Read an investigation into a small-town's dark secrets
A Long Stretch of Bad Days — Mindy McGinnis
Happy summer! We’ll be off for the next 2 weeks for a quick holiday break, but back in your inbox in early July with more book recommendations. Don’t forget to read to the end for a chance to win a big box of books!
Under-the-Radar Book of the Week
A Long Stretch of Bad Days by Mindy McGinnis
Content warnings listed in the footnote of this newsletter.1
What It’s About
Not every school can be expertly run—for Lydia and Bristal, that fact threatens their graduation, however, and they’re pissed. Not only because they have to make up a history credit before senior year is over, but also because they notoriously don’t get along. Lydia overworks herself to make sure she will get into a prestigious journalism school and get out of her hometown. Bristal just wants to be the first in her family to graduate high school.
The two begrudgingly team up to start a local history podcast to earn their final credit, diving into the town’s past stories and news. But when they cover the legendary “long stretch of bad days,” a period in which floods, tornadoes, and devastation swept through town, they realize there was an unsolved missing persons case during that period too—the girl who went missing was never found. Was she a runaway? Did she die in the storm? Or did something more sinister happen?
As the two girls fall farther down the investigation hole, they realize someone doesn’t one them to uncover the secrets that have been long buried.
Why You Should Read It
Mindy McGinnis is an auto-buy author for me, and not one of her books has ever been a miss. (My all-time favorite is Female of the Species, which I recommend reading without reading the synopsis online or on the back cover.) I picked this book up at a reading/signing event at my local bookstore. Hearing her talk about small-town Appalachia and the Midwest made me nostalgic for home and also made me want more readers to read stories from these places—small, rural, forgotten towns where people do still live.
Her books also feature angry girls. Girls who have no way to express their anger and rage at the world for treating them less-than and differently and wanting them to be a certain way.
Fans of books with podcast elements like Sadie and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder will enjoy this one—and if you’re not typically a YA reader, I urge you to check this one out. It deals with more serious subjects and is much darker and will appeal to those who read adult mysteries.
Misc.
If you had to pick just one (I know many people prefer a mix of both), which kind of books would you prefer to hear about weekly?
Giveaway!
This summer, enter to win a mystery box of ARCs! Books will be from all across genres, but will all be 2023 releases (a few 2022). There will be at least 3 winners, possibly more as I collect more books to add to the giveaway! (I can definitively say there are a couple romances, a couple mysteries, and some nonfiction already in the stack!)
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US only
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More Books
Can’t get enough, or looking for a different recommendation? Browse the archives, or check out some popular past recommendations:
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Content warnings include town gossiping suggesting sex trafficking (unconfirmed rumors), gun violence, arson violence, threats to teenagers (18-year-olds), harm to animals (off page, remembered dialogue and scenes of dogs drowning at pound during natural disaster), tornado and wreckage of storm, underage drinking.
Regarding your poll, I am full blown Team Backlist! And I'm so happy to see how many others agree on the poll. New releases are nice, but I'm a broke-as-a-joke college student and it's much easier to get a hold of backlist titles at the library than new releases. Plus, I find there are FAR more interesting books on the backlist than I was hearing about back when they were new releases. With publishing houses being even more picky about what titles they heavily promote there are so many books left ignored. Those are the ones I often enjoy most and I don't hear about them until years after they were published! Backlist titles deserve more love!
I love books with a podcast element or some kind of interesting way of storytelling! I've never heard of this book/author before so I'll be sure to check them out!