“Things don’t go away just because you choose to forget them.” – Teju Cole
10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall
fiction / romance / comedy.
Sam Becker loves—or, okay, likes—his job. Sure, managing a bed and bath retailer isn’t exactly glamorous, but it’s good work and he gets on well with the band of misfits who keep the store running. He could see himself being content here for the long haul. Too bad, then, that the owner is an infuriating git.
Jonathan Forest should never have hired Sam. It was a sentimental decision, and Jonathan didn’t get where he is by following his heart. Determined to set things right, Jonathan orders Sam down to London for a difficult talk… only for a panicking Sam to trip, bump his head, and maybe accidentally imply he doesn’t remember anything?
Faking amnesia seemed like a good idea when Sam was afraid he was getting sacked, but now he has to deal with the reality of Jonathan’s guilt—as well as the unsettling fact that his surly boss might have a softer side to him. There’s an unexpected freedom in getting a second shot at a first impression… but as Sam and Jonathan grow closer, can Sam really bring himself to tell the truth, or will their future be built entirely on one impulsive lie?
“A fresh take on a popular theme, perfect for romance lovers and newbies alike.” – Katherine Sleyko, Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
“Alexis Hall’s new rom-com might have a zany setup—a guy fakes amnesia!—but its authentic emotion will win readers’ hearts.” – BookPage, STARRED REVIEW
“The plotting is rom-com gold, Hall’s typical wit is on display, and the eclectic supporting cast charms… fans of grumpy/sunshine romances will eat this up.” – Publishers Weekly
The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind by Joseph Nocera & Bethany McLean
nonfiction / politics / current events.
In 2020, the novel coronavirus pandemic made it painfully clear that the U.S. could not adequately protect its citizens. Millions of Americans suffered—and over a million died—in less than two years, while government officials blundered; prize-winning economists overlooked devastating trade-offs; and elites escaped to isolated retreats, unaffected by and even profiting from the pandemic.
Why and how did America, in a catastrophically enormous failure, become the world leader in COVID deaths? In this page-turning economic, political, and financial history, veteran journalists Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera offer fresh and provocative answers. With laser-sharp analysis and deep sourcing, they investigate both what really happened when governments ran out of PPE due to snarled supply chains and the shock to the financial system when the world’s biggest economy stumbled. They zero in on the effectiveness of wildly polarized approaches, with governors Andrew Cuomo of New York and Ron DeSantis of Florida taking infamous turns in the spotlight. And they trace why thousands died in hollowed-out hospital systems and nursing homes run by private equity firms to “maximize shareholder value.”
In the tradition of the authors’ previous landmark exposés, The Big Fail is an expansive, insightful account on what the pandemic did to the economy and how American capitalism has jumped the rails—and is essential reading to understand where we’re going next.
“[A] withering account… It’s among the best reports to date on America’s botched pandemic response.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“…eye-opening… A damning report card presenting a distressingly exhaustive array of pandemic fumbles.” – Kirkus Reviews
Black Friend: Essays by Ziwe
nonfiction / memoir / comedy.
Ziwe made a name for herself by asking guests like Alyssa Milano, Fran Lebowitz, and Chet Hanks direct questions. In Black Friend, she turns her incisive perspective on both herself and the culture at large. Throughout the book, Ziwe combines pop-culture commentary and personal stories, which grapple with her own (mis)understanding of identity. From a hilarious case of mistaken identity via a jumbotron to a terrifying fight-or-flight encounter in the woods, Ziwe raises difficult questions for comedic relief.
“[A] precious glimpse into how Ziwe’s uniquely fearless mind functions.” – Brian Boone, Vulture
“As she does on her show, Ziwe uses jokes as vehicles for her staggeringly insightful cultural analysis, fueled by her unparalleled knowledge of history, literature, criticism, and popular culture… Ziwe fans will revel in the behind-the-scenes details, while those unfamiliar with the author or her show will delight in their personal discovery of one of the smartest, funniest voices in modern America.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“This debut essay collection by comedian Ziwe has it all, from irreverence galore to her irresistible provocations on culture, to dishy asides about celebrity encounters. It’s organized by essays, but each one feels like a very good hang session: equal parts chatty and funny. It’s got a light touch but sharp nails.” – Maggie Lange, Bustle
Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir by Curtis Chin ★
nonfiction / memoir.
Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone—from the city’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples—could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city’s spiraling misfortunes; and where—between helpings of almond boneless chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and some of his own, less-savory culinary concoctions—he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family, and to himself.
Served up by the cofounder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and structured around the very menu that graced the tables of Chung’s, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is both a memoir and an invitation: to step inside one boy’s childhood oasis, scoot into a vinyl booth, and grow up with him—and perhaps even share something off the secret menu.
“[A] love letter to the communal spaces that shape us.” – Shannon Carlin, Time
“Chin’s vivid writing makes it easy to imagine him and his siblings hanging out at Chung’s and observing all the people who come in and out.” – Bettina Makalintal, Eater
“…captivating… vivid and moving… In lucid, empathetic prose, Chin mounts an elegy for a now closed community center that doubles as a message of compassion to his former self. Readers will be moved.” – Publishers Weekly
“A charming, often funny account of a sentimental education in a Cantonese restaurant… Chin is a born storyteller with an easy manner, and this memoir should earn him many readers.” – Kirkus Reviews
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng ★
fiction / historical fiction.
The year is 1921. Lesley Hamlyn and her husband, Robert, a lawyer and war veteran, are living at Cassowary House on the Straits Settlement of Penang. When “Willie” Somerset Maugham, a famed writer and old friend of Robert’s, arrives for an extended visit with his secretary Gerald, the pair threatens a rift that could alter more lives than one.
Maugham, one of the great novelists of his day, is beleaguered: Having long hidden his homosexuality, his unhappy and expensive marriage of convenience becomes unbearable after he loses his savings-and the freedom to travel with Gerald. His career deflating, his health failing, Maugham arrives at Cassowary House in desperate need of a subject for his next book. Lesley, too, is enduring a marriage more duplicitous than it first appears. Maugham suspects an affair and, learning of Lesley’s past connection to the Chinese revolutionary, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, decides to probe deeper. But as their friendship grows and Lesley confides in him about life in the Straits, Maugham discovers a far more surprising tale than he imagined, one that involves not only war and scandal but the trial of an Englishwoman charged with murder. It is, to Maugham, a story worthy of fiction.
A mesmerizingly beautiful novel based on real events, The House of Doors traces the fault lines of race, gender, sexuality, and power under empire, and dives deep into the complicated nature of love and friendship in its shadow.
“…expertly constructed, tightly plotted and richly atmospheric.” – Michael Arditti, Financial Times
“…intoxicating… Tan seamlessly merges fact and fiction [in] lush, dreamy prose… This is a stunner.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“…exquisite… Tan succeeds in delivering another intricate literary gift.” – Terry Hong, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Outstanding… The House of Doors again displays [Eng’s] talent for atmospheric evocation of place and period… Beautifully detailed and encompassing the vagaries of Maugham’s life… The House of Doors is a finely accomplished piece of work.” – Peter Kemp, The Times
An Inconvenient Cop: My Fight to Change Policing in America by Edwin Raymond with Jon Sternfeld
nonfiction / memoir / current events.
Over his decade and a half with the New York Police Department, Edwin Raymond consistently exposed the dark underbelly of modern policing, becoming the highest-ranking whistleblower in the history of the force and one of the country’s leading voices against police injustice. Offering a rare, often shocking view of American policing, An Inconvenient Cop pulls back the curtain on the many flaws woven into the NYPD’s training, data, and practices, which have since been repackaged and repurposed by police departments across the country.
Gravitating toward law enforcement in the hope of being a positive influence in his community, Raymond quickly learned that the problem with policing is a lot deeper than merely “a few bad apples”—the entire mechanism is set up to ensure that racial profiling is rewarded, and there are weighty consequences for cops who don’t play along. Struggling with the moral dilemma of policing impartially while witnessing his fellow officers go with the flow, Raymond’s journey takes him to the precipice of personal and professional ruin. Yet, through it all, he remains steadfast in his commitment to justice and his belief in the potential for change.
At once revelatory and galvanizing, An Inconvenient Cop courageously bears witness to and exposes institutional violence. It presents a vision of radical hope and makes the case for a world in which the police’s responsibility is not to arrest numbers but to the people.
“[A] searing memoir… This is a gutting and essential take on a hot-button issue.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Raymond’s chronicle is an uplifting story of perseverance and a hard, eye-opening look at policing and what it takes to make a department live up to its best potential.” – Cynthia Dieden, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Readers will be impressed by Raymond’s courage and integrity, and he presents an inspiring story, captivatingly written and exciting to read. An urgent exposé, essential to understanding the fractured state of policing in America.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind by Molly McGhee ★
fiction / fantasy.
Jonathan Abernathy is a self-proclaimed loser… he’s behind on his debts, has no prospects, no friends, and no ambitions. But when a government loan forgiveness program offers him a literal dream job, he thinks he’s found his big break. If he can appear to be competent at his new job, entering the minds of middle class workers while they sleep and removing the unsavory detritus of their waking lives from their unconscious, he might have a chance at a new life. As Abernathy finds his footing in this role, reality and morality begin to warp around him. Soon, the lines between life and work, love and hate, right and wrong, even sleep and consciousness, begin to blur.
Molly McGhee touches on themes most people know all too well—the relentlessly crushing weight of debt, the recognition that work won’t love you back and the awkwardness of finding love when you are without hope. A workplace novel, at once tender, startling, and deeply funny, Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind is a stunning, critical work of surrealist fiction, a piercing critique of late-stage capitalism, and a reckoning with its true cost.
“McGhee’s clipped, knowing, and often very funny prose… somehow manages to infuse the book with both levity and dread.” – Emily Temple, Literary Hub
“Upton Sinclair meets modern workplace satire—with a lot of heart.” – Kirkus Reviews
“[A] sparkling first novel… builds to a breathless conclusion… this is a debut that announces a remarkably imaginative and exciting new talent… a superlative state-of-the-nation novel like no other. Full of astoundingly resonant and eminently quotable points about labor, capital, and depression, this wondrous literary creation brilliantly captures the excessive demands of contemporary work.” – Alexander Moran, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“McGhee grapples skillfully with the complicated ethical questions at the core of late-stage capitalism. How much of yourself must you sacrifice in order to make a life? Who do we risk becoming in the pursuit of safety and comfort?” – Isle McElroy, Vulture
Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia by Gary J. Bass
nonfiction / history.
In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Chiang Kai-shek, and their fellow victors, the question of justice seemed clear: Japan’s militaristic leaders needed to be tried and punished for the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor; shocking atrocities against civilians in China, the Philippines, and elsewhere; and rampant abuses of prisoners of war in notorious incidents such as the Bataan death march. For the Allied powers, the trial was an opportunity to render judgment on their vanquished foes, but also to create a legal framework to prosecute war crimes and prohibit the use of aggressive war, building a more peaceful world under international law and American hegemony. For the Japanese leaders on trial, it was their chance to argue that their war had been waged to liberate Asia from Western imperialism and that the court was victors’ justice.
For more than two years, lawyers for both sides presented their cases before a panel of clashing judges from China, India, the Philippines, and Australia, as well as the United States and European powers. The testimony ran from horrific accounts of brutality and the secret plans to attack Pearl Harbor to the Japanese military’s threats to subvert the government if it sued for peace. Yet rather than clarity and unanimity, the trial brought complexity, dissents, and divisions that provoke international discord between China, Japan, and Korea to this day. Those courtroom tensions and contradictions could also be seen playing out across Asia as the trial unfolded in the crucial early years of the Cold War, from China’s descent into civil war to Japan’s successful postwar democratic elections to India’s independence and partition.
From the author of the acclaimed The Blood Telegram, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, this magnificent history is the product of a decade of research and writing. Judgment at Tokyo is a riveting story of wartime action, dramatic courtroom battles, and the epic formative years that set the stage for the Asian postwar era.
“A towering work of research resurrects a pivotal moment in history.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“Deeply researched… Bass turns our focus to the negotiations in Japan after World War II. A sweeping two-year drama in and of itself, the trial also created conditions that continue to reverberate throughout Asia.” – Washington Post
“Bass astounds with his ability to tie so many complex narratives together. This is a clear-eyed look at a pivotal period in world history.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow
nonfiction / history.
Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it. It was a sophisticated and shockingly well-funded campaign to undermine democratic institutions, promote antisemitism, and destroy citizens’ confidence in their elected leaders, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the U.S. government and installing authoritarian rule.
That effort worked—tongue and groove—alongside an ultra-right paramilitary movement that stockpiled bombs and weapons and trained for mass murder and violent insurrection.
At the same time, a handful of extraordinary activists and journalists were tracking the scheme, exposing it even as it was unfolding. In 1941 the U.S. Department of Justice finally made a frontal attack, identifying the key plotters, finding their backers, and prosecuting dozens in federal court.
None of it went as planned.
While the scheme has been remembered in history—if at all—as the work of fringe players, in reality it involved a large number of some of the country’s most influential elected officials. Their interference in law enforcement efforts against the plot is a dark story of the rule of law bending and then breaking under the weight of political intimidation.
That failure of the legal system had consequences. The tentacles of that unslain beast have reached forward into our history for decades. But the heroic efforts of the activists, journalists, prosecutors, and regular citizens who sought to expose the insurrectionists also make for a deeply resonant, deeply relevant tale in our own disquieting times.
“[A] sharp-edged history… contextually rich… America beat fascism once. Maddow’s timely study of enemies on the homefront urges that we can do so again.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“Maddow’s book is a ripping read — well rendered, fast-paced and delivered with the same punch and assurance that she brings to a broadcast… a valuable window into the authoritarian mind-set — and the process by which self-professed patriots turn against democracy.” – Jeff Shesol, New York Times
“There’s a focused awe in discovering something historic that has contemporary relevance, and Maddow’s sublime research into the precursors of current existential threats is astonishingly deep. She finds rabbit holes even rabbits are unaware of, conveying her wonderment with a jaunty ‘hey, look at this’ enthusiasm.” – Carol Haggas, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA by Liza Mundy
nonfiction / history / biography.
Created in the aftermath of World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency relied on women even as it attempted to channel their talents and keep them down. Women sent cables, made dead drops, and maintained the agency’s secrets. Despite discrimination—even because of it—women who started as clerks, secretaries, or unpaid spouses rose to become some of the CIA’s shrewdest operatives.
They were unlikely spies—and that’s exactly what made them perfect for the role. Because women were seen as unimportant, pioneering female intelligence officers moved unnoticed around Bonn, Geneva, and Moscow, stealing secrets from under the noses of their KGB adversaries. Back at headquarters, women built the CIA’s critical archives—first by hand, then by computer. And they noticed things that the men at the top didn’t see. As the CIA faced an identity crisis after the Cold War, it was a close-knit network of female analysts who spotted the rising threat of al-Qaeda—though their warnings were repeatedly brushed aside.
After the 9/11 attacks, more women joined the agency as a new job, targeter, came to prominence. They showed that data analysis would be crucial to the post-9/11 national security landscape—an effort that culminated spectacularly in the CIA’s successful effort to track down bin Laden in his Pakistani compound.
Propelled by the same meticulous reporting and vivid storytelling that infused Code Girls, The Sisterhood offers a riveting new perspective on history, revealing how women at the CIA ushered in the modern intelligence age, and how their silencing made the world more dangerous.
“[A] vivid and immersive new history of the CIA.” – Publishers Weekly
“Another winner from Mundy, who tells a story that deserves to be told about women who deserve to be remembered.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“[A] galvanizing group biography… Every page is electric with revelations as Mundy vividly and perceptively portrays the remarkable women who covertly elevated this complicated, controversial, yet essential government agency. ” – Donna Seaman, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin): A Memoir by Sly Stone with Ben Greenman ★
nonfiction / memoir / music.
Not many memoirs are generational events. But when Sly Stone, one of the few true musical geniuses of the last century, decides to finally tell his life story, it can’t be called anything else.
As the front man for the sixties pop-rock-funk band Sly and the Family Stone, a songwriter who created some of the most memorable anthems of the 1960s and 1970s (“Everyday People,” “Family Affair”), and a performer who electrified audiences at Woodstock and elsewhere, Sly Stone’s influence on modern music and culture is indisputable. But as much as people know the music, the man remains a mystery. After a rapid rise to superstardom, Sly spent decades in the grips of addiction.
Now he is ready to relate the ups and downs and ins and outs of his amazing life in his memoir, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin). The book moves from Sly’s early career as a radio DJ and record producer through the dizzying heights of the San Francisco music scene in the late 1960s and into the darker, denser life (and music) of 1970s and 1980s Los Angeles. Set on stages and in mansions, in the company of family and of other celebrities, it’s a story about flawed humanity and flawless artistry.
Written with Ben Greenman, who has also worked on memoirs with George Clinton and Brian Wilson, and in collaboration with Arlene Hirschkowitz, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) is a vivid, gripping, sometimes terrifying, and ultimately affirming tour through Sly’s life and career. Like Sly, it’s honest and playful, sharp and blunt, emotional and analytical, always moving and never standing still.
“[An] electric tell-all… readers will be captivated… It’s unadulterated, unapologetic Sly.” – Publishers Weekly
“Stone’s memoir will certainly appeal to curious readers and fans of this icon of rock and soul music.” – Leah K. Huey, Library Journal
“Thank You is as complicated and beautiful as Stone himself.” – Freda Love Smith, Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“[The] charm, playfulness, humour and personality of Stone’s songs come through in his on-page voice…” – Rob Doyle, The Guardian
Tremor by Teju Cole ★
fiction.
Life is hopeless but it is not serious. We have to have danced while we could and, later, to have danced again in the telling.
A weekend spent antiquing is shadowed by the colonial atrocities that occurred on that land. A walk at dusk is interrupted by casual racism. A loving marriage is riven by mysterious tensions. And a remarkable cascade of voices speaks out from a pulsing metropolis.
We’re invited to experience these events and others through the eyes and ears of Tunde, a West African man working as a teacher of photography on a renowned New England campus. He is a reader, a listener, a traveler, drawn to many different kinds of stories: stories from history and epic; stories of friends, family, and strangers; stories found in books and films. Together these stories make up his days. In aggregate these days comprise a life.
Tremor is a startling work of realism and invention that engages brilliantly with literature, music, race, and history as it examines the passage of time and how we mark it. It is a reckoning with human survival amidst “history’s own brutality, which refuses symmetries and seldom consoles,” but it is also a testament to the possibility of joy. As he did in his magnificent debut Open City, Teju Cole once again offers narration with all its senses alert, a surprising and deeply essential work from a beacon of contemporary literature.
“[A] mournful yet lyrical and beautiful tapestry that guides readers through a deeply authentic worldview.” – George Kendall, Booklist
“Tremor is the most sundry and vagrant of Cole’s works to date, with abrupt changes in form, perspective and theme… This feature of his work is a lure, a formal and ethical trap for the reader who is at first seduced by Cole’s mastery of anecdote before being immersed in rich, sometimes discomfiting ideas.” – Brian Dillon, New York Times
“Cole continues to demonstrate just how elastic a novel can be and how trenchant he is. His book crosses national boundaries just as confidently as it crosses literary ones.” – Ron Charles, Washington Post
“An elegant and unsettling prose still-life, which reflects on art’s relationship to theft and violence, to privacy and togetherness, and to the way we mark time… A work of autofiction with the ambition of a systems novel, aspiring to illustrate the world’s interconnectedness without recourse to the fictional conventions of plot and psychological portraiture. Instead, it moves like an essay, interweaving slices of life with musings on Malian guitar virtuosos, astronomical phenomena, films by Ingmar Bergman and Abbas Kiarostami. Cole’s mind is so agile that it’s easy to follow him anywhere… There is a method to the meandering. Cole uses the resonance between fragments to imply a dimly apprehended totality, like a seismologist integrating measurements from different sites to map an earthquake.” – Julian Lucas, The New Yorker
Vengeance Is Mine by Marie NDiaye; translated by Jordan Stump ★
fiction / mystery / suspense.
The heroine of Marie NDiaye’s new novel is Maître Susane, a quiet middle-aged lawyer living a modest existence in Bordeaux, known to all as a consummate and unflappable professional. But when Gilles Principaux shows up at her office asking her to defend his wife, who is accused of a horrific crime, Maître Susane begins to crack.
She seems to remember having been alone with him in her youth for a significant event, one her mind obsesses over but can’t quite reconstruct. Who is this Gilles Principaux? And why would he come to her, a run-of-the-mill lawyer, for such an important trial?
While this mystery preoccupies Maître Susane, at home she is increasingly concerned about Sharon, her faithful but peculiar housekeeper. Sharon arrived from Mauritius with her husband and children, and she lacks legal residency in France. But while Maître Susane has generously offered Sharon her professional services, the housekeeper always finds ways to evade her, claiming the marriage certificate Maître Susane requires is being held hostage. Is Sharon being honest with Maître Susane, or is something more sinister going on?
Told in a slow seethe recalling the short novels of Elena Ferrante and the psychological richness of Patricia Highsmith’s work, Vengeance Is Mine is a dreamlike portrait of a woman afflicted by failing memories and a tortured uncertainty about her own past that threatens to become her undoing.
“…magnetic and intense… The author is equally adept at both small-scale psychological character insight and virtuosic structural shifts… Ndiaye turns in another ferocious tale.” – Publishers Weekly
“…sinister and spellbinding… Half suspense novel, half dark fairy tale, Vengeance is Mine is a literary tour-de-force.” – Molly Odintz, CrimeReads
“…unsettling… has the magnetism of a thriller and the mysteriousness of an existential riddle… This is a novel of unraveling certainties and of a middle-class life encroached upon by nightmares. You may not fully unlock its mysteries—it’s slim, a good length for a reread—but you won’t be able to put it down.” – Taylor Antrim, Vogue
“…gripping… Using a series of short, breathless paragraphs to drive the story on, NDiaye balances external and internal revelations to create a powerful story of mothers and daughters, and of what happens when a parent’s unconditional love breaks down.” – John Self, The Guardian
Worthy by Jada Pinkett Smith
nonfiction / memoir.
Jada Pinkett Smith was living what many would view as a fairy-tale of Hollywood success. But appearances can be deceiving, and as she felt more and more separated from her sense of self, emotional turmoil took hold. Sparing no detail, Worthy chronicles her life—from a rebellious youth running the Baltimore streets as an observer and participant in the drug trade, to the deep bond she shared with Tupac Shakur from the moment they met, to her move to Los Angeles and the successful career she built on her own terms, to becoming the wife of superstar Will Smith and mother to Jaden, Willow and bonus-mom to Trey. A rollercoaster from the depths of suicidal depression to the heights of self-acceptance and spiritual healing, Worthy is a woman’s journey to finding herself again.
In a media driven landscape that crafts narratives for our celebrities, Smith shares herself in an intimate conversation with readers. She answers questions about her difficult childhood, her marriage, her parenting style, her career choices, and the intense scrutiny that followed “the slap.” An impactful and rare memoir that engages and educates, Worthy shows why adhering to the status quo has never been the plan for Jada Pinkett Smith and why labels and stories crafted by others strip women of their authenticity. Worthy teaches us who Jada is, and how to embrace our most lovable qualities. Complete with thought-provoking writing prompts and meditations on how to discover who we really are and nourish our self-worth.
“Worthy emphasizes that every part of a life is worth examining, worth living, worth honoring.” – Nichole Perkins, Washington Post
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