The Most Popular Book Club Books of the Summer, According to the Indie Next List

Oliva — whose family has an intimate relationship with the U.S.-Mexian border and who has worked as a translator for people coming into the U.S. — lays out the complexities of immigrating to the United States. She reflects on how refugees’ trauma must be mined and packaged for the immigration system, ponders who should be considered worthy of American citizenship, and explores how many immigrants are not immediately welcomed but end up handling our most precious industries, like food harvesting and more.

When the unnamed narrator of The Tree Doctor returns to California to take care of her dying mother in the early days of the pandemic, the separation from her husband and children — who are back in Hong Kong — and the weight of caring for a loved one makes her dissociate. She becomes transfixed with her mother’s garden and soon starts an affair with an arborist. Meanwhile, she notices parallels between the novel she’s trying to teach remotely — The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki — and life during a pandemic.

In this follow-up to Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle, it’s 1971 in Harlem, and Ray Carney has given up the life we saw him living in the previous book. Now, he’s focused on growing his business legally — until his teenage daughter wants Jackson 5 tickets. To get them, he reconnects with crooked NYPD officer Munson, who drags Ray back into a world of stolen goods and beatdowns. In the second part of the book, it’s 1973, and Ray and his partner Pepper find themselves mixing it up with the weird world of Blaxploitation films. Finally, 1976 has the partners in crime set to find out who set a series of fires in the city, one of which hurts a young boy.

This was one of thee books last year. With a premise that involves top women gladiators fighting for their lives within a corrupt prison system, it’s easy to see why. The author of Friday Black tells the bloody story of Loretta Thurwar and “Hurricane Staxxx,” two women who are friends, lovers, and popular Chain Gang All-Stars. As All-Stars, they’ve fought against other prisoners in lethal battles to win shortened sentences through a highly contested program that’s run through the controversial Criminal Action Penal Entertainment organization in a (not so) alternative United States. Loretta nears the day she’ll finally be free, but the burden of all she’s done — and still has to do — weighs heavily on her in this damning look at America’s prison industrial complex and culture of violence.

If you’ve read any of Moreno-Garcia’s other books — like The Daughter of Doctor Moreau or Mexican Gothic — you know she hops, skips, and jumps around genres with ease. In her latest, she’s serving up ’90s Mexico City, the film industry, and occultism. Montserrat is being held back by a sexist film industry despite her talent as a sound editor. On top of that, she’s pining for her best friend, former soap opera star Tristán. Once Tristán gets a new neighbor — cult horror director Abel Urueta — both his and Montserrat’s lives change. Urueta enlists them to help him complete his unfinished movie about a Nazi occultist to reverse a curse, but then things get really real.