The Best New Book Releases Out October 10, 2023

Many of us are familiar with Roxane Gay in some way. She’s the bestselling author of Bad Feminist and Hunger, a New York Times columnist and regular contributor, and has come to be known in general as a writer who confronts society’s toughest issues with unique insight and refreshing relatability. This is a collection of 10 years of her best nonfiction work — from her articles on state-sponsored violence to her thoughts on the culture wars and beyond.

Family Meal is Washington’s follow-up to Memorial. In it, Cam has returned to his hometown of Houston after a stay in rehab, but he’s still struggling with the loss of his love, Kai. In need of work, he takes a job at his childhood friend TJ’s family’s bakery, and the two have to navigate a new stage of friendship, one marred by the uncertainty of estrangement. TJ doesn’t know what to do with or for Cam, who’s drowning in self-destructive behaviors and who has visions of his deceased former love. And then there are TJ’s own uncertainties. Washington’s exploration of grief, food, love, and sex is tenderly expressed.

This has already been selected as a finalist for this year’s National Book Awards, and it’s got such a unique premise. The unnamed, 20-something narrator accidentally floods his apartment and so visits Juan, his older dying friend, in the desert. He agrees to continue Juan’s project, which is centered around a real 1941 research study that was published by psychiatrist George W. Henry but which uses research from Jan Gay. Henry used Gay’s research to further pathologize queer people, and Juan’s copy of the study has areas that are blacked out, or redacted, that serve as “little poems of illumination.” It’s through these little illuminations that Juan slowly takes back Gay’s research from Henry’s agenda. Interspersed between Juan and the narrator’s dialogue — which consists of personal anecdotes, literary references, and other pieces of culture — are pictures of the actual study and its redactions.

National Book Award-winning Kacen Callender serves up a thoughtful fake dating M/M romance with Star in Your Eyes. Two actors with fairly opposite dispositions get cast as the leads of a new romantic movie, but there’s a problem. Logan Gray, a talented actor with a bad public persona, says that his costar, the new but already popular Mattie Cole, is not talented. To fix the PR mess that results, the two start fake dating, and of course, it becomes real. This is a romance, and so there is a Happily Ever After, but it’s hard-won. In falling for each other, both characters show vulnerability and dive into their insecurities and traumas.

I’m so excited for this one! It’s a YA graphic novel that takes place in 1930s Mississippi, where magic is real but can only be practiced by a select few. The discrimination and policing surrounding the practice of magic mirrors very real-world racism, and Luella, a Choctaw woman who had her powers sealed away years ago, is desperate to find a way to save her nieces from the same fate. Now that the two girls, Mattie and Emma, are coming into their power, they are at risk of being discovered and taken away to a residential school. If their family is able to come up with enough money for an exemption, they can avoid that fate. That’s where illegal broom racing comes in. Through Luella, the girls are introduced to the super secret world of illegal broom racing, where payouts are high, but so is the danger. If the girls can learn to race in time, they may be able to save themselves.

When I say, this is such a gorgeous graphic novel! It’s also been described as a “queer, witchy Fast and the Furious,” which is a book description I didn’t know I needed until now.

From the National Book Award Finalist and author of Jawbone comes a cerebral techno-horror. Six struggling creatives share an apartment in Barcelona — Kiki Ortega, who’s writing a pornographic novel; El Cuco Martinez, a video game designer; Iván Herrera, a writer with body dysphoria; and the Terán siblings, Emilio, Irene, and Cecilia. All of them are connected to the controversial and mysterious cult video game Nefando. A game in which players could find catharsis from trauma, but also maybe a slip in personal ethics. This explores what happens in the darkest parts of the web and how there are those of us who go towards pain.