Recommended Reads for Adults

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Recommended Reads: June 2024

This month, we commemorate the Supreme Court's decision that made the banning of interracial marriage unconstitutional. To celebrate the anniversary of Loving Day and the freedom to love whomever you choose, here are some stories featuring our favorite interracial couples, love stories, and protagonists!

She Gets the Girl by Rachael Lippincott & Alyson Derrick, 2022. (DB108232, en español DB116379)
Alex comes from a broken home and finds commitment difficult – even when she thinks she is in love. Meanwhile, awkward Molly crushes on Cora and can't talk to her. Alex decides that helping Molly snag Cora will prove to her own flame that she is not totally selfish, but things do not work out as the two have planned. As the two embark on their five-step plans to get their girls to fall for them, though, they both begin to wonder if maybe they’re the ones falling…for each other. – Book description adapted from KLAS and Goodreads

The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride, 1996. (DB042713)
One of twelve siblings in Brooklyn, the author was confused about his mother's race. She called herself light-skinned and refused to discuss her past. Years later she admitted to being an Orthodox rabbi's daughter whose family shunned her after her marriage to the first of her two black husbands. Interspersed throughout his mother's compelling narrative, McBride shares candid recollections of his own experiences as a mixed-race child of poverty, his flirtations with drugs and violence, and his eventual self-realization and professional success. The Color of Water touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son. – Book description adapted from KLAS and Goodreads

Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix by Anna-Marie McLemore, 2022. (DB110122)
Seventeen-year-old trans boy Nicholás Caraveo is ready to start his career as a Wall Street analyst, hoping to provide financial security for his beet-farming family in Wisconsin. He’s excited to live near his cousin Daisy in West Egg, where she’s promised to set him up for success, but is shocked to discover that Daisy has lightened her skin and hair to pass as White and hide their shared Latine heritage from her rich, racist promised fiance, Tom. Feeling unmoored in a sea of racism, classism, and toxic masculinity, Nick is drawn to Jay Gatsby, his enigmatic neighbor whose glamorous parties are infamous. Jay, who is also gay and trans, shows Nick the ropes of stealth living and crossing class lines. Despite their undeniable chemistry, Nick agrees to help Jay win over Daisy. The duo teams up with Jay and Daisy’s friend Jordan to give Daisy a dazzling debutante season. – Book description from Kirkus Reviews

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow, 2010. (DB073112)
This debut novel tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a Black G.I. who becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy. With her strict African American grandmother as her new guardian, Rachel moves to a mostly Black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring mixed attention her way. Growing up in the 1980s, she learns to swallow her overwhelming grief and confronts her identity as a biracial young woman in a world that wants to see her as either Black or White. – Book description from Goodreads

Get a Life, Chloe Brown [#1] by Talia Hibbert, 2019. (BR023327, DB097496)
Chloe has decided it's time to stop letting her chronic illness keep her from living her life. She makes a list of things she wants to experience, but needs a teacher. Red, the sexy artist who works as her building superintendent, is just the man to help her. – Book description from KLAS

Memorial by Bryan Washington, 2020. (BR023607, DB101143)
Japanese American chef Mike and African American daycare teacher Benson begin reevaluating their stale relationship after Mike departs for Japan to visit his dying father and Benson is suddenly stuck with Mike's mom, who becomes an unconventional roommate. Both men will change in ways that will either make them stronger together, or fracture everything they've ever known. And just maybe they'll all be okay in the end. – Book description adapted from KLAS and Goodreads

The Wedding Date [#1] by Jasmine Guillory, 2018. (BR022416, DB090130)
On the eve of his ex's wedding festivities, Drew Nichols is minus a plus one. Luckily, a power outage strands him in an elevator with the perfect fake date, Alexa Monroe. After Alexa and Drew have more fun than they ever thought possible, Drew has to fly back to Los Angeles and his job as a pediatric surgeon, and Alexa heads home to Berkeley, where she's the mayor's chief of staff. Too bad they can't stop thinking about the other. Maybe there is something real to their fake dating after all? – Book description adapted from Goodreads

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before [#1] by Jenny Han, 2014. (DB083132, LP026317)
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters: her first kiss, the boy from summer camp, even her sister's ex-boyfriend, Josh. As she learns to deal with her past loves face to face, Lara Jean discovers that something good may come out of these letters after all. – Book description from Goodreads

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, 2014. (BRG03649, DB080393, en français DBG14927)
“Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos. A sensitive family portrait, this novel uncovers the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another. – Book description from Goodreads

The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary, 2019. (BR023924, DB095292)
Tiffy and Leon share a flat. Tiffy and Leon share a bed. Tiffy and Leon have never met…
Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they’re crazy, but it’s the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy’s at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time. But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven’t met yet, they’re about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rulebook out the window. – Book description from Goodreads

The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon, 2011. (DB074553)
It is 1968. Lynnie, a young white woman with a developmental disability, and Homan, an African American deaf man, are locked away in an institution, the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, and have been left to languish, forgotten. Deeply in love, they escape, and find refuge in the farmhouse of Martha, a retired schoolteacher and widow. But the couple is not alone –Lynnie has just given birth to a baby girl. When the authorities catch up to them that same night, Homan escapes into the darkness, and Lynnie is caught. But before she is forced back into the institution, she whispers two words to Martha: "Hide her." And so begins the 40-year epic journey of Lynnie, Homan, Martha, and baby Julia-lives divided by seemingly insurmountable obstacles, yet drawn together by a secret pact and extraordinary love. – Book description from Goodreads

The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes, 2022. (DB111241)
Sixteen-year-old Yamilet Flores prefers to be known for her killer eyeliner, not for being one of the only Mexican kids at her new, mostly white, very rich Catholic school. But at least here no one knows she's gay, and Yami intends to keep it that way. After being outed by her crush and ex-best friend before transferring to Slayton Catholic, Yami has new priorities: keep her brother out of trouble, make her mom proud, and, most importantly, don't fall in love. Granted, she's never been great at any of those things, but that's a problem for Future Yami. The thing is, it's hard to fake being straight when Bo, the only openly queer girl at school, is so annoyingly perfect. And smart. And talented. And cute. So cute. Either way, Yami isn't going to make the same mistake again. If word got back to her mom, she could face a lot worse than rejection. So she'll have to start asking, WWSGD: What would a straight girl do? – Book description from KLAS