With 2018 drawing to a close, it’s time to look ahead to 2019, and to the amazing books we can’t wait to read in the new year. This list could probably be twice this long, but because we’re still making our way through our 2017 list, we’ve decided to narrow it down to just 10 books coming out in 2019 that we absolutely must read.
King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo – January 29th
Leigh Bardugo is one of our favourite YA fantasy authors, and the Grishaverse one of our favourite fantasy worlds. We absolutely cannot wait to return to it with this brand new series!
Synopsis:
Nikolai Lantsov has always had a gift for the impossible. No one knows what he endured in his country’s bloody civil war—and he intends to keep it that way. Now, as enemies gather at his weakened borders, the young king must find a way to refill Ravka’s coffers, forge new alliances, and stop a rising threat to the once-great Grisha Army.
Yet with every day a dark magic within him grows stronger, threatening to destroy all he has built. With the help of a young monk and a legendary Grisha Squaller, Nikolai will journey to the places in Ravka where the deepest magic survives to vanquish the terrible legacy inside him. He will risk everything to save his country and himself. But some secrets aren’t meant to stay buried—and some wounds aren’t meant to heal.
On the Come Up by Angie Thomas – February 5th
Yes, we know this book was on our list last year too, but it’s been pushed back to 2019 and we needed to remind you that Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give, is coming out with a new book that everyone absolutely must read!
Synopsis:
Sixteen-year-old Bri wants to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Or at least make it out of her neighborhood one day. As the daughter of an underground rap legend who died before he hit big, Bri’s got big shoes to fill. But now that her mom has unexpectedly lost her job, food banks and shutoff notices are as much a part of Bri’s life as beats and rhymes. With bills piling up and homelessness staring her family down, Bri no longer just wants to make it—she has to make it.
Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story by Jacob Tobia – March 5th
The synopsis for this book had us hooked from the moment we read it. Sissy looks funny and thought-provoking, and we can’t wait to get our hands on it in March 2019.
Synopsis:
From the moment a doctor in Raleigh, North Carolina, put “male” on Jacob Tobia’s birth certificate, everything went wrong. Alongside “male” came many other, far less neutral words: words that carried expectations about who Jacob was and who Jacob should be, words like “masculine” and “aggressive” and “cargo shorts” and “SPORTS!”
Naturally sensitive, playful, creative, and glitter-obsessed, as a child Jacob was given the label “sissy.” In the two decades that followed, “sissy” joined forces with “gay,” “trans,” “nonbinary,” and “too-queer-to-function” to become a source of pride and, today, a rallying cry for a much-needed gender revolution. Through revisiting their childhood and calling out the stereotypes that each of us have faced, Jacob invites us to rethink what we know about gender and offers a bold blueprint for a healed world–one free from gender-based trauma and bursting with trans-inclusive feminism.
From Jacob’s Methodist childhood and the hallowed halls of Duke University to the portrait-laden parlors of the White House, Sissy takes you on a gender odyssey you won’t soon forget. Writing with the fierce honesty, wildly irreverent humor, and wrenching vulnerability that have made them a media sensation, Jacob shatters the long-held notion that people are easily sortable into “men” and “women.” Sissy guarantees that you’ll never think about gender–both other people’s people’s and your own–the same way again.
Internment by Samira Ahmed – March 19th
There’s nothing like a good YA dystopian novel with a setting disturbingly similar to the world we already live in. I’m not even sure this counts as dystopian, but it certainly looks both exciting and interesting.
Synopsis:
Rebellions are built on hope.
Set in a horrifying near-future United States, seventeen-year-old Layla Amin and her parents are forced into an internment camp for Muslim American citizens.
With the help of newly made friends also trapped within the internment camp, her boyfriend on the outside, and an unexpected alliance, Layla begins a journey to fight for freedom, leading a revolution against the internment camp’s Director and his guards.
Dig by A.S. King – March 26th
A.S. King’s novels are always delightfully weird and thought provoking, and we cannot wait to see what she has in store with this next book!
Synopsis:
The Shoveler, the Freak, CanIHelpYou?, Loretta the Flea-Circus Ring Mistress, and First-Class Malcolm. These are the five teenagers lost in the Hemmings family’s maze of tangled secrets. Only a generation removed from being simple Pennsylvania potato farmers, Gottfried and Marla Hemmings managed to trade digging spuds for developing subdivisions and now sit atop a seven-figure bank account, wealth they’ve declined to pass on to their adult children or their teenage grand children.
“Because we want them to thrive,” Marla always says.
What does thriving look like? Like carrying a snow shovel everywhere. Like selling pot at the Arby’s drive-thru window. Like a first class ticket to Jamiaca between cancer treatments. Like a flea-circus in a doublewide. Like the GPS coordinates to a mound of dirt in a New Jersey forest.
As the rot just beneath the surface of the Hemmings precious white suburban respectability begins to spread, the far flung grand children gradually find their ways back to each other, just in time to uncover the terrible cost of maintaining the family name.
Again, But Better by Christine Riccio- May 7th
We’ve been watching Christine’s Booktube videos for years, and tracking her progress with this book since she started writing it in January 2016, so it feels like we’ve been waiting for this book forever. Considering her sense of humour and her knowledge of books, we’re sure we’re going to love it!
Synopsis:
Shane has been doing college all wrong. Pre-med, stellar grades, and happy parents…sounds ideal — but Shane’s made zero friends, goes home every weekend, and romance…what’s that?
Her life has been dorm, dining hall, class, repeat. Time’s a ticking, and she needs a change — there’s nothing like moving to a new country to really mix things up. Shane signs up for a semester abroad in London. She’s going to right all her college mistakes: make friends, pursue boys, and find adventure!
Easier said than done. She is soon faced with the complicated realities of living outside her bubble, and when self-doubt sneaks in, her new life starts to fall apart.
Shane comes to find that, with the right amount of courage and determination one can conquer anything. Throw in some fate and a touch of magic – the possibilities are endless.
Nocturna by Maya Motayne – May 7th
Young Adult literature is full of fantasy worlds, and it can sometimes be difficult to separate the good ones from the boring, tropey ones, but Nocturna looks like everything we could want in a YA fantasy novel. It looks original and exciting, and we can’t wait to see how the latinx influence comes into play.
Synopsis:
To Finn Voy, magic is two things. The first: a knife to hold under the chin of anyone who crosses her. The second: a disguise she shrugs on as easily as others pull on cloaks. A talented shapeshifter, it’s been years since Finn has seen her own face, and that’s exactly how she likes it. But when Finn gets caught by a powerful mobster she’s indebted to, she’s forced into an impossible mission—steal a legendary treasure from the palace or lose her shapeshifting magic forever.
After the murder of his older brother, Prince Alfehr is first in line for the Castallan throne. But Alfie can’t help but feel that he will never live up to his brother’s legacy. Riddled with grief, Alfie is obsessed with finding a way to bring his brother back, even if it means dabbling in forbidden magic.
In a cruel twist of fate, Alfie’s best friend is nearly killed in the crossfire of Finn’s heist, and Alfie accidentally unlocks a terrible, ancient magic to save him—a magic, which, if not contained, will devour the world. Alfie and Finn race to vanquish what they have unleashed. But to do so, they each must contend with the darkness hiding in their pasts.
Set in a Latin-inspired kingdom based in part on the author’s own Dominican heritage.
With the Fire On High by Elizabeth Acevedo – May 7th
We can’t wait for the latest release by the author of The Poet X. This one looks cute and inspirational, and that cover is gorgeous.
Synopsis:
With her daughter to care for and her abuela to help support, high school senior Emoni Santiago has to make the tough decisions, and do what must be done. The one place she can let her responsibilities go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness. Still, she knows she doesn’t have enough time for her school’s new culinary arts class, doesn’t have the money for the class’s trip to Spain — and shouldn’t still be dreaming of someday working in a real kitchen. But even with all the rules she has for her life — and all the rules everyone expects her to play by — once Emoni starts cooking, her only real choice is to let her talent break free.
Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aminah Mae Safi – June 11th
An enemies-to-lovers story inspired by romantic comedies that applies a classic romance trope to a lesbian couple? We need to read this, like, yesterday.
Synopsis:
Sana Khan is a cheerleader and a straight A student. She’s the classic (somewhat obnoxious) overachiever determined to win.
Rachel Recht is a wannabe director who’s obsesssed with movies and ready to make her own masterpiece. As she’s casting her senior film project, she knows she’s found the perfect lead – Sana.
There’s only one problem. Rachel hates Sana. Rachel was the first girl Sana ever asked out, but Rachel thought it was a cruel prank and has detested Sana ever since.
Told in alternative viewpoints and inspired by classic romantic comedies, this engaging and edgy YA novel follows two strongwilled young women falling for each other despite themselves.
Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare – November 19th
Cassandra Clare’s books are always at the very top of our TBR pile. Chain of Gold is the first in a brand new Shadowhunter series that we’ve been looking forward to ever since the end of The Infernal Devices, and we’re sure it’s going to be amazing.
Synopsis:
James and Lucie Herondale, children of the famous Will and Tessa, have grown up in an idyll with their loving friends and family, listening to stories of good defeating evil and love conquering all. But everything changes when the Blackthorn and Carstairs families come to London…and so does a remorseless and inescapable plague.
James Herondale longs for a great love, and thinks he has found it in the beautiful, mysterious Grace Blackthorn. Cordelia Carstairs is desperate to become a hero, save her family from ruin, and keep her secret love for James hidden. When disaster strikes the Shadowhunters, James, Cordelia and their friends are plunged into a wild adventure which will reveal dark and incredible powers, and the true cruel price of being a hero…and falling in love.
Honourable mentions go to Ghosts of the Shadow Market (June 4th) and The Red Scrolls of Magic (April 2nd), also by Cassandra Clare. It’s going to be a big year for fans of the shadow world!