The Dividing Sky by Jill Tew (Joy Revolution, 2024): Jill Tew’s dystopian novel imagines what happens when corporations amass unstoppable power—and even memories become a performance-enhancing drug for the elite. (Doesn’t feel like much of a stretch anymore, does it?) Tew’s story isn’t just timely; it’s a warning to anyone who still believes our humanity can’t be rewritten and resold.
Queen of Faces by Petra Lord (Henry Holt, Feb. 3): Petra Lord’s debut fantasy is lush and ferocious, immersing readers in a world where the rich hop from body to body, choosing designer forms while everyone else fights for scraps. The female protagonist, trapped in a decaying male body, wants out—but Lord’s real power lies in how she turns survival into resistance. The result is both furious and hopeful.
Dear Martin by Nic Stone (Crown, 2017): When a Black teenager is wrongly arrested, he’s forced to navigate not just a broken justice system but everyone’s snap judgment of who he is. Nearly a decade since its release, Stone’s debut still hits like a live wire—urgent, clear-eyed, and impossible to shake.
Soman Chainani’s most recent book is Young World (One World/Random House, May 5).
