The Best Grown-Up Reads
of February 2020
by the Brightly Editors
February’s best new reads are an assortment of delights. From Diane Keaton’s latest memoir to novels featuring memorable meet-cutes and quirky characters, our picks for the best grown-up reads of this month have something for every type of reader.
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Brother & Sister
Diane Keaton’s third memoir is a tender and honest portrait of siblinghood and divergent paths. While Keaton followed her ambition to fame — knowing even as she did so that it served as a convenient barrier between her and her family’s problems — her younger brother, Randy, struggled with mental illness, addiction, a troubled marriage, and dashed hopes. “I want to have another chance at being a better sister,” Keaton writes, showing us it’s never too late to try again.
(On Sale: 2/4/20)
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The Authenticity Project
Available from:A cozy read perfect for the last gusts of winter, The Authenticity Project brings together a cast of characters as charming as they are inwardly troubled. There’s the lonely, elderly Julian, convinced that authenticity is on the brink of extinction; Alice, a popular mommy-Instagrammer with cracks in the facade; Hazard, on his way to sobriety; and Monica, who owns the café where she and the others come to know each other through an anonymous green notebook. Prepare to be endeared.
(On Sale: 2/4/20)
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Decoding Boys
Available from:For parents raising sons, the latest from pediatrician and bestselling author Cara Natterson is a godsend. In Decoding Boys, she explains the gambit of puberty, starting with the early, non-visible signs; advises on how to discuss pornography, consent, and peer pressure; and advocates for maintaining emotional and physical contact, rather than letting them set the norms for closeness. It’s essential, evidence-based reading.
RELATED: How Raising Boys Has Changed Over Time
(On Sale: 2/11/20)
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Love, Unscripted
Available from:Nick is a hopeless romantic, helped in no small part by his job as a film projectionist. He’s seen every romantic comedy out there, so of course his meet-cute with Ellie four years ago had him casting himself as Tom Hanks and Ellie as Meg Ryan. But now Ellie’s breaking things off, and Nick’s rewriting the script of their relationship to figure out where the story went off the rails. Should real-life romance aspire to Hollywood, after all?
(On Sale: 2/11/20)
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The Holdout
Available from:If you’re jonesing for an edge-of-your-seat legal thriller, look no further. The Holdout unfolds over two timelines: in one, a seemingly open-and-shut case is complicated when a young woman named Maya Seale convinces the jury to swing. In the other, Maya is now a defense attorney with a true-crime docuseries crew following her around and a dead body in her hotel room. What really happened during those deliberations? And who’s truly innocent in all this?
(On Sale: 2/18/20)
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The Antidote for Everything
Kimmery Martin’s debut novel, Queen of Hearts, proved her deftness at using her background as an emergency physician to create riveting stories. In The Antidote for Everything, Martin continues that tradition, telling the story of two best friends, Georgia Brown and Jonah Tsukada, and the consequences they face when they push back against their hospital’s policy to cease medical care for transgender patients.
(On Sale: 2/18/20)
