Since I didn't post a Can't-Wait Wednesday last week, I'm sharing four books this week in efforts to make up for that (that, plus July is packed with new releases so I just want to be able to share more!).
Beasts of Carnaval by Rosália Rodrigo
Publication: July 29th, 2025
MIRA
Hardcover. 400 pages.
Pre-order: Bookshop.org | Amazon
From Goodreads:
"When night descends, el Carnaval de Bestias rises.
They come chasing paradise…
Within the shores of Isla Bestia, guests from around the world discover a utopia of ever-changing performances, sumptuous feasts and beautiful monsters. Many enter, but few ever leave—the wine is simply too sweet, the music too fine and the revelry endless.
Sofía, a freedwoman from a nearby colonized island, cares little for this revelry. Born an enslaved mestiza on a tobacco plantation, she has neither wealth nor title, only a scholarly pragmatism and a hunger for answers. She travels to el Carnaval de Bestias in search of her twin brother, who disappeared five years ago.
There’s a world of wonder waiting for her on the shores of this legendary island, one wherein conquerors profit from Sofía’s ancestral lands and her people’s labor. But surrounded by her former enslavers, she finds something familiar in the performances—whispers of the island’s native tongue, music and stories from her Taike’ri ancestors…a culture long hidden in the shadows, thrust into the light.
As the nights pass, her mind begins unraveling, drowning in the unnatural, almost sentient thrall of Carnaval. And the sense that someone is watching her grows. To find her brother and break free, Sofía must peel back the glamorous curtain and face those behind Carnaval, before she too loses herself to the island…"
How eye-catching is that cover? I am also completely entranced by the premise of this one and am so eager to go check out this magical island!
Pan by Michael Clune
Publication: July 22nd, 2025
Penguin Press
Hardcover. 336 pages.
Pre-order: Bookshop.org | Amazon
From Goodreads:
"A strange and brilliant teenager's first panic attacks lead him down the rabbit hole in this wild, highly anticipated debut novel from one of our most distinctive literary minds.
Nicholas is fifteen when he forgets how to breathe. He had plenty of reason to feel unstable already: He’s been living with his dad in the bleak Chicago suburbs since his Russian-born mom kicked him out. Then one day in geometry class, Nicholas suddenly realizes that his hands are objects. The doctor says it’s just panic, but Nicholas suspects that his real problem might not be a psychiatric one: maybe the Greek god Pan is trapped inside his body. As his paradigm for his own consciousness crumbles, Nicholas; his best friend, Ty; and his maybe-girlfriend, Sarah, hunt for answers why—in Oscar Wilde and in Charles Baudelaire, in rock and roll and in Bach, and in the mysterious, drugged-out Barn, where their classmate Tod’s charismatic older brother Ian leads the high schoolers in rituals that might end up breaking more than just the law.
Thrilling, cerebral, and startlingly funny, Pan is a new masterpiece of the coming-of-age genre by Guggenheim fellow and literary scholar Michael Clune, whose memoir of heroin addiction, White Out—named one of The New Yorker’s best books of the year—earned him a cult readership. Now, in Pan, the great novel of our age of anxiety, Clune drops us inside the human psyche, where we risk discovering that the forces controlling our inner lives could be more alien than we want to let ourselves believe."
I feel like I've been seeing this book around for quite a while, and every time I see it I feel like it's one that I just have to check out. I mean, a protagonist who thinks Pan is trapped inside his body? I'm in on that alone.
Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon
Publication: July 22nd, 2025
Tordotcom
Hardcover. 176 pages.
Pre-order: Bookshop.org | Amazon
From Goodreads:
"'Ex Machina meets This is How You Lose the Time War: Seth Haddon's science fiction debut, Volatile Memory, is a heart-filled, vengeful sapphic sci-fi action adventure novella.
With nothing but a limping ship and an outdated mask to her name, Wylla needs a big pay day. When the call goes out that a lucrative piece of tech is waiting on a nearby planet, she relies on all the swiftness of her prey animal instincts to beat other hunters to it.
What you found wasn’t your ticket out—it was my corpse wearing an AI mask. When you touched the mask, you heard my voice. A consciousness spinning through metal and circuits, a bodiless mind, spun to life in the HAWK’s temporary storage. I crystallized, and I was alive.
Masks aren't supposed to retain memory, much less identity, but the woman inside the MARK I HAWK is real, and she sees Wylla in a way no one ever has. Sees her, and doesn’t find her wanting or unwhole.
Armed with military-grade tech and a lifetime of staying one step ahead of the hunters, Wylla and HAWK set off to get answers from the man who discarded HAWK once before: her ex-husband."
I've been looking for some good sci-fi lately, and this seems like a promising one with a really intriguing concept.
Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity by Joseph Lee
Publication: July 15th, 2025
Atria
Hardcover. 256 pages.
Pre-order: Bookshop.org | Amazon
From Goodreads:
"'From award-winning journalist Joseph Lee, an exploration of Indigenous identity that builds on the author’s experiences and questions as an Aquinnah Wampanoag from Martha’s Vineyard.
Growing up Aquinnah Wampanoag, Joseph Lee grappled with what it means to be an Indigenous person in the world today, especially as tribal land, culture, and community face new threats. Starting with the story of his own tribe, which is from the iconic Martha’s Vineyard, Lee tackles key questions around Indigenous identity and the stubborn legacy of colonialism.
Lee weaves his own story—and that of his family—with conversations with Indigenous leaders, artists, and scholars from around the world about everything from culture and language to climate change and the politics of belonging. As he unpacks the meaning of Indigenous identity, Lee grants us a new understanding of our nation and what a better community might look like."
I have really liked learning more about the indigenous community and their experiences, and this sounds like it will be an incredibly insightful and informative read.
