Next 5 TBR: Volume 2

Hello, biblios!

I'm pretty sure I enjoy choosing my next books to read almost as much as actually reading them.

Almost.

And I've got a nice variety in my next TBR stack!

Deets behind the jump ...


1. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

When New Yorker Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home and quality time with the man she hopes to marry. But Nick has failed to give his girlfriend a few key details. One, that his childhood home looks like a palace; two, that he grew up riding in more private planes than cars; and three, that he just happens to be the country’s most eligible bachelor. 

On Nick’s arm, Rachel may as well have a target on her back the second she steps off the plane, and soon, her relaxed vacation turns into an obstacle course of old money, new money, nosy relatives, and scheming social climbers.

Yes, I know. I am late to the game on this one. When it first came out, I wasn't sure it would be something I'd enjoy. But then for some reason last summer, I started seeing it everywhere, maybe because the third book in the trilogy had just come out, so people were newly diving into the series? And I heard from a number of people how much they loved it, and their reviews made me realize I probably would, too, after all.

2. Sister by Rosamund Lupton

When her mom calls to tell her that Tess, her younger sister, is missing, Bee returns home to London on the first flight. She expects to find Tess and give her the usual lecture, the bossy big sister scolding her flighty baby sister for taking off without letting anyone know her plans. Tess has always been a free spirit, an artist who takes risks, while conservative Bee couldn’t be more different. Bee is used to watching out for her wayward sibling and is fiercely protective of Tess (and has always been a little stern about her antics). 

But then Tess is found dead, apparently by her own hand. Bee is certain that Tess didn’t commit suicide. Their family and the police accept the sad reality, but Bee feels sure that Tess has been murdered.  Single-minded in her search for a killer, Bee moves into Tess's apartment and throws herself headlong into her sister's life--and all its secrets.

Now, this one I have literally never seen anyone talk about, although a handful of my Goodreads friends have read it, with ratings ranging from two to four stars. I don't even recall how or where I first heard about it, but the synopsis still sounds intriguing. Lady-driven thrillers are still having their moment, after all!

3. Hunted by Megan Spooner

Beauty knows the Beast’s forest in her bones—and in her blood. Though she grew up with the city’s highest aristocrats, far from her father’s old lodge, she knows that the forest holds secrets and that her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering them. 

So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there’s no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas…or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentleman. But Yeva’s father’s misfortune may have cost him his mind, and when he goes missing in the woods, Yeva sets her sights on one prey: the creature he’d been obsessively tracking just before his disappearance. 

Deaf to her sisters’ protests, Yeva hunts this strange Beast back into his own territory—a cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of creatures that Yeva’s only heard about in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin or salvation. Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?

Speaking of things having a moment, fairy-tale retellings in YA seem to be sprouting like weeds. (I'm currently reading one and loving it, in fact.) There is always the worry for me that the author will rely too heavily on their source material, and the work will feel more derivative than inspired. But I do love Beauty and the Beast, and have heard a few strong reviews of this one.

4. The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra

This stunning, exquisitely written collection introduces a cast of remarkable characters whose lives intersect in ways both life-affirming and heartbreaking. A 1930s Soviet censor painstakingly corrects offending photographs, deep underneath Leningrad, bewitched by the image of a disgraced prima ballerina. A chorus of women recount their stories and those of their grandmothers, former gulag prisoners who settled their Siberian mining town. Two pairs of brothers share a fierce, protective love. Young men across the former USSR face violence at home and in the military. And great sacrifices are made in the name of an oil landscape unremarkable except for the almost incomprehensibly peaceful past it depicts.

Anthony Marra wrote one of my favorite books of 2013, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. So I am really eager to see if he does equally well with short stories. These can be hit or miss for me, but when I know an author is as talented as he is, I'm definitely willing to give it a shot.

5. The Reader by Traci Chee

Sefia lives her life on the run. After her father is viciously murdered, she flees to the forest with her aunt Nin, the only person left she can trust. They survive in the wilderness together, hunting and stealing what they need, forever looking over their shoulders for new threats. But when Nin is kidnapped, Sefia is suddenly on her own, with no way to know who’s taken Nin or where she is. Her only clue is a strange rectangular object that once belonged to her father left behind, something she comes to realize is a book.

Though reading is unheard of in Sefia’s world, she slowly learns, unearthing the book’s closely guarded secrets, which may be the key to Nin’s disappearance and discovering what really happened the day her father was killed. With no time to lose, and the unexpected help of swashbuckling pirates and an enigmatic stranger, Sefia sets out on a dangerous journey to rescue her aunt, using the book as her guide. In the end, she discovers what the book had been trying to tell her all along: Nothing is as it seems, and the end of her story is only the beginning.

I'm kind of surprised that this YA fantasy has not seemed to take hold much — I've rarely seen it on Booktube even though it sounds like the exact kind of book the community would love. And the reviews I've read have been largely praiseful. How can I not read a book where the heroine discovers the unknown magic of reading??

What's up next on your TBR? Have you read any of these books? Do tell!