If You Only Read One Book in August, Make it This One

Paula Hawkins, the author of “The Girl on the Train,” is back with another murder mystery. This time, it centers around a young man who is killed on a houseboat. The key players are Carla, his aunt, who’s already in mourning after her sister is found dead at the bottom of the stairway in her home. There’s Miriam, the man’s neighbor, who clearly knows way too much. And there’s Laura, the woman the victim slept with just hours before he was murdered. Though she claims not to have been involved in the death, she also can’t remember much about that night.

It’s hard to know who committed the murder — Hawkins knows how to make it seem like anyone could have done it. Every single character is unlikable and unreliable in their own way, and what connects them all is possibly even more shocking than the murder itself. If you’re looking for a page-turner, this one is it.

Another novel to get excited about is “All’s Well,” which follows Miranda Fitch, a former actress whose career was cut short thanks to an accident that left her with severe chronic back pain. After her marriage crumbles, Miranda finds herself more and more reliant on painkillers and alcohol to get through the day, since her pain is so severe. More frustratingly, her doctors don’t believe her.

Soon after, it becomes clear that she might lose her theater director position at the local college. Although she resents her students for showing the promise she once had and also having no interest in her vision for the Shakespeare play she’s running, “All’s Well That Ends Well,” she knows she can’t lose yet another thing.

One day, she meets three strange men who know her past as well as the future she could have. Smart, hilarious, and completely unexpected, “All’s Well” is a story about pain — both emotional and physical — what happens when our dreams are taken from us, and what we would do to get them back in our grasp.

“Afterparties” is a weighty, tender book of short stories that’s already generating tons of buzz and praise. Focusing on generational trauma and how it shapes families and communities, these stories follow Cambodian-American characters who pave new lives for themselves in the U.S. 

One story is about a tech CEO’s plan to launch a “safe space” app and his unexpected queer affair with a young teacher who can’t stop talking about “Moby Dick.” Another follows a young child who learns his mom survived a racist school shooter, a horrific tragedy that molded her life and the ones she created.

Anthony Veasna So, who sadly passed away in early 2020, proved himself to be a dazzling writer who had a raw talent for capturing the complexities of overlapping identities with nuanced, gritty, and beautiful storytelling.