IF YOU JUDGE how well-read someone is by the number of books they get through, your correspondent is a veritable bibliophage. Most of the books are around 30 pages long and generously illustrated. They are read aloud,

The book, which hit shelves in May, centers on Noor Khan, a high school senior who discovers that the library at her new school is being ravaged by book banners who have been slowly (but legally) swiping books right off the shelves — and most of the books are by writers of color or queer authors.

And those aren’t even three of my 10 favorite books of 2024. Surely you have your own? Social media is awash in lists of reads from last month, last week, last year, driven by the same shock of recognition that there’s plenty new under the sun.

The Shutouts is set in the same world as Gabrielle Korn’s first novel, 2023’s Yours For The Taking, and though the two books share some characters, it’s not a direct sequel. Instead, The Shutouts continues to explore the fallout of the environmental disaster that made it unsafe to be outside in Yours For The Taking.