2020 YA Debuts! – Part One

I love reading books by brand new authors and supporting debut authors with their first published book. I am always finding out about brand new debut authors and new debut novels and love sharing them with other book. So, I thought for my next two part post I would talk about the 2020 debuts that I have loved or am excited about! Here is part one!The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper 

“As a successful social media journalist with half a million followers, seventeen-year-old Cal is used to sharing his life online. But when his pilot father is selected for a highly publicized NASA mission to Mars, Cal and his family relocate from Brooklyn to Houston and are thrust into a media circus.

Amidst the chaos, Cal meets sensitive and mysterious Leon, another “Astrokid,” and finds himself falling head over heels—fast. As the frenzy around the mission grows, so does their connection. But when secrets about the program are uncovered, Cal must find a way to reveal the truth without hurting the people who have become most important to him.”

I have been seeing this one absolutely everywhere this year and the hype to read this book is unreal. I have a copy of it on my shelf and plan on reading it very soon. I cannot wait to form some thoughts on this book and I will certainly be posting a review when I have read it!

---

Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen

“When eighteen-year-old Ever Wong’s parents send her from Ohio to Taiwan to study Mandarin for the summer, she finds herself thrust among the very over-achieving kids her parents have always wanted her to be, including Rick Woo, the Yale-bound prodigy profiled in the Chinese newspapers since they were nine—and her parents’ yardstick for her never-measuring-up life.

Unbeknownst to her parents, however, the program is actually an infamous teen meet-market nicknamed Loveboat, where the kids are more into clubbing than calligraphy and drinking snake-blood sake than touring sacred shrines.”

I read this one earlier into 2020 and throughly enjoyed it. I cannot wait to see what else Abigail Hing Wen is going to be writing in the future and I will certainly be giving them a read. I wrote a full review for this book and you can find that here.

---

The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar

“When Nishat comes out to her parents, they say she can be anyone she wants—as long as she isn’t herself. Because Muslim girls aren’t lesbians. Nishat doesn’t want to hide who she is, but she also doesn’t want to lose her relationship with her family. And her life only gets harder once a childhood friend walks back into her life.

Flávia is beautiful and charismatic and Nishat falls for her instantly. But when a school competition invites students to create their own businesses, both Flávia and Nishat choose to do henna, even though Flávia is appropriating Nishat’s culture. Amidst sabotage and school stress, their lives get more tangled—but Nishat can’t quite get rid of her crush on Flávia, and realizes there might be more to her than she realized. ”

This is another that I have been seeing all over Twitter recently and it sounds incredible. Not only does it have a beautiful cover but the concept of the book itself also sounds beautiful. I have pre-order this one and will be reading it as soon as I can because I cannot wait to read it.

---

The Sky is Mine by Amy Beashel 

“No one has ever asked Izzy what she wants. She’s about to change all that…

In a house adept at sweeping problems under the carpet, seventeen-year-old Izzy feels silenced. As her safety grows uncertain, Izzy know three things for sure. She knows not to tell her mother that Jacob Mansfield has been threatening to spread those kinds of photos around college. She knows to quiet the grief that she’s been abandoned by her best friend Grace. And, seeing her mother conceal the truth of her stepdad’s control, Izzy also knows not to mention how her heart splinters and her stomach churns whenever he enters a room.

When the flimsy fabric of their life starts to unravel, Izzy and her mum must find their way out of the silence and use the power in their voices to rediscover their worth.”

This is such a beautiful and well needed debut novel that I loved so much. Amy Beashel has written a beautiful book that I feel will stick with many people for a long time. I actually wrote a full review of this book which you can find here.

---

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord 

“Meet Pepper, swim team captain, chronic overachiever, and all-around perfectionist. Her family may be falling apart, but their massive fast-food chain is booming ― mainly thanks to Pepper, who is barely managing to juggle real life while secretly running Big League Burger’s massive Twitter account.

Enter Jack, class clown and constant thorn in Pepper’s side. When he isn’t trying to duck out of his obscenely popular twin’s shadow, he’s busy working in his family’s deli. His relationship with the business that holds his future might be love/hate, but when Big League Burger steals his grandma’s iconic grilled cheese recipe, he’ll do whatever it takes to take them down, one tweet at a time.

All’s fair in love and cheese ― that is, until Pepper and Jack’s spat turns into a viral Twitter war. Little do they know, while they’re publicly duking it out with snarky memes and retweet battles, they’re also falling for each other in real life ― on an anonymous chat app Jack built.”

This is yet another book that I have heard about thanks to Twitter and that I will be buying thanks to Twitter. I have heard that it is an incredible debut novel and is so fitting to this day and age. I cannot wait to buy this one and give it a read.What 2020 debuts are you excited about or have loved? Let me know in the comments below. Be sure to look out for part two of this series coming soon!