Reading Women‘s Most Anticipated Books of 2019, Part 2

Kendra and Autumn, with special guest Lupita of @Lupita.Reads, talk about their most anticipated reads for the second half of 2019!

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The Book of X by Sarah Rose Etter
(Two Dollar Radio, July 16th)

Autumn Privett: Because she deals so graphically with what it’s like to be a woman in the world and how women are treated and objectified and raped and abused, it’s not going to be for everybody. And it’s definitely has its triggering moments. But at the same time, having a book that so clearly deals with . . . especially medical things, like what it’s like to be a woman going to a doctor’s office and not being believed for something that’s very obvious to you that is going on with you. I think it’s just really, I don’t know, it’s just really good. I haven’t really seen it novelized this way before.

I’m Telling the Truth, But I’m Lying by Bassey Ikpi
(Harper Perennial, August 20th)

AP: So this is an essay collection/memoir talking about her diagnosis of Bipolar II. I haven’t read this one yet, but according to what I’ve read about it, it’s talking about her discovering that she had Bipolar II after not knowing it for several, several years. But then she also explores after that, what do we think about as a society when we think about mental health and how do we talk about it and how do we perceive people who struggle with mental health or have had mental health diagnoses?

Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis
(Knopf, September 3rd)

Lupita.Reads: This book is a queer novel about lesbian Latino women and them reclaiming their power, making their own families outside of the families that they have. And just the fierceness of chosen families and embracing your femininity. And there’s just so much greatness in this novel.

The Not Wives by Carley Moore
(Feminist Press, September 10th)

AP: It follows three women who are living in New York, but it’s not like a three-women-living-in-New-York story because they’re dealing with topics like gentrification, and one of them is going through a divorce, and one of them is having a fight with her girlfriend, and one of them is homeless right now. And so it’s kind of tracking these three women and their relationships as they’re trying to navigate the changes that are going on in the city, especially as it relates to the Occupy Wall Street movement. So it sounds really interesting. I like books that kind of triangulate women’s relationships and kind of shows women’s dynamics.

Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke
(Mulholland Books, September 17th)

Kendra Winchester: Attica Locke  does these great character-focused mystery series, and this is my jam. I’m not really into plot-focused mystery series, which is the most of mysteries out there. But when she looks at the character, and the protagonist of this book is Darren Mathews, and he’s a Texas Ranger. And in the first book, he was investigating a double murder of a black man and a white woman. And he goes this small town in Texas and plot ensues. Well, this book is about a missing boy of some kind. There’s an investigation going on because he’s kind of under review, and there’s this weird thing with this mom going on. So there’s a lot going on in his life. And then there’s a missing boy and just the dynamics of that, and I don’t want to say anything else because it’s a mystery.

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
(Riverhead Books, September 17th)

LR: So I fell in love with Another Brooklyn. And the recommendation for Jacqueline Woodson actually came from my goddaughter, who is ten. Which I think is what makes me love Jacqueline Woodson even more. And to know that she can go from writing children’s books and literature for children to writing something like Another Brooklyn, the spectrum of a genius in her work, it just . . . immediately I was like, please Riverhead Books, please, just please send me an ARC. I preordered it already. Please!

Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson
(Grove Press, October 1st)

AP: Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal, which is her memoir and Oranges was her debut novel, and then when she wrote the memoir, it was rehashing the same topics. But she was like, Here are the things about my actual life that I changed for that novel. And then she wrote that in her later memoir, like 20 years later. She is a writer who for very personal reasons is so incredibly important to me. And I just sobbed my way through those two books, and they’re just incredibly beautiful.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
(Graywolf Press, November 5th)

LR:At first I didn’t even know it was a memoir. I didn’t care what it was. I just wanted it immediately. Because it’s Carmen Maria Machado, and it’s like, please please can I have a copy? I didn’t even care what it was about, which I think is so funny. I think that when it’s a good author, and you love the author, and you feel connected to them on different levels, which I do with Carmen Maria Machado, you really don’t care what they’re writing. You just want to read the writing, right?

The Revisioners by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
(Counterpoint, November 5th)

KW: Margaret Wilkerson Sexton is able to create this family dynamic in such a short space. But she also tackles a lot of difficult topics. And since she is an African American woman writer, she often tackles topics around race and families and those dynamics and the way that she’s able to bring that to the table. Like in A Kind of Freedom, she featured New Orleans. And then over the course of generations, she eventually got to a post-Katrina New Orleans. And she just wove together this beautiful story about family and characters. She is one I want to watch.