Books marked with a * are ones I'm most excited for and will probably preorder or buy this year, which I usually save for those that I have faith in and/or seem like they will be quite personal to me. Others I may wait for paperback, or get from the library, or an ebook sale.
January
In the Memory of Light by Francisco X Stork (January 26): I've actually started reading this from the library (I was going to buy it but got impatient). It came to my attention because it's about depression, but about the recovery process and figuring it all out, which interests me greatly right now.
February
*Radio Silence by Alice Oseman (February 25): I enjoyed Solitaire once I got into it, but I've had my eyes on this young author's second book since seeing her talking about it on social media. And the audio preview completely won me over--the tone is perfect. This is a book about academic pressures, living up to an image of yourself, friendship, diversity, fandoms and stories as escpamism, and probably more that I'm not getting from what I've seen so far. Regardless, this is for me. Unfortunately the US publication date hasn't been announced yet, so I'm going to order the UK edition through Book Depository, even if I'm not a fan of faces-on-the-cover.
Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley (May 10): This is a contemporary involving friendships and probably be some crazy escapades..the plot summary is vague. But I came across it when reading an interview with the author about mental health and anxiety, so I'm interested in it for that perspective. Plus, it should be fun.
*Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand (May 17): I'm so glad I discovered this middle grade book, because I've been trying to explore the market as I'm currently writing in that category, and this one appeals to me in so many ways. It's about a girl struggling with anxiety and depression but keeping it to herself, and escaping by writing about a magical forest, and when she has to live with her grandparents, she discovers the forest is apparently real. So this sounds like a very important, wonderful, relatable book.
Literary Starbucks: Freshly-Brewed Bookish Humor, No-Whip, Half-Caf by Nora Katz, Wilson Josephson, and Jill Poskanzer (May 17): This isn't a novel but an expansion (with new material, and in more of a story format?) of this wonderful blog.
A View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman (May 31): This is an essay and other writings collection, and as I've loved what I've read (and watched, in the case of speeches) of Gaiman's blog posts and such, I'll be reading this at some point.
June
You Know Me Well by David Levithan and Nina LaCour (June 7): A story about the close friendship between two gay teens, a boy and a girl. It looks beautiful and emotional, and yay for complex friendships.
*Sticks and Stones by Abby Cooper (July 19): Another middle grade book with a fantastic, relatable concept. This one is about Elyse, who has an unusual skin disorder (some magical realism going on here) where the words people say about her appear on her skin. This becomes challenging as she deals with the changes in middle schools and kids becoming meaner, but the words that hurt the most are the ones she thinks about herself.
*Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (July 31): Obviously.
August
Enter Title Here by Rahul Kanakia (August 2): This is a comedy that makes light of the impossibly perfect things students have to do (or feel they have to do) to get into good colleges (noticing a theme here?). While it isn't about struggles with these pressures and perfectionism like I original thought, it sounds interesting in its own right: believing it will give her a competitive edge on her college application, a girl named Reshma works with an agent to write a YA novel, but since she thinks her life is kind of boring, she decides instead to do all the cliches in YA novels. Very much expecting meta hilarity here.
September
As I Descended by Robin Talley (September 6): I just finished reading Macbeth for school and loved it, though admittedly, I loved the summary of this from the beginning: "...a retelling of Macbeth set at a contemporary Virginia boarding school. It centers around a lesbian couple who set out to dethrone the school's resident Mean Girl, only to find themselves struggling to hang onto their sanity and their lives when they accidentally summon a trio of brutal, manipulative ghosts" (This summary has since been replaced, and it includes the phrase "Cawdor Kingsley Prize,") I say I'm not into retellings, but I have a weakness for Shakespeare and exploring the malleability of his stories, so...perfect.
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (September 27): I still haven't finished The Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy (the last book I haven't read and just may not, because I should reread the second one first because let's just say I'm not great at reading sequels back-to-back like that), but I did enjoy Taylor's writing style and I'm intrigued by what she's coming up with next.
*Still Life with Tornado by A.S. King (October 11): A new A. S. King book, yay. I'm especially interested because it seems to explore a loss of creativity, and I like the concept of meeting oneself from the past and the future.
*Finding Perfect by Elly Swartz (October 18): Another middle grade book, this one about OCD. I just found this while writing up this post and I'm so glad I did. Especially interested in the need for things to be perfect and how these obsessions start to make being creative difficult.
November
Heartless by Marissa Meyer (November 8): I haven't gotten around to finishing The Lunar Chronicles yet (later this year, hopefully), but I've found Meyer's stories very fun, and this one's an origin story for the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, so that sounds up my alley.
???
The Inexplicable Logic of My Heart by Benjamin Alire Sáenz: There's an Ari & Dante sequel coming next year, but I also am excited about another YA novel from him. (Though I should read his adult novels too.)
That's about it, as of now! There's plenty that has piqued my interested, and I'm sure I'll discover more (especially in the literary fiction realm), but right now I'm REALLY EXCITED about these.
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