self-discovery, Gould poignantly and carefully explores what happens when plans go awry, expectations and priorities shift, and people adapt in their pursuit of love, meaning, and fulfillment. -A.R.

In southeastern Arizona, about 15 miles from the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, lies Oak Flat. It's a sacred piece of land for the Apache community - the site of past burials and ongoing religious ceremonies, notably the four-day coming-of-age rite for girls called the Sunrise Dance. And it was protected land - until, ten years after a massive copper deposit was discovered beneath it, ownership was transferred to private hands intent on mining the mesa into obliteration. In the graphic narrative Oak Flat, Redniss chronicles the ongoing clash between a Native population who've long been waiting for the US federal government to deliver on the promises they made and broke, and the mining corporations that are piling more promises - of jobs, money, new life in a ghost town - on the heap. Redniss offers herself as a witness, giving life to the people and place through straightforward dialogue and rich, sweeping illustrations. It's a vital read and a staggering work of art. -A.R.

No one writes family drama like Straub, and in her new novel All Adults Here, she brings the Strick family to life with her unique wit and wisdom. When matriarch Astrid witnesses a school bus accident, the trauma uncovers a long-repressed memory that forces her to question the kind of parent she was to her now-adult children, who are floundering in their own ways. It's a heartfelt, grounded story about family dynamics, forgiveness, and the unavoidable effects we have on those we love. -A.R.