Ilana Masad

Claire Fuller's beautifully written new novel follows 51-year-old twins who never left home, forced finally to cope with the outside world and some unpleasant family secrets after their mother dies.

In 1938, a housewife went to the press complaining of a poltergeist in her home — and a ghost hunter investigated. Kate Summerscale's true tale is about women and power, anxiety, and choices.

Essay after essay, it becomes clear that writer Lauren Hough is drawing parallels between the Family and good ol' fashioned American Exceptionalism in all its various facets.

Sanjena Sathian's novel follows a Georgia teenager, son of Indian immigrants, as he struggles with balancing his own ambitions and those of his parents, and finding his own way to be brown in America.

Though author Melissa Febos' essays dip into her adult life, they keep trying to find the child and teenager that she was — how she learned to be, feel, believe, and react.