15 books you need to read this June

The author became a bold name with her last novel, Daisy Jones & the Six, and this summer Taylor Jenkins Reid puts together another deliciously digestible tale. It's set on a single day in Malibu, when the Riva siblings are throwing their annual party at sister Nina's cliffside manse — but this year things are a little more complicated, what with the fact that Nina's husband recently left her for a fellow tennis star and a love triangle between the Riva brothers. (June 1)

Order a copy of Malibu Rising. 

Arnett returns to Florida with her sophomore novel, another biting and funny take on queer families. Sammie Lucas is attempting to parent her son Samson as she works from home and deals with an often-absent wife, while Samson's once typically adolescent behavior spills over into something more frightening. (June 1)

Order a copy of With Teeth. 

The Atlantic writer drafts a history of slavery in this country unlike anything you've read before. He tours and researches landmarks of chattel slavery — places like the plantation where Thomas Jefferson held his own slaves — and ruminates on the ways their legacy affects the stories we still tell today. (June 1)

Order a copy of How the Word Is Passed.

Following on the heels of the best-selling Tangerine, a mystery set in 1950s Tangier, Mangan moves north to Venice, Italy. A novelist has escaped to a friend's palazzo after a disastrous book release, when she meets a potentially suspicious young fan. (June 1)

Order a copy of Palace of the Drowned.

Earlier this year, Laymon revised essays from his collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others, and next he's turned his self-editing pen onto his debut novel. There are fresh edits, an updated chronology, and a new cover design, all matching what he describes as his original vision of the book (which features two stories that can be read both front-to-back and back-to-front). (June 1)

Order a copy of Long Division.

Emezi, the author of three acclaimed novels for both young adult and adult audiences, does longform nonfiction for the first time with Senthuran. They use correspondence with friends and family to explore creativity, gender, and more. (June 8)

Order a copy of Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir.

The TV writer, podcast host, and creator of the website Feminist Ryan Gosling tells her own life story, focusing on her childhood (she was raised by her grandparents while her mother battled a drug addiction) and the fierce, loving relationship she had with her grandmother. (June 8)

Order a copy of The Ugly Cry.

Fans of Three Women will find much to love in Taddeo's follow-up, a novel about a woman who is driven to the edge by the men in her life and decides to chart a dangerous course west (from New York City to Topanga Canyon outside of Los Angeles), in search of a woman she believes will help make it all make sense. (June 8)

Order a copy of Animal.

A short story collection that builds on the best elements of Taylor's debut novel Real Life: a Midwestern campus setting, probes of sticky social situations, and complicated romances. (June 22)

Order a copy of Filthy Animals.

It was already longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, and now this work of autofiction about a university student living a double life as a member of one of London's gangs, comes to readers across the pond. (June 29)

Order a copy of Who They Was.

Taking place over one steamy New York City night after a blackout has descended across the five boroughs, this YA blockbuster weaves together six story lines (written, respectively, by each author) about Black kids falling in love all across town. (June 22)

Order a copy of Blackout.

A debut story collection of the rarest kind: One in which you wish that every single entry could be an entire novel. Sestanovich, who works for The New Yorker, takes seemingly everyday situations (a young woman flying home, a couple cohabitating in a small apartment) and goes in deep to reveal the sort of universal truths about society that we're always hungering for. (June 29)

Order a copy of Objects of Desire.

Don't let the book's title — or the cover — fool you: This is no frothy beach read. Jestin's debut, which is translated from its original French by Sam Taylor, concerns a 17-year-old boy on vacation who witnesses another young boy take his own life, and then helps to cover up what he saw. (June 29)

Order a copy of Heatwave.

Readers who enjoyed Dorey-Stein's candid memoir about her time working as a stenographer in the Obama White House — particularly the anecdotes about young staffers guzzling Cape Codders into the wee hours of the night — will find much to like about her foray into fiction; it's about a group of old friends who find themselves back in the Jersey Shore beach town of their youth for a summer. (June 29) 

Order a copy of Rock the Boat.

How to possibly describe Mott's fourth novel without simply borrowing from its moniker? It is, after all, a hell of a book. The novel follows two surrealist story lines: One in which a famous author out on a promotional tour begins to slowly lose his grip on reality, and one in which a family deals with the tragic ramifications of a senseless police shooting of an unarmed Black man. As the two story lines become more and more meta, the book becomes more and more poignant. (June 29)

Order a copy of Hell of a Book.