5 Upcoming "Own Voices" Novels Available on Netgalley

The literary community has been absolutely ablaze with discussions surrounding American Dirt with some of the most problematic details (and there are many) being that the white author (though she has recently been self-identifying as Latinx) was given a seven figure advance and was embraced as a literary darling by the publishing industry, overlooking similar novels written by “own voices” authors (authors who share a marginalized identity with the protagonist). As readers and reviewers, many of us are reevaluating how and what we will choose to read and review going forward. Many of us have been posting alternative book suggestions written by “own voices” authors about Latinx immigration. In addition to supporting these authors and their stories, I am making a conscious effort to seek out and promote more “own voices” authors in the future. If you would like to do the same and you are a Netgalley reviewer, I’ve compiled this list to help us get started. Click titles for more information.

1. The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata (February 4 Harper Collins) A Latin American science fiction writer’s lost manuscript unites lives years later in post-Katrina New Orleans.
2. How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang (April 7 Riverhead) Listed on Netgalley but you currently have to “Wish For It”. Set against the twilight of the American gold rush, two newly orphaned siblings flee the threats of their western mining town. As children of immigrants in a land that refutes their existence, they are not only trying to survive but to find a home.
3. The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah (April 7 W.W. Norton) A Palestinian American principal at a Muslim school for girls in the Chicago suburbs wrestles with faith, loss, and identity before coming face-to-face with a school shooter radicalized by the online alt-right.
4. The New American by Micheline Aharonian Marcom (May 5 Simon & Schuster) A Guatemalan-American college student, a ‘dreamer,’ journeys home to California after being deported.
5. My Mother's House by Francesca Momplaisir (May 12 Knopf) Lucien purchases a home, La Kay (my mother’s house) in New York City’s South Ozone Park with the intention of it being a haven for his fellow Haitian immigrants, but La Kay doles out its own judgement when Lucien adopts lascivious habits.

Was this list helpful? Will you be requesting any of these choices? Please let me know in the comments or on Instagram. 

Welcome to the Pine Away Motel and Cabins by Katarina Bivald

Welcome to the Pine Away Motel and Cabins by Katarina Bivald (January 7, 2020 / Sourcebooks)

[I was provided a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review]

“This is a charming tale of folks who reunite at a ramshackle roadside motel in Pine Creek, Oregon, after the unfortunate death of Henny, who isn’t going to let a tiny thing like death stop her from living fully—not when her friends and her little town need her the most.” I was so excited to see that Katarina Bivald had released another novel because my book-loving heart swooned for The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend. In Welcome to the Pine Away Motel and Cabins, Bivald returns to a small town setting and a community at odds with change. When four high school students (Henny, Michael, MacKenzie, and Camila) band together in the early ’90s to protest their town’s majority vote against LGBTQ citizens, they create a group whose ties will last for decades. After spending a summer building cabins at the local Pine Creek Motel their group disbands with Michael traveling the world and becoming a famous geologist, Camila fleeing to NYC, and Henny and MacKenzie taking over management at the motel. The novel begins with Henny’s accidental death and continues with her as an omniscient narrator giving both comical and painful insights into the complex relationships between characters. Initially, she can’t figure out why she’s still “here” after her funeral, but Henny quickly realizes it is to help her friends find happiness again.

Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford

Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford (release date January 21, 2020 from Scribner) 

[I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review]

Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford is difficult to describe because all I keep saying is “it’s like nothing else I’ve ever read.” It was so different that I’m struggling to find a single other book to offer as a comparison. Honestly, I was pretty lost at the beginning. Elements of mythology, Native American trickster tales, folk tales, fairy tales, creation stories, and magic realism are intertwined in this coming of age story where bodies along with concepts of morality and mortality are stretched, suspended, and reshaped. I couldn’t figure out what exactly was happening but I was intrigued, which kept me reading. At just over 200 pages this novel should have been a quick read but my mind would constantly wander off to think about different scenes. Truly like nothing else I’ve ever read and I loved it!

Publisher provided summary:
“Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals—or “Cures”—by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. Ada, a being both more and less than human, is mostly uninterested in the Cures, until she meets a man named Samson. When they strike up an affair, to the displeasure of her father and Samson’s widowed, pregnant sister, Ada is torn between her old way of life and new possibilities with her lover—and eventually comes to a decision that will forever change Samson, the town, and the Ground itself.”

We Wish You Luck by Caroline Zancan

We Wish You Luck by Caroline Zancan (January 14, 2020 / Riverhead)

[I was provided a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review]

When a famed professor sabotages one of their group with no repercussions from her superiors, the group puts a plan in motion to bring justice to their friend and fellow writer.

“But even before the things we’re about to tell you started to happen, no pair interested us half as much as Leslie Spencer and Hannah Arya, and eventually Jimmy Fiero, their unlikely third—the heroes of this story, we think, at least, and the strangest, most singular people any of us had ever met, even at the outset of all this.”

Told in a collective voice, We Wish You Luck (released 1/14/20) by Caroline Zancan reflects on a scandalous and tragic series of events that unfold during a low-residency MFA program. Despite the dark undercurrents, Zancan zeroes in on the individuality of each writer and their unique interconnectedness in heart-aching detail.

I read this last month and meant to review it much sooner than today, but obviously that didn’t happen. I’m not sure I’ve recovered from the holidays yet. Anyone else?

The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood

I caught a rainbow! Doesn’t it look like it should be part of this cover?

The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood (1993) was a wild ride through early ‘90s Toronto, where three friends (Roz, Charis, and Tony) see Zenia, a presumed dead “friend” from their pasts while out at their monthly lunch. Much more than a university classmate, this femme fatale turned all three women’s lives upside down by seducing each of their boyfriends and manipulating each woman emotionally and financially. This novel kept me guessing at what’s the truth and had me alternately impressed and horrified by Zenia’s antics. I didn’t love this novel but I liked it better than The Blind Assassin, which I really didn’t like. Here’s my current list of her novels I’ve read:

The Edible Woman
Surfacing
Lady Oracle
Life Before Man
Bodily Harm
The Handmaid's Tale ✅
Cat's Eye ✅
The Robber Bride ✅
Alias Grace
The Blind Assassin ✅
Oryx and Crake ✅
The Penelopiad ✅
The Year of the Flood ✅
MaddAddam ✅
The Heart Goes Last
Hag-Seed
The Testaments ✅

How many Atwood novels have you read?

Also, after a bit of research, I learned that a film adaptation of The Robber Bride, starring Mary-Louise Parker as Zenia, aired on the Oxygen network in 2007…so now I am on the hunt to find this and watch it!

Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown

Recipe for a Perfect Wife
released December 31, 2019 from Viking

[Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review]


Recipe for a Perfect Wife is the perfect tongue-in-cheek title for this novel full of vintage recipes, quotes, and antidotes. After finding an old cookbook and letters in the basement of her new house, adrift Alice finds inspiration for her nonexistent novel. By losing herself in the snippets of 1950s housewife Nellie's life, Alice simultaneously ignores some residual problems from her previous job and escapes the minutia of her new suburban life. I loved that this novel showed a bit of what could have been/could be going on behind closed doors in regards to reproductive issues, domestic abuse, and female power, in the past and today. 


Goodreads Summary:
When Alice Hale reluctantly leaves a promising career in publicity, following her husband to the New York suburbs, she is unaccustomed to filling her days alone in a big, empty house. However, she is determined to become a writer--and to work hard to build the kind of life her husband dreams of, complete with children.

At first, the old house seems to resent Alice as much as she resents it, but when she finds an old cookbook buried in a box in the basement, she becomes captivated by the cookbook's previous owner: 1950s housewife Nellie Murdoch. As Alice cooks her way through the past, she begins to settle into her new surroundings, even as her friends and family grow concerned that she has embraced them too fully: wearing vintage dresses and pearls like a 1950s housewife, making elaborate old-fashioned dishes like Baked Alaska, and drifting steadily away from her usual pursuits.

Alice justifies the changes merely as research for her novel...but when she discovers that Nellie left clues about her own life within the cookbook's pages--and in a mysterious series of unsent letters penned to Nellie's mother--she quickly realizes that the housewife's secrets may have been anything but harmless. As she uncovers a more sinister side to Nellie's marriage and with pressure mounting in her own relationship, Alice realizes that to protect herself she must harbour and hatch a few secrets of her own...