8 Books I Can’t Wait to Read in March

When Liane Moriarty (Big Little Lies) calls a book, “The very definition of a page-turner,” I’m all ears. Sophie Stava’s debut is narrated by Sloane, a compulsive liar whose little white lies allow her to be hired as the nanny for a wealthy family. Jay and Violet seem to be the perfect New York couple: a brownstone, a daughter in private school, summers on Block Island. But it appears Sloane isn’t the only one lying, and Jay and Violet turn out to be harboring much darker secrets of their own. Count My Lies is about the secrets we keep and the terrifying dangers that lurk behind the images we spend so much time trying to maintain.

I read this funny, deeply relatable debut novel in about a day and a half, and I suggest you do the same. Victor and Zoey are longtime best friends whose dynamic, as they barrel toward their 30s, is changing. Victor works at a prestigious magazine and is getting his bearings after a tough breakup, while Zoey is at a fashion startup and questioning her future with her fiancé. After a traumatizing night, their bond starts to crack. As they try to navigate who they are (and who they are to each other), they encounter all the messy, hard and sweet truths about friendship, connection and how being an “adult” doesn’t mean you have things figured out.

When she was 29 and working on her first novel, Samina Ali nearly died giving birth to her son. And though she miraculously survived unchecked eclampsia, she sustained a major brain injury and fell into a coma as she gave birth. When she woke up, only her deepest memories were intact, and she was told she would never recover, much less write. In Pieces You’ll Never Get Back, Ali recounts the long, difficult journey of learning to walk and speak, reckoning with her past identity as a writer and a wife, and her new identity as a mother. This harrowing memoir is a poignant reflection on resilience, faith and identity.

In this debut novel, Florence is a single, 31-one-year-old party girl who really only has one reason to get out of bed each day: her 10-year-old son, Dylan. But then Alfie, her son’s bully and the heir to a vast empire, mysteriously vanishes during a class trip, and Dylan becomes the prime suspect. Florence’s singular goal becomes finding Alfie and clearing her son’s name. The only problem? She has no useful skills, all the other school moms hate her and, uh, Dylan might not be as innocent as he looks.

Writer and podcast host Scaachi Koul’s first book, One Day We’ll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter, was a collection of essays reckoning with the issues of body image, friendship, growing up the daughter of immigrants and more. Koul assumed that when the time came to start writing her next book, she’d be updating her story with essays about her elaborate four-day wedding, married life and arguments with her parents. Instead, the pandemic hit, her marriage fell apart, she lost her job and her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Sucker Punch is a raw and funny collection of essays about what happens when the life you thought you’d be living radically changes, and you have to start forging a new path forward.

When social media star Dylan Mulvaney came out as a trans woman online, she became a viral sensation almost overnight with her “Days of Girlhood” series. Then, shortly after she celebrated day 365 of being a girl, it all came screeching to a halt when an innocuous post sparked vitriolic right-wing backlash. In Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer, Mulvaney reflects on her life pre- and post-transition, from her first big break in theater and remaining positive amidst social media hate campaigns to the first time her dad recognized her as a girl.

Ali is a publicist for Hollywood's biggest stars. It's 2005, so part of her job entails keeping gay celebrities in the closet (ironic, since she's a lesbian herself). When Ali is starts working with Cara, an actress breaking onto the scene with a (hetero) romantic blockbuster, keeping Cara's sexuality a secret becomes Ali's biggest challenge yet. After a series of close calls, Ali is sent on the worldwide promotional tour for the movie to help keep Cara in line. Instead, she finds herself drawn to Cara, forcing the two of them to decide which is more important: maintaining the status quo or risking it all for another chance at love.

Kristen Arnett’s (Mostly Dead Things) latest centers on Cherry, a down-on-her-luck professional clown living and working in Orlando. She’s balancing her clowning, her shifts at an aquarium store, her judgmental mother and her messy love life when she meets Margot the Magnificent, a much older lesbian magician who seems to have everything figured out—and who Cherry finds sexy as hell. Funny and tender, Stop Me If You've Heard This One asks big questions about art and performance, friendship and community and the importance of timing in jokes and in life.