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USA Today
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Need a new book? 15 new releases you can read right now
Need a new book? 15 new releases you can read right now 'Reading outside weather' – the best forecast for a bibliophile – is finally here. While we still stand firmly planted in spring, it's just about time to look ahead to all the summer reading you're going to dive into on hot days. It's an especially ripe time for romance readers, who get a beach read boom in May and June. But if you're looking for a new read right now, we know plenty of recently published titles that'll whisk you away on coastal extravaganzas and into thrilling wilderness mysteries. Check out this list of our favorite books published in April across genres. What should I read next? 15 new books from April Whether you're in search of a meaty family drama, an eerie dystopian or something more lighthearted, we've got book recommendations. Here are 15 new releases we think you should read next. 'Mỹ Documents' by Kevin Nguyen Sometimes, when times are hard, we search for books that will make us feel comforted about the state of the world. This is not one of those books. But it's all the more reason to read 'Mỹ Documents,' a timely and important dystopian novel about four young half-siblings whose paths diverge when the government begins forcibly detaining Vietnamese Americans. Nguyen's characters feel full and real and his prose is quickly captivating. It's a powerful commentary on the use of language as propaganda, including the narratives we tell about people without power. 'Great Big Beautiful Life' by Emily Henry One of the romance titles on our most anticipated list is finally here, and it offers a slight departure from the classic rom-com structure loyal Henry readers have grown to love. It follows two warring journalists – Alice and Hayden – vying for the once-in-a-lifetime chance to write the biography of a tragic, scandalized heiress. It's a sprawling novel (a whopping 432 pages), offering plenty of well-loved beach read elements while also looking at the invisible strings that tie lives together. 'Fun for the Whole Family' by Jennifer E. Smith Told across 50 states and several decades, 'Fun for the Whole Family' tells the story of the four Endicott siblings, once inseparable road trip buddies and now estranged adults. The modern-day timeline starts when the youngest, Jude (now a glamorous movie star), summons them to North Dakota for the weekend. All at a crossroads in their own lives, Gemma, Connor and Roddy realize that Jude is hiding secrets of her own. 'Fun for the Whole Family' is an engaging, heartwarming tale with larger-than-life characters readers are sure to connect with. 'Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng' by Kylie Lee Baker Gory and haunting, 'Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng' will have you hooked from the get-go. It follows a young crime scene cleaner, scrubbing the remains of murders and suicides in Chinatown during the throes of the 2020 pandemic. Cora is tormented by her sister's death, which she witnessed months ago when a man pushed her in front of a train in a racist attack. Her dread only builds in preparation for the Hungry Ghost Festival, haunted by the bat carcasses and bodies of East Asian women she finds at her job – she can't tell what's real and what's in her head. 'The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits' by Jennifer Weiner If you liked 'Daisy Jones and the Six' or love a good surprise nepo baby American Idol audition, check out 'The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits.' This sisterly drama follows the legacy of a fictional music duo that defined early 2000s pop music. Sisters Cassie and Zoe Grossberg catapulted to stardom as the Griffin Sisters, but broke up after one turbulent year. Now, decades later, they have disappeared from the public eye. But when Zoe's daughter Cherry goes digging in pursuit of her own music career, secrets from the infamous breakup beg to resurface. 'Open, Heaven' by Seán Hewitt Full of teenage longing and quiet devastations, Hewitt's 'Open, Heaven' proves the continued staying power of poets-turned-novelists. In this book, two teenage boys meet in a sheltered village in the north of England. James, shy and recently coming to terms with his sexuality, longs for a larger life beyond his rural community. Luke, beautiful and captivating, brings a cloudy reputation with him to his uncle's farm after his parents abandon him. Fans of 'Call Me By Your Name' will enjoy this rumination on the angst of a first love, set across one transformative year. 'Girl on Girl' by Sophie Gilbert If you seek a new nonfiction title or a pop culture critique, try 'Girl on Girl' by Sophie Gilbert. Gilbert paints a clear and narrative odyssey of 21st-century feminism and how society has regressed toward the hyper-objectification, sexualization and infantilization of women. 'Girl on Girl' analyzes music, film, television, fashion, internet culture, porn and tabloid journalism to investigate the deeply seeded roots of misogyny from the '90s to today. 'Flirting Lessons' by Jasmine Guillory The first queer romance from genre expert Jasmine Guillory does not disappoint. Set against the backdrop of the picturesque Napa Valley, this dual-perspective romance follows a 30-something, fresh off the heels of a breakup and looking for something more. Avery wants to date women, but she doesn't have experience or much confidence. And Taylor, a notorious flirt, has just agreed to a two-month no-sex bet. She needs to keep busy, and Avery needs help – how about a little flirting lesson? 'All that Life Can Afford' by Emily Everett Take a trip to the lives of the rich and privileged in 'All That Life Can Afford,' where a struggling young American girl finds herself swept up in the antics of the Wilders, who hire her to tutor their teenage daughter in Saint-Tropez. Between the parties and glitz, she meets two handsome young men – one who offers to show her the finer things in life and another who is a reminder of the past she's outrunning. 'Happy Land' by Dolen Perkins-Valdez This sweeping, multigenerational novel starts as a woman visits her grandmother, hoping to learn all she can about the mysterious estrangement between her and her mother. But Nikki gets much more than she anticipated when they begin to talk, and her grandmother wraps her into the tales of a real kingdom nestled in the mountains of North Carolina, where her great-great-great-grandmother became queen. 'The Seven O'Clock Club' by Amelia Ireland Touching and heartfelt, 'The Seven O'Clock Club' follows four strangers as they embark on an experimental treatment to heal broken hearts. The only thing Freya, Callum, Mischa and Victoria have in common is their loss, and this weekly support group promises to help them finally find closure. Their unconventional group leader is determined to get them to trust each other before revealing the real reason they're all connected. 'The Amalfi Curse' by Sarah Penner This tale of witchcraft, sunken treasure and forbidden love from the author of 'The Lost Apothecary' weaves historical fiction, mystery and fantasy in under 350 pages. 'The Amalfi Curse' follows a nautical archaeologist investigating mysterious shipwrecks to locate a priceless gemstone her father spotted on his final dive before his death. It's not until she arrives to Positano that strange events unfurl throughout the village, just as she uncovers an ancient tale of sorcery. 'Heartwood' by Amity Gaige This literary thriller centers on the disappearance of a 42-year-old experienced Appalachian Trail hiker under circumstances that may not be accidental. 'Heartwood' weaves between several perspectives, including the hiker Valerie, who writes fractured letters addressed to her mother as she struggles to survive. Meanwhile, a Maine State Game Warden leads a search on the ground and an elderly birdwatcher from Connecticut develops a fascination with the case. 'Julie Chan is Dead' by Liann Zhang This thriller takes a bizarre turn we guarantee you won't see coming. Estranged twins Julie Chan and Chloe VanHuusen were separated by adoption when they were young, and their lives could not have turned out more differently. Julie is a sardonic, supermarket cashier with sticky fingers and Chloe is a glamorous influencer with millions of adoring fans. But when Julie stumbles upon Chloe's lifeless body, she decides it's her opportunity for change and masquerades as Chloe, only to realize there was something much more sinister behind the pictures. 'I See You've Called in Dead' by John Kenney What if you could write your own obituary? What if you accidentally published it? This is how 'I See You've Called in Dead' starts, with a down-on-his-luck obituary writer whose wife has recently left him. But then he has few too many to drink and accidentally publishes his own tribute. Now, by all technical accounts, Bud is listed as dead. In this dark comedy, Bud's own fictionally fatal mishap may be the thing to give him a second chance at freedom and life. Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@ Contributing: Anna Kaufman, USA TODAY
New York Times
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Book Review: ‘My Documents,' by Kevin Nguyen
MỸ DOCUMENTS, by Kevin Nguyen As with many California high schoolers, my education in Japanese internment came from one book: Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's memoir, 'Farewell to Manzanar.' My classmates and I quickly arrived at a troubling conundrum. How could a nation founded on freedom strip thousands of its citizens of their rights overnight? 'Mỹ Documents,' Kevin Nguyen's comically macabre sophomore novel, riffs on that perennial question. The photograph of an internment camp on the front cover, snapped by the legendary photographer Ansel Adams in 1943, underscores Nguyen's base assumption: Manzanar 2.0 is inevitable. The real question is what kind of culture will emerge when the camps return. (Ironic Big Dog T-shirts as a fashion trend, it turns out.) At first, the book reads like a realist family novel. Four half siblings stare down their respective comings of age. Ursula, a disaffected young journalist, and Alvin, a fresh-faced Google intern, navigate the work force. Jen and Duncan are students on the edge of self-discovery, at N.Y.U. and an Indiana high school. They share an emotional wound from the Vietnamese father who abandoned them. Despite their bond, cracks are visible early on: clashing personalities and outlooks on life, differences in class and ethnic identity (Alvin and Ursula are biracial). Nguyen's prose is wry but lively, and promises a sprawling story about the ordinary dramas that make a life. Then, a delightful twist arrives, albeit in a horrifying package: A series of terrorist attacks lead to legislation that creates internment camps for Vietnamese Americans. Jen, Duncan and their Vietnamese mother are incarcerated; Ursula and Alvin snag exemptions. With such imaginative risks, Nguyen kicks what has turned out to be an alternate history of the 2010s into high gear. The writer is a stellar satirist. (The title itself is an inside joke: 'Mỹ' is the Vietnamese word for America.) Take, for example, the fact that the legislation responsible for the camps, American Advanced Protections Initiative, shares an abbreviation with the demographic category it targets. An otherwise unassuming sentence takes on a much funnier, and politically astute, resonance: 'Being half white certainly helped but didn't always guarantee exclusion from A.A.P.I.' Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Washington Post
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
In ‘My Documents,' passive Americans accept their dystopian reality
In a May 2000 essay for Essence magazine, Octavia Butler wrote that 'to try to foretell the future without studying history is like trying to learn to read without bothering to learn the alphabet.' History clearly inspires Kevin Nguyen's dystopian second novel, 'Mỹ Documents,' which imagines a near-future in which, following coordinated terrorist attacks by Vietnamese perpetrators, a million Vietnamese Americans are imprisoned in the same way Japanese Americans were during World War II.
Los Angeles Times
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘Mỹ Documents' hits a little too close to home — which is all the more reason to read it
The desire to avoid topical novels is understandable during fraught times: So many readers turn to novels as an escape from our endless news cycle, and the last thing some might think they want is to dip into fiction grappling with dystopian themes. But it's all the more imperative to read such work when the line between contemporary events and fiction blurs. Storytelling grants readers the chance to linger long enough for the horror to subside and a greater sense of empathy and understanding to emerge. To this end, I'd recommend Kevin Nguyen's sophomore novel 'Mỹ Documents.' Steeped in history and drawn from our terrifying present, it's as much a coming-of-age story for its characters as it is for the United States, a country that is forever losing its innocence. The brutal phoenix of American history remains constant in Nguyen's novel. Stuck in a vicious cycle of innocence lost, regained, then lost again, American history reveals itself to be a series of stories told by individuals dependent on inconsistent and unreliable sources. Curiously enough, one could argue that all histories can be reduced to family histories — with all their inconsistencies and digressions. Here, Nguyen concentrates on the lives of a Vietnamese American immigrant family. This saga begins with hesitation: Matriarch Bà Nôi does not flee 1970s Vietnam in time to keep her family intact. Pressed by shrinking options, she sends some of her children safely away from the chaotic aftermath of war, one by one. At last, she escapes the country by boat with her youngest, a boy. Her flighty, academic husband, a man who 'would rather risk everything, including the livelihood of everyone he cares about, than be told what he shouldn't do,' fails to arrive on time for departure and is left to meet an untimely fate. Or so family lore has always said was the case. Decades later, with death approaching, Bà Nôi reveals to her college-age granddaughter Ursula that she had never intended to take her husband with her. 'Survival is a selfish act,' she stated. Considering life from 'the cold distance of history,' Ursula gleaned that 'in their family, people were always leaving.' Ursula's grandmother's stories had been the focus of countless essays and applications 'which got her into several schools she had no business getting into,' but 'adulthood meant creating your own narrative, not regurgitating the details of someone else's.' It was inevitable that in a family whose heirlooms were stories, not material objects long lost in refugee camps, someone would become a writer. Ursula was determined to be a journalist. The family drama didn't end happily with American citizenship. Ursula's father, Dan Nguyen, Bà Nôi's youngest son, maintained a legacy of abandonment, leaving behind family after family. Born to a white mother, Ursula and her brother Alvin were raised as cousins to their half-siblings Jen and Duncan, the product of Dan's marriage to a Vietnamese woman; that union did not last either. Despite their awkward relationships, the four half-siblings forged attachments at family reunions and over text and phone calls. When it came time for college, Jen left behind her mother and teenage brother in Indiana to attend NYU so that she could be closer to Ursula, six years her senior. It was a delicate bond; Ursula found that her family was 'more of a source of misinformation than fact.' This fragile balance was soon tested. After a series of brutal terrorist attacks across the United States were connected to a group of Vietnamese Americans, the Department of Homeland Security's American Advance Protections Initiative (or AAPI — a nod to the acronym Asian American Pacific Islanders) rounded up Vietnamese Americans and placed them in internment camps in undisclosed locations. Alvin and Ursula were spared, but Jen, Duncan and their mother were sent to Camp Tacoma in Independence, Calif. The reader experiences these plot developments as legal residents of the U.S. are being deported or detained by the current White House administration. Nguyen presciently captures the spark of outrage that dims as the news cycle moves on to the next crisis. News swirls, then dies down. Without any concrete facts, Ursula registered that her family 'needed to know what their future looked like and wild speculation was more useful than admitting uncertainty.' Without any firm truth, 'You might as well embrace a lie.' Told in a close third person, the novel's atmosphere mimics the charged pace of modern life. It's marked by emotional fervor easily dissipated by distraction, ultimately landing somewhere in the realm of banal compliance with an intransigent devotion to the ghost of the late Sen. John McCain, a naval aviator tortured as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, whose presence lingers on every page of the book as terror moves from fear to revenge. Rather than slide into polemic or tragic melodrama, Nguyen leans into the tension between the four half-siblings to unpack the complicated roles that surveillance, big tech and journalism play in our fractured modern state. Jen finds a way to leak news regarding camp conditions to Ursula, whose guilt is matched by her journalist's ambition to rise beyond her work as a beauty writer. Spared thanks to the efforts of his employer, Google, Alvin stumbles upon secret information that reveals suppressed details about the camps. Risk and desperation give the book the fresh edge of a thriller while maintaining its larger focus as an entwined story of family and imperialist history. Throughout the book, as years wear on and the camps fester, Jen and Ursula both reckon with tangible documents to unlock ugly secrets and forge a new future. Though Ursula rises as a journalist, Jen is the key to her success. Spiriting information to Ursula, Jen writes a propaganda rag to cover her tracks as she simultaneously writes an underground paper as a means of resistance. While each makes consequential compromises in the face of survival, it's Ursula who never fully grasps the extent of the experience of life in the camps. No matter how skilled you are, there's a vast difference between observing and exposing truth and living it. Jen, too, struggles to distinguish between clinging to facts and surrendering to feeling. Forgiveness is a final stumbling block for both women, whose independent streaks flatten out a desire for community when they need it most. But it's Alvin, engineer and historical enthusiast, who distinguishes that 'every war story was a systems story, usually one of a breakdown. Intentions were always good; decisions made at scale.' Hence, history repeats itself when people participate in hateful deeds under the banner of fighting for 'the soul of a nation.' Nguyen laces 'Mỹ Documents' with the varied ways memory is captured: government departments, maps and information curated by tech companies, plays, newspapers, newsletters, books, family stories, texts and jokes. Frustratingly, even this flood of concrete evidence struggles to serve as a bulwark against fascism and demonstrates the contradictory definitions of freedom and the privilege of feeling in America. Family is so often our greatest defense and comfort, but even that is not always enough when survival is on the line. The word 'Mỹ' is the Vietnamese word for 'America,' and its messy connection with personal possession and subjectivity isn't lost in this rich, gripping novel that lands squarely as a mirror of our contemporary moral squalor. LeBlanc is a board member of the National Book Critics Circle.
