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Mega Milk by Megan Milks

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Mega Milk by Megan Milks
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I’ve never consumed milk. If I did, my throat would close up, and I’d stare down death. Nevertheless, I drank Mega Milk straight from the udder. In a truly brilliant essay collection, Megan Milks takes a few seemingly simple things–a name, a glass of milk–and spirals them outward into a quiet, encompassing portrait of a life. Written with an intimate detail that causes forgotten memories to bubble to the surface, these essays cast a keen and penetrating eye to the small moments that make up a person. I will read and reread Mega Milk for years to come.

Mega Milk by Megan Milks, (List Price: $17.95, The Feminist Press at CUNY, 9781558613584, January 2026)

Reviewed by Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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Bored by Felicita Sala

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Bored by Felicita Sala
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Rita is really, really bored. When her many boredom-fighting tactics don’t work (eating, stretching, jumping up and down in front of a mirror, etc.), she gets lost in her boundless imagination! I love a book about boredom with no mention of technology, and the illustrations are dramatic and amazing! Great for kids ages 4 to 8 who struggle with boredom and need a creative boost. It’s also hilarious and Rita is very relatable, rendered perfectly in various states of despair.

Bored by Felicita Sala, (List Price: $18.99, Neal Porter Books, 9780823461141, January 2026)

Reviewed by Julia Lewis, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson

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The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson
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Jackson really gets better with every book! I was hooked from page one on this updated version of Carrie, and I think Stephen King would be proud to have inspired this. Maddy is biracial and outcast from her peers and miserable at home with her abusive father. Racial tensions dividing the town of Springville come to a head on prom night, and the results are…explosive. Do not miss this amazing YA thriller!

The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson, (List Price: $15.95, Quill Tree Books, 9780063029156, September 2023)

Reviewed by Andrea Richardson, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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Everyone in the Group Chat Dies by L.M. Chilton

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Everyone in the Group Chat Dies by L.M. Chilton
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Another funny and unputdownable murder mystery/killing spree from the author of Don’t Swipe Right!. Bridget Jones meets I Know What You Did Last Summer in this page-turner about a small British town with a dark past, and the four deadbeat flatmates that get caught up in it when an online sleuth shows up at their door. The hilarious narration from protagonist Kirby is just as entertaining as the mystery itself, which unfolds in a fast-paced dual-timeline format. It’s like Chilton can’t help but write fabulous and unfortunate characters you’re bound to fall in love with!

Everyone in the Group Chat Dies by L.M. Chilton, (List Price: $19, Gallery/Scout Press, 9781668094174, December 2025)

Reviewed by Julia Lewis, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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The Coziest Place on the Moon by Maria Popova

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The Coziest Place on the Moon by Maria Popova
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An adorable, imaginative escapist read for children and adults alike. Written by poet and essayist Maria Popova, this little book about a lonely creature who seeks solace in a cozy spot in space does not condescend to its young readers but gently introduces them to new words and themes. Perfect for ages 5 to 8, this book supposes that the cure to loneliness is the happiness and creativity found in solitude. Enchanting, otherworldly, and so beautifully illustrated!

The Coziest Place on the Moon by Maria Popova, (List Price: $19.99, Enchanted Lion, 9781592704378, November 2025)

Reviewed by Julia Lewis, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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Cool for the Summer by Dahlia Adler

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Cool for the Summer by Dahlia Adler
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Adler knocks it out of the park with this sweet, spicy YA romance. Lara has had a crush on teen dream Chase for her entire high school career, to no avail. After a summer spent on her own in the Outer Banks of NC, she returns to school even more beautiful and full of confidence after a romance with a girl named Jasmine. Chase takes notice of Lara for the first time, and she’s about to jump in with both feet when none other than Jasmine shows up at her school. The girls haven’t spoken since they parted for the fall. Lara is torn between the guy she’s always wanted and the girl she never knew she needed. This hits a previously neglected spot in LGBTQ fiction and romance, and I love the way it explores identity and how teens may not understand who they are and how they feel yet.

Cool for the Summer by Dahlia Adler, (List Price: $12, Wednesday Books, 9781250888471, June 2023)

Reviewed by Andrea Richardson, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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How Girls Are Made by Mindy McGinnis

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How Girls Are Made by Mindy McGinnis
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At first, I thought that this book wasn’t McGinnis’s usual horror, but by the end, I realized it was horrific in a whole new way. A group of high school students tries to change the way sex ed is presented to kids in the district with an underground “class” and social media account. As these things tend to do, it all goes horribly wrong. We know from the start that someone doesn’t make it to the end, but we don’t know who until the end. Prepare to get your heart broken a few times before this one is over – I love it!

How Girls Are Made by Mindy McGinnis, (List Price: $19.99, HarperCollins, 9780063370692, November 2025)

Reviewed by Andrea Richardson, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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Flat Earth by Anika Jade Levy

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Flat Earth by Anika Jade Levy
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Literary fiction that combines sharp cultural commentary against an absolutely absurd backdrop, with the addition of characters that seem to be like extras from a Girls episode, this book spoke to me on levels that nothing else this year has even come close to. Anika Jade Levy is no stranger to the art, good writing, or insufferable people you meet in your 20s, and her debut novel homes in on these facts and crafts a dystopian, frolicking book I could not put down. Capturing day-to-day life in a dystopian America, Levy’s world may be fictional, but the psychological struggles her characters face in corporate America, juggling transactional female friendships, navigating a time of conspiracy politics, and modern love, all tie back to our reality with ease.

Flat Earth by Anika Jade Levy, (List Price: $26, Catapult, 9781646222810, November 2025)

Reviewed by Grace Sullivan, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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Herscht 07769 by László Krasznahorkai

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Herscht 07769 by László Krasznahorkai
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An absolutely stunning achievement in fiction. In one meandering, cascading, kaleidoscopic sentence across four hundred pages, Krasznahorkai paints a compelling portrait of the banality, beauty, heartbreak, and absurdity of the current era. We follow Florian Herscht, a gentle giant who works at a graffiti removal service, as he embarks on a one-sided correspondence with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to warn her about the impending end of the world through a reversal of the Big Bang. Meanwhile, he is roped by his boss (a neo-Nazi and inveterate Bach fan) into hunting down a graffiti artist who has been defacing all of the monuments to Johann Sebastian Bach in the city with pictures of wolves. Then real wolves show up, and things go off the rails. Herscht 07769 is weird and sad and truly one of a kind. It invades your mind and spirals outward, demolishing your sense of self and embedding you in the hopelessness and powerlessness of modern life.

Herscht 07769 by László Krasznahorkai, (List Price: $18.95, New Directions, 9780811231534, September 2024)

Reviewed by Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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Visions and Temptations by Harald Voetmann

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Visions and Temptations by Harald Voetmann
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It’s hard to describe what Harald Voetmann has captured in Visions and Temptations. It is a meditation on death, faith, sin, and human struggle. It is a hallucinatory travelogue of heavenly reward and divine punishment. It contains a striking monologue about onion-based farts. Fundamentally, though, Visions and Temptations depicts two fundamental and immutable elements of the human experience: mundanity and empathy. A compact, fascinating, and affecting read, unlike anything I’ve read before.

Visions and Temptations by Harald Voetmann, (List Price: $15.95, New Directions, 9780811229807, July 2025)

Reviewed by Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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Battle of the Bands by Lauren Gibaldi

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Battle of the Bands by Lauren Gibaldi
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15 writers of YA fiction join in to create a messily interconnected high school web of relationships, all centered on a Battle of the Bands competition at a New Jersey school. The stories vary pretty wildly from self-discovery to friends-to-lovers moments to breakups to meet-cutes to family reconciliations, but they all transport you right to the intense rush of emotions that marks the best of high school fiction. It’s a lot of fun to see how various stories connect to others, and each story is in its own way, also a writer’s love letter to music and the way it shaped their adolescence. Battle of the Bands is a really fun, sweet read and has something for just about everybody!

Battle of the Bands by Lauren Gibaldi, (List Price: $18.99, Candlewick, 9781536214338, September 2021)

Reviewed by Akil Guruparan, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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This Happened to Me by Kate Price

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This Happened to Me by Kate Price
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Price is getting comparisons to Jeannette Walls and Tara Westover, and they are so deserved! Her therapy journey is featured in the bestselling book, The Body Keeps the Score, and is an unflinching tale of overcoming repressed childhood trauma and breaking cycles of abuse. It has some tough parts, but Price is honest and open. Her story of growth will inspire you.

This Happened to Me by Kate Price, (List Price: $29.99, Gallery Books, 9781668036228, August 2025)

Reviewed by Andrea Richardson, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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Boustany by Sami Tamimi

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Boustany by Sami Tamimi
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Boustany has been on my radar for a while now, and I am happy to report it is everything you could want and more! Filled with luscious recipes that are rich in tradition yet infused with new ideas that bring something fresh, the pantry section alone had me feeling like I had ascended into spice and pickled heaven. The history and culture that’s embedded in each dish add something so special and meaningful that it brings this book to a new level, truly something for everyone!

Boustany by Sami Tamimi, (List Price: $37.99, Ten Speed Press, 9781984863188, July 2025)

Reviewed by Grace Sullivan, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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Let Them Stare by Jonathan Van Ness, Julie Murphy

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Let Them Stare by Jonathan Van Ness, Julie Murphy
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This is the power writing couple we didn’t know we needed! Murphy and JVN have crafted the most adorable rom-com with a ghosty twist! It’s sweet, spicy (but appropriate for YA spice!), and timely. Sully has just graduated high school, and they’re ready to take NYC by storm with their dream internship – until it gets canceled at the last minute. Sully finds a gorgeous vintage bag in their local thrift store and gets more than they bargained for when Rufus, a queer ghost from the 50s, appears. Sully and their crush hunt to find out what happened to Rufus and find some town secrets and a little romance along the way. I say this about every Juile Murphy collab, but I will read as many books as this pair creates.

Let Them Stare by Jonathan Van Ness, Julie Murphy, (List Price: $22.99, Storytide, 9780063346246, May 2025)

Reviewed by Andrea Richardson, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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What Is Queer Food? by John Birdsall

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What Is Queer Food? by John Birdsall
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John Birdsall is the winner of two James Beard awards for food and culture writing and the author of The Many Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard (which I also devoured!!). Focused on the European and American food scenes starting in the late 19th century. Birdsall deftly combines food writing and cultural history in this book he was born to write. Swinging by the tables of Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Alice B. Toklas, and others, we are shown the intersections between fashion, music, art, and food. It’s deliciously dishy, but also deeply substantive. If I could give Michelin stars to a book, I would give this 3 stars! (That’s the most you can give, btw).

What Is Queer Food? by John Birdsall, (List Price: $29.99, W. W. Norton & Company, 9781324073796, June 2025)

Reviewed by Kelly Justice, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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