2019, new year new books am I right? Here are some books coming soon in your local bookstore!
1) Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincoot, publication date: 14th January 2019
Five Feet Apart was the first book that I picked up in 2019, devouring the whole thing in one-sitting. As it is soon to be a motion picture, starring Cole Sprouse and Hayley Lu Richardson, all of us ‘book-before-the-film’ lovers need to pick this up ASAP. Before the 12th April 2019, to be exact.
In the story, two teens with Cystic Fibrosis fall in love, with just one detail preventing their being together - they cannot get within a few feet of each other without risking their lives from cross-contamination. Can you love someone you can never touch?
The love story of Stella and Will is simultaneously heart-warming and heart-breaking, which is everything a good YA book needs to be. This book also brings great awareness to Cystic Fibrosis, teaching the readers about aspects such as the ‘six-feet-apart’ rule that is in place if two people with CF meet, and representing voices that are otherwise silenced. The terminal illness is not utilised as a plot device nor exploited to make a tragic love story, it is utilised in a raw and unfiltered manner to emphasise the struggles of family, friendships, and loss, as well as that of the love story. Though at times the action may seem unrealistic, Lippincoot attempts to capture the drama and heightened emotions of first love.
This book is a must-read tear-jerker for lovers of YA fiction, even as another one to add to the collection. Now we must patiently wait for the film!
2019 is the year of books
2) Frankissstein – by Jeanette Winterson, publication date: May 2019
In this novel, Winterson aims to show us how much closer to the future we are than we think. Spanning many stories throughout, such as a transgender doctor falling in love with a professor amid post-Brexit Britain, a divorcee making his fortune from the sex doll industry, and hundreds of bodies waiting to be brought back to life, Frankissstein brings a modern twist on Mary Shelley’s 1819 classic novel.
3) The Testaments – by Margaret Atwood, expected publication date: 10 September 2019
The wait is over. Atwood finally brings the heavily anticipated sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, answering the question that has tantalised us readers for years: what happened to Offred? This book is set 15 years after her previous book, revealing her vision of Gilead’s future. Save the date!
4) A Mouth Full of Blood – by Toni Morrison, expected publication date: 21st February 2019
Toni Morrison brings us an inspiring new non-fiction collection of essays and speeches about race, gender, and globalisation. Morrison is a hugely celebrated writer, as shown in her incredible novel Beloved, so the announcement of her new book is one of huge excitement for a collection that is raw, inspiring, and essential.
5) Machines like me – by Ian McEwan, expected publication date: 18th April 2019
Machines Like Me is set in an alternative 1980s London, where Britain has lost the Falklands war, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power and Alan Turning achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. McEwan combines questions of the present with anxieties of the past to create a novel that questions love, power and what it means to be human.