2021 is just weeks away, and thank goodness! What a crazy year 2020 has been. Also there are so many great books coming out next year. For example, Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli are pairing up again to write Here’s to Us, a sequel to What If It’s Us. I am so hyped for that. As well as all the books included here! 2020 was a great year for books, and 2021 proves to be, too.
These are all going to be young adult books, which is probably a given if you’ve been following my blog for a while. I’ve gotten approved for some 2021 ARCs recently too, so stay tuned for those reviews to come!
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2021 Anticipated Book Releases
1. The Project by Courtney Summers
Release date: February 2, 2021
This is Courtney Summers’s first book since publishing Sadie and I can’t wait. Plus, I got approved for an ARC on NetGalley, so even better! All the reviews I’ve seen for far promise that this is a thriller that pulls you in, surprises you, and doesn’t let go.
Blurb: Lo Denham is used to being on her own. After her parents died, Lo’s sister, Bea, joined The Unity Project, leaving Lo in the care of their great aunt. Thanks to its extensive charitable work and community outreach, The Unity Project has won the hearts and minds of most in the Upstate New York region, but Lo knows there’s more to the group than meets the eye. She’s spent the last six years of her life trying–and failing–to prove it.
When a man shows up at the magazine Lo works for claiming The Unity Project killed his son, Lo sees the perfect opportunity to expose the group and reunite with Bea once and for all. When her investigation puts her in the direct path of its charismatic and mysterious leader, Lev Warren, he proposes a deal: if she can prove the worst of her suspicions about The Unity Project, she may expose them. If she can’t, she must finally leave them alone.
But as Lo delves deeper into The Project, the lives of its members, and spends more time with Lev, it upends everything she thought she knew about her sister, herself, cults, and the world around her–to the point she can no longer tell what’s real or true. Lo never thought she could afford to believe in Lev Warren . . . but now she doesn’t know if she can afford not to.
Welcome to The Unity Project.
2. Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas
Release date: January 12, 2021
Angie Thomas made a name for herself with the release of The Hate U Give three years ago. This is a prequel, following Star’s dad when he’s a teenager. I seriously can’t wait!
Blurb: If there’s one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man takes care of his family. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. With this money he can help his mom, who works two jobs while his dad’s in prison.
Life’s not perfect, but with a fly girlfriend and a cousin who always has his back, Mav’s got everything under control.
Until, that is, Maverick finds out he’s a father.
Suddenly he has a baby, Seven, who depends on him for everything. But it’s not so easy to sling dope, finish school, and raise a child. So when he’s offered the chance to go straight, he takes it. In a world where he’s expected to amount to nothing, maybe Mav can prove he’s different.
When King Lord blood runs through your veins, though, you can’t just walk away. Loyalty, revenge, and responsibility threaten to tear Mav apart, especially after the brutal murder of a loved one. He’ll have to figure out for himself what it really means to be a man.
3. As Far As You’ll Take Me by Phil Stamper
Release date: February 9, 2021
After the success of The Gravity of Us, who isn’t excited for the next book from Phil Stamper? I also got approved for an ARC of this, and I absolutely cannot wait to read this one!
Blurb: Marty arrives in London with nothing but his oboe and some savings from his summer job, but he’s excited to start his new life–where he’s no longer the closeted, shy kid who slips under the radar and is free to explore his sexuality without his parents’ disapproval.
From the outside, Marty’s life looks like a perfect fantasy: in the span of a few weeks, he’s made new friends, he’s getting closer with his first ever boyfriend, and he’s even traveling around Europe. But Marty knows he can’t keep up the facade. He hasn’t spoken to his parents since he arrived, he’s tearing through his meager savings, his homesickness and anxiety are getting worse and worse, and he hasn’t even come close to landing the job of his dreams. Will Marty be able to find a place that feels like home?
4. The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman
Release date: April 6, 2021
The latest from one of my favorites, Akemi Dawn Bowman, and this time it’s a fantasy! With a trademark gorgeous cover, I absolutely cannot wait to read this one, too.
Blurb: Eighteen-year-old Nami Miyamoto is certain her life is just beginning. She has a great family, just graduated high school, and is on her way to a party where her entire class is waiting for her–including, most importantly, the boy she’s been in love with for years.
The only problem? She’s murdered before she gets there.
When Nami wakes up, she learns she’s in a place called Infinity, where human consciousness goes when physical bodies die. She quickly discovers that Ophelia, a virtual assistant widely used by humans on Earth, has taken over the afterlife and is now posing as a queen, forcing humans into servitude the way she’d been forced to serve in the real world. Even worse, Ophelia is inching closer and closer to accomplishing her grand plans of eradicating human existence once and for all.
As Nami works with a team of rebels to bring down Ophelia and save the humans under her imprisonment, she is forced to reckon with her past, her future, and what it is that truly makes us human.
From award-winning author Akemi Dawn Bowman comes an incisive, action-packed tale that explores big questions about technology, grief, love, and humanity.
5. We Free the Stars by Hafsah Faizal
Release date: January 19, 2021
The release date for this book got pushed back a bit due to the pandemic and other things, I think, but here we are! We get to finally see what happens next, and the conclusion of this duology!
Blurb: Darkness surged in his veins. Power bled from her bones.
The battle on Sharr is over. The Arz has fallen. Altair may be captive, but Zafira, Nasir, and Kifah are bound for Sultan’s Keep, determined to finish the plan Altair set in motion: restoring the hearts of the Sisters of Old to the minarets of each caliphate, finally bringing magic to all of Arawiya. But they are low on resources and allies alike, and the kingdom teems with fear of the Lion of the Night’s return.
As the zumra plots to overthrow Arawiya’s darkest threat, Nasir fights to command the magic in his blood. He must learn to hone his power, to wield it against not only the Lion but his father as well, trapped under the Lion’s control. Zafira battles a very different darkness festering in her through her bond with the Jawarat–it hums with voices, pushing her to the brink of sanity and to the edge of a chaos she dares not unleash. In spite of everything, Zafira and Nasir find themselves falling into a love they can’t stand to lose . . . But time is running out, and if order is to be restored, drastic sacrifices will have to be made.
6. Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell
Release date: July 6, 2021
With a much shorter wait between the second and third books, I need this book in my hands now. I need to know what happens to Simon and Baz! Did you read the ending to Wayward Son? We definitely need this book now!!
Blurb: In Carry On, Simon Snow and his friends realized that everything they thought they understood about the world might be wrong. And in Wayward Son, they wondered whether everything they understood about themselves might be wrong.
In Any Way the Wind Blows, Simon and Baz and Penelope and Agatha have to decide how to move forward.
For Simon, that means deciding whether he still wants to be part of the World of Mages — and if he doesn’t, what does that mean for his relationship with Baz? Meanwhile Baz is bouncing between two family crises and not finding any time to talk to anyone about his newfound vampire knowledge. Penelope would love to help, but she’s smuggled a cursed American Normal into London, and now she isn’t sure what to do with him. And Agatha? Well, Agatha Wellbelove has had enough.
Any Way the Wind Blows takes the gang back to England, back to Watford, and back to their families for their longest and most emotionally wrenching adventure yet.
7. In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner
Release date: August 10, 2021
We just got the cover for this book and an official release date!! I am prepared to feel all the feels with this book. I already pre-ordered a copy and I just need to read it now!!
Blurb: Life in a small Appalachian town is not easy. Cash lost his mother to an opioid addiction and his Papaw is dying slowly from emphysema. Dodging drug dealers and watching out for his best friend, Delaney, is second nature. He’s been spending his summer mowing lawns while she works at Dairy Queen.
But when Delaney manages to secure both of them full rides to an elite prep school in Connecticut, Cash will have to grapple with his need to protect and love Delaney, and his love for the grandparents who saved him and the town he would have to leave behind.
8. We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Release date: June 1, 2021
If you’re really looking forward to some cute, quirky rom-coms next year, you’ll definitely want to keep Rachel Lynn Solomon on your radar! I loved Today, Tonight, Tomorrow and I can’t wait to read this one.
Blurb: Quinn Berkowitz and Tarek Mansour’s families have been in business together for years: Quinn’s parents are wedding planners, and Tarek’s own a catering company. At the end of last summer, Quinn confessed her crush on him in the form of a rambling email–and then he left for college without a response.
Quinn has been dreading seeing him again almost as much as she dreads another summer playing the harp for her parents’ weddings. When he shows up at the first wedding of the summer, looking cuter than ever after a year apart, they clash immediately. Tarek’s always loved the grand gestures in weddings–the flashier, the better–while Quinn can’t see them as anything but fake. Even as they can’t seem to have one civil conversation, Quinn’s thrown together with Tarek wedding after wedding, from performing a daring cake rescue to filling in for a missing bridesmaid and groomsman.
Quinn can’t deny her feelings for him are still there, especially after she learns the truth about his silence, opens up about her own fears, and begins learning the art of harp-making from an enigmatic teacher.
Maybe love isn’t the enemy after all–and maybe allowing herself to fall is the most honest thing Quinn’s ever done.
9. The Ghosts We Keep by Mason Deaver
Release date: June 1, 2021
After reading I Wish You All the Best, Mason Deaver is definitely on my radar. Their writing is so engrossing and just filled with emotion. This one is sure to be, too!
Blurb: At least that’s what everyone keeps telling Liam Cooper after his older brother Ethan is killed suddenly in a hit-and-run.
Feeling more alone and isolated than ever, Liam has to not only learn to face the world without one of the people he loved the most, but also face the fading relationships of his two best friends in the process.
Soon, Liam finds themself spending time with Ethan’s best friend, Marcus, who might just be the only person that seems to know exactly what they’re going through-for better and for worse.
The Ghosts We Keep is an achingly honest portrayal of grief. But it is also about why we live. Why we have to keep moving on, and why we should.
10. Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas
Release date: March 23, 2021
Considering Cemetery Boys was one of my favorite books of 2020, it’s no surprise that Aiden Thomas’s latest will make it on my list. Plus they have two more books coming and I couldn’t be more excited!
Blurb: It’s been five years since Wendy and her two brothers went missing in the woods, but when the town’s children start to disappear, the questions surrounding her brothers’ mysterious circumstances are brought back into the light. Attempting to flee her past, Wendy almost runs over an unconscious boy lying in the middle of the road…
Peter, a boy she thought lived only in her stories, asks for Wendy’s help to rescue the missing kids. But, in order to find them, Wendy must confront what’s waiting for her in the woods.
Wow, I didn’t know about Concrete Rose. That’s a must-read for me!
Same! I’m sure it’s going to be amazing. 🙂
I really want to read the Project, Concrete Rose and We Free the Stars!(www.evelynreads.com)
Yay! 2021 is going to be such a great book year. 🙂