Fruit Fly

Fruit Fly
by Josh Silver

Crooked Lane Books, 2026. 372 pages. Fiction.

Go gay. Go sad. Go dark. A washed-up author will stop at nothing to claw her way back to relevancy—even if it means appropriating a young gay man’s tragic story. Mallory Maddox is buried under seven years of writer’s block. With her status as a literary sensation fizzling, she’ll do anything she can to resurrect her career. Inspiration needs to strike—and fast. Enter Leo. He’s a struggling addict sleeping under bridges and trading sex for survival. He’s vulnerable. He’s enigmatic. He’s exactly what Mallory has been looking for. Mallory needs Leo if she wants another bestseller. The world needs Leo’s story right now, and Mallory believes she deserves to tell it. Really, it’s her story—she’s the one who wrote it, after all. But as secrets threaten to unravel more than just her career, Mallory must decide how far she will go to pen the perfect story. 

This book has been everywhere on my social media and has been sold out everywhere this summer- and, let me tell you, its popularity is for a very good reason! This book is a dark satirical thriller that, despite dealing with some really heavy topics, has an incredible pacing that makes it impossible to put down. The book is told through alternating POVs of Mallory and Leo, and Silver manages to give both characters such vivid, distinct voices that were both interesting to read. Because the book is told in each of their perspectives, we learn how they are both manipulating and exploiting people in different ways, including each other, which I found added to the nuance of this book, as it isn't one "bad" character hurting the "good" character. It's much more complex than that: both characters are flawed, unhappy, and are both pretending so much that they are lying to everyone around them, including themselves. Beneath the thriller and satire, the book raises important questions about the publishing industry’s obsession with trauma, who gets to tell queer stories, when curiosity or inspiration crosses the line into exploitation, and much more. Many of these questions don’t have neat answers, and I think that's the point: everything and everyone in this story is nuanced and complex, as is most of real life. I also loved the ending. I found it to the perfect way to end the book, and it was surprisingly hopeful, which felt important, especially considering the conversation the book brings up on how much of LGBTQ+ stories in media end tragically for their characters and the damage this does. Overall, this book had everything I was looking for: it was funny, smart, thought-provoking, heartbreaking, and unsettling. This was one of my favorite books of the year, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. 

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Yellowface
by R.F. Kuang

William Morrow, 2023. 323 pages. Fiction. 

What's the harm in a pseudonym? Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn't write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American--in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author R. F. Kuang in the vein of White Ivy and The Other Black Girl. Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena's a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn't even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena's just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I. So what if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song--complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn't this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That's what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can't get away from Athena's shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June's (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves. 

The Plot

by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Celadon Books, 2021. 322 pages. Fiction. 

Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he's teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what's left of his self-respect; he hasn't written-let alone published-anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn't need Jake's help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then . . . he hears the plot. Jake returns to the downward trajectory of his own career and braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker's first novel: but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that-a story that absolutely needs to be told. In a few short years, all of Evan Parker's predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an e-mail arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says. As Jake struggles to understand his antagonist and hide the truth from his readers and his publishers, he begins to learn more about his late student, and what he discovers both amazes and terrifies him. Who was Evan Parker, and how did he get the idea for his 'sure thing' of a novel? What is the real story behind the plot, and who stole it from whom?

Boy Parts 

by Eliza Clark

Harper Perennial, 2023. 292 pages. Fiction. 

Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle. Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centered around Irina's relationship with her obsessive best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention.

ND