By Caitlin Taylor So
This coming Lunar New Year (January 29) ushers in the Year of the Snake, the sixth zodiac animal. While the snake often represents evil and temptation in the West, they’re instead associated with good fortune, rebirth, and longevity in the East. In the spirit of the Year of the Snake and recommending more books to your neverending TBR, here are a few books to grab in your local library or bookstore to celebrate. You can’t miss a snake on a cover!
- Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Galaxy “Alex” Stern is an incoming freshman at Yale University and has no idea why. She’s a high school dropout with shady drug dealer boyfriends and by age twenty, the sole survivor of an unsolved, horrible homicide. And then, suddenly, she’s given a full ride to attend Yale, but in return, she must monitor the activities of Yale’s secret societies. Seems easy compared to what’s she gone through already, right? Wrong.
- Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin
Louise le Blanc is a witch but must forsake her magic to avoid being hunted and burned. Reid Diggory is sworn to the Church as a Chasseur or a “hunter,” a hunter of witches. Louise and Reid were never meant to meet until they’re forced to marry. Choices must be made as feelings get caught and grow stronger. The question is who will come out on top?
- The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
Return to Panem, 64 years before the 74th Hunger Games, and meet Lucy Gray Baird, the female tribute from District 12. Her mentor is none other than a then-18-year-old Coriolanus Snow, hoping to salvage his family’s social standing. As the 10th annual Hunger Games unfold, Snow’s entitlement and propensity to manipulate fester, ultimately culminating in irreversible betrayals that will set a precedent for the kind of leadership he enacts as a future president.
- Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C. Dao
Xifeng, a peasant girl from a forgotten village, knows she’s meant for greatness, specifically the title of Empress of Feng Lu. In order to fulfill her destiny, however, she must embrace darkness by spurning the man who loves her and exploiting the magic in her veins. The magic that runs on her diet of the hearts of those who have been recently killed. On second thought, maybe the price of a great destiny is too high…
- Love Can’t Feed You by Cherry Lou Sy
Queenie, her younger brother, and father reunite with her mother in the United States from the Philippines. Queenie’s mother has been working as a nurse in Brooklyn, New York for the past few years, setting her family up for a better chance at success. But when everyone is together and tries to settle in, the pressures of assimilation cracks their intergenerational gaps wider and deeper.
Born and raised in Queens, Caitlin Taylor So is a Chinese-Vietnamese writer who is passionate about prioritizing and amplifying marginalized voices. She graduated from Emerson College with a degree in publishing and marketing. Her writing can be found on Business Insider, PopSugar, WebMD, The New Absurdist, and Her Campus Media.