11 must-read YA book releases to read by the pool this July

July 2021 release: The Taking of Jake Livingston – Ryan Douglass

This YA debut from Ryan Douglass is a mix of genres – horror, mystery, thriller, and contemporary – that explores how a Black gay teen medium copes with the various kinds of violence that threaten him.

The Taking of Jake Livingston follows the story of the titular Jake, one of the only Black students at a prestigious prep school who also keeps his sexuality hidden from his classmates. And his position is made even more uncomfortable by the fact that he can see dead people, stuck in the loops in which they died all around him.

But when the ghost of Sawyer Doon, a white boy who committed a mass shooting at a nearby high school the year before starts haunting him, Jake realizes that he’s the only one who can stop him from committing more harm from beyond the grave – and must wrestle with a responsibility he never asked for.

The official synopsis describes the story as follows.

"Jake Livingston is one of the only Black kids at St. Clair Prep, one of the others being his infinitely more popular older brother. It’s hard enough fitting in but to make matters worse and definitely more complicated, Jake can see the dead. In fact he sees the dead around him all the time. Most are harmless. Stuck in their death loops as they relive their deaths over and over again, they don’t interact often with people. But then Jake meets Sawyer. A troubled teen who shot and killed six kids at a local high school last year before taking his own life. Now a powerful, vengeful ghost, he has plans for his afterlife–plans that include Jake. Suddenly, everything Jake knows about ghosts and the rules to life itself go out the window as Sawyer begins haunting him and bodies turn up in his neighborhood. High school soon becomes a survival game–one Jake is not sure he’s going to win."

The Taking of Jake Livingston is available on July 13.