Boys of Alabama by Genevieve Hudson: “In this bewitching debut novel, a sensitive teen, newly arrived in Alabama, falls in love, questions his faith, and navigates a strange power. While his German parents don’t know what to make of a South pining for the past, shy Max thrives in the thick heat. Taken in by the football team, he learns how to catch a spiraling ball, how to point a gun, and how to hide his innermost secrets. […] Boys of Alabama becomes a nuanced portrait of masculinity, religion, immigration, and the adolescent pressures that require total conformity.” Get Boys of Alabama at Bookshop.org >

Fairest by Meredith Talusan: “Fairest is a memoir about a precocious boy with albinism, a ‘sun child’ from a rural Philippine village, who would grow up to become a woman in America. […] Talusan realized she did not want to be confined to a prescribed role as a man, and transitioned to become a woman, despite the risk of losing a man she deeply loved. […] Her evocative reflections will shift our own perceptions of love, identity, gender, and the fairness of life.” Get Fairest at Bookshop.org >

Telephone by Percival Everett: “Zach Wells is a perpetually dissatisfied geologist-slash-paleobiologist. […] After a field trip to the desert yields nothing more than a colleague with a tenure problem and a student with an unwelcome crush on him, Wells returns home to find his world crumbling. His daughter has lost her edge at chess, she has developed mysterious eye problems, and her memory has lost its grasp. Powerless in the face of his daughter’s slow deterioration, he finds a mysterious note asking for help tucked into the pocket of a jacket he’s ordered off eBay. Desperate for someone to save, he sets off to New Mexico in secret on a quixotic rescue mission.” Get Telephone at Bookshop.org >