March 2024’s Must-Read Book Releases

After a cease and desist letter from Pitbull’s legal team, Izzy, a famed impersonator of the rapper finds a new cause: freeing a captive orca from a Miami aquarium. What follows is a fever dream of a story dating back to Izzy’s childhood escape from Cuba in this daring, darkly funny novel about the limitations of love and nature.

The debut poetry collection from the critically acclaimed author of the bestseller The Boat is an ambitious project. A format-busting work in the vein of Claudia Rankine and Cathy Park Hong, Le’s book-length poem chronicles the brutality of assumptions, oppression, and historical trauma.

Fresh off the critical success of her memoir Red Paint, Sasha LaPointe returns with an essay collection on what it means to be a queer, indigenous person in America today. The collection is reminiscent of a mixtape, with essays as loud and splitting as a punk song, examining how music helps a new generation of indigenous people connect their heritage and the contemporary world.

For fans of Parasite comes a spooky, tension-filled work of literary horror about a young woman whose dreams recall the afterlife of the shared trauma of those affected by the Korean War.

In this playful and strange novel, a young woman living alone with her dog in a New York City apartment wakes up one day to discover she’s deaf. With no explanation for what caused her sudden loss of hearing, she’s left to make meaning of it all as she keeps a record of her year of new estrangements and encounters.

Where are the Circe heads at? In Rachel Lyon’s second novel, the story of Persephone and Demeter gets a modern retelling. This time, the story is set in the modern underworld — also known as a lush private island — and follows the story of an aimless camp counselor, a CEO, and an NGO girl boss over the course of a long, hot summer.

In this wild ride of a novel, eight translators arrive in a primeval Polish forest to translate the works of famed author Irena Rey. That is, until she disappears without a trace.

Andrew Boryga’s debut novel satirizes and skewers the veneer of diversity initiatives. The novel follows Javier, a young man from a family of hustlers living in the Bronx, who fudges the details of his own background into admission at an elite university, a viral article at a legendary magazine, and a hotshot journalism job. Everything is going as planned until his best friend — who knows the truth about his upbringing — is released from prison.

Rita Bullwinkel’s striking debut sports novel upends the genre, exploring themes of desire and perfectionism in a stunning portrait of eight teenage girl boxers who have come to Reno, Nevada to compete to be named the best boxer in the country.

A Russian doll of a novel, Katya Apekina traces the inherited beauty and trauma of four generations of Russian mothers and daughters in this hallucinatory, moving novel that has everything from psychic mediums to a chorus of grieving ghosts.

In this stinging short story collection, LA-based writer Brittany Menjivar — whose author bio says she was “born in the DMV” — takes to task the absurdity of the city and the modern era. In one story, a famous Twitter user is flushed down a toilet at the party in the Hills; in another, a teen bride is pissed when her celebrity husband spends all his time with a Make-A-Wish kid.

The famed muse of culture heavyweights like Warhol and Tennesee Williams finally gets a biography of her own. Acclaimed biographer Cynthia Carr traces the life of Candy Darling, the trans art and style pioneer, who captured the heart of New York’s downtown scene in the ‘60s and ‘70s — a love that has lasted long after her untimely passing.

If a book review is going viral, there’s a good chance it was written by Lauren Oyler, whose become a somewhat notorious critic for her biting opinions. Now, Oyler takes the very notion of criticism to task, writing about the significance of being a critic and consumer of media today — exploring everything from gossip to Goodreads to autofiction.

The English-language debut from Swedish author Alvina Chamberland has already earned the praise of Detransition, Baby’s Torrey Peters. Ushering in a glittering new literary talent, Chamberland’s glistening autofiction takes us from Iceland to Paris as she probes questions of sexuality and love through the lens of a trans woman on the brink of turning 30.

A searing novel told in short, musical passages, this poignant love story follows Julienne and a young composer named Gaspar across the globe, charting their early love and subsequent tragic aftermath years later.

Alexandra Tanner’s debut novel about two sisters living together in Brooklyn — described by the publisher as “Seinfeldian” — captures the unique dread of the era, from a Facebook mom who falls for deep state conspiracy theories to a rescue dog with rabies named Amy Klobuchar.

From the New York Times bestselling author of the conversion therapy memoir Boy Erased comes a deeply moving and tender novel about two men falling in love in 18th-century Puritan New England.