March has come to a close, and spring has sprung. If you’re avoiding spring cleaning with spring reading, we’ve got great news: This month, we shifted gears. Not only did we bring you new summaries, but they’ve all been adapted for the big screen and can be found on your favorite streaming service!
Put your literary and film analysis skills to the test (and more efficiently procrastinate on your spring cleaning) with five brand-new guides, including:
Boy Swallows Universe
by Trent Dalton
The classic bildungsroman, but make it modern, Australian, and addicting (in more ways than one).
2018 – Young Adult Fiction
In Boy Swallows Universe, Tim Dalton expertly toes the line dividing fact from fiction, lingering in the semi-autobiographical scenes of Brisbane as it was in the late 1980s. Inviting readers to follow him back in time, Dalton describes the heroin-addled streets that defined not just his protagonist’s life but also his own. Eli Bell, Dalton’s protagonist, acts as a lens through which he weaves a tale of survival and growth, detailing the challenges that shaped him, however painfully, into the man—and author—he is today.
Eli’s life is riddled with turmoil: His mother and her boyfriend deal heroin, and his father slips in and out of violent alcoholism. As Eli himself falls prey to Brisbane’s criminal underbelly, readers watch, captivated, as he struggles to balance the call of necessity with the quieter demands of his dreams. Boy Swallows Universe offers a glimmering portrait of perseverance, written from the perspective of one who has, like his narrator, been through the gauntlet and lived to tell the tale.
Fans of Boy Swallows Universe might enjoy:
- Honeybee by Craig Silvey
- Breath by Tim Winton
- The Nowhere Child by Christian White
“The downside is life is short and has to end. The upside is it comes with bread, wine and books.”
– Trent Dalton, Boy Swallows Universe
Leave the World Behind
by Rumaan Alam
Pandemic-era life swirls into a gruesome, eerily familiar portrait of social collapse.
2020 – Adult Fiction, Dystopian
On its own, Alam’s dystopian exploration of the degradation of the world as experienced in isolation is unsettling at best. Pair it with the global context of the year it was published and, well, unsettling isn’t quite the right word. Leave the World Behind reprises the near-universal experience of coping with eerie circumstances, sociocultural turmoil, and political unrest—and the anguish and confusion of doing so alone.
When Amanda, Clay, and their two children abscond to a quiet cabin on Long Island, they prepare for an extended stay filled with rest and relaxation. What they fail to prepare for is a blackout affecting the entire Eastern Seaboard. Whoops. Readers can only read on in horror as even nature itself bends to the strange, unexplained circumstances of the blackout and its effects of the blackout encroach closer and closer to the cabin. Content warning: If the events of early 2020 still feel too fresh, this one might not be for you.
Leave the World Behind might fit well on the shelves of readers who appreciated:
- A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet
- The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay
- The Vacationers by Emma Straub
“It was like some tacit agreement; everyone had ceded to things just falling apart.”
– Rumaan Alam, Leave the World Behind
The Statistical Probability
of Love at First Sight
A wedding, a funeral, and a chance interaction—that’s all it takes to change two lives forever.
2011 – Young Adult Romance
Jennifer E. Smith’s title gives it all away: Her 2011 novel follows Hadley and Oliver, two passengers on a London-bound flight with an immediate, unexpected connection. While the titular phrase “love at first sight” might conjure an eye roll, we caution readers from writing it off too soon. Call it limerence, call it love—but whatever you call it, call it real.
Smith’s miraculous, critically acclaimed story of instant love found among the clouds stems from her own experience of falling in love with a stranger. When she, like Hadley, boarded a random flight, she didn’t expect to find a life-changing experience in the cramped cabin. Yet, she did, squashing the ebb and flow of a soaring romance into the limited length of her Chicago-Dublin trip. Memorialized in The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, Smith’s iconic novel is a tale of unexpected, unwanted love and the sway it can so quickly hold over you.
Can’t get enough of Jennifer E. Smith? Check out:
- Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center
- The Exception to the Rule by Christina Lauren
- Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood
“Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?”
– Jennifer E. Smith, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight
Confessions on the 7:45
by Lisa Unger
Strangers on a Train but gender-bent, an homage at the outset and a riveting suspense in its own right.
2020 – Adult Fiction, Suspense
Two affairs. One murder. A nefarious, one-sided plan that sends a chatty commuter’s unhappy life even further into shambles. So begins Lisa Unger’s Confessions on the 7:45, a gender-bent homage to Patricia Highsmith’s classic tale of complicity and intrigue, Strangers on a Train. But Unger’s 2020 novel is more than just a reprisal—it’s a masterful psychological thriller in its own right, leading readers down narrow turns and through morally nebulous twists much unlike Highsmith’s.
An unexpected encounter sends Selena Murphy careening. After confessing her suspicions about her husband’s affair with their nanny to a strange woman she meets on her morning commute, the nanny disappears. Guilt-stricken, grieving her marriage, and terrified by the prospect of foul play, Selena finds herself caught in a web of expectation that, before she knows it, makes her a complicit partner to it all.
Readers of Lisa Unger also love:
- Just the Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica
- Good Bad Girl by Alice Feeney
- None of This is True by Lisa Jewell
“There was no undoing the bad without losing the good. That was the trick of it all.”
– Lisa Unger, Confessions on the 7:45
Geek Girl
by Holly Smale
International supermodel isn’t the title Harriet Manners chose, but it’s the one she has.
2013 – Young Adult Fiction
Harriet Manners has a secret. It’s not her obsession with all things “geeky,” nor is it her propensity for hiding under tables when stressed. A self-proclaimed “geek girl,” neither trait is particularly worthy of hiding. What is, however, is the fact that she was accidentally scouted as a model—and has just modelld for international fashion icon Yuka Ito.
Smale scales up the angst of teenage life, following Harriet as she navigates the trials and tribulations of high school life—run-of-the-mill mean girls, broken friendships, first loves—and life as an unexpectedly high-profile model. Breaking into the world of high fashion was never on her bucket list. So, will she give up her newfound passion out of respect for Nat, her best friend? Will she pursue her growing interest in her Lion Boy? Or will she simply dive under yet another table and hide away from the world? There’s only one way to find out…
Need more teenage awkwardness? Dive into:
- Girl Online by Zoe Sugg
- Super Awkward by Beth Garrod
- The Extremely Embarrassing Life of Lottie Brooks by Katie Kirby
“Be who you are and let everybody else be who they are. Differences are a good thing.”
– Holly Smale, Geek Girl
As March wound to a close, bringing shy sunshine and young blooms, we wanted to bring you a few titles to carry you through the last few cloudy weeks and buoy you through the final gloomy days of the year with titles that can be both read and watched while curled up in bed.
If that’s still not enough recommendations to keep you occupied this spring, catch up on our most recent publications. Every month, we put out a round-up of our favorite new titles we published that month. Catch up on new titles from January and February, and stay tuned for April!