Your Shelf Life: 5 Books to Read in June

Maile Meloy’s Do Not Become Alarmed tells the story of two families who go on a vacation, only to have the children disappear. It features taut prose and timely explorations of privilege, race, and parenthood.

Mary, the chronically ill protagonist of Catherine Lacey’s novel The Answers, funds her expensive non-Western medical treatment with an unusual part-time job. She’s the “emotional girlfriend” to a famous actor who has cast various women in roles to meet his relationship needs.

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Roxane Gay, cultural critic and author of Bad Feminist, has a new memoir about food and body image. Hunger is not a triumphant tale of weight loss, but rather a candid look at the struggle of acceptance.

In The Gypsy Moth Summer, Julia Fierro takes readers to tony Avalon Island, where class, race, and military history play out in the lives of her characters in this undeniably entertaining novel.

New York Times photography critic and novelist Teju Cole’s new book, Blind Spot, is a travel diary that matches more than 150 color photographs with thoughtful, often personal meditations on why the art of seeing matters.

Your Shelf Life: 5 Books to Read in June