Quizlit’s Book of the Month May 2026 is the sensational Kin by Tayari Jones. Kin is an unforgettable novel that sparkles with wit, about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of tragedy.
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Book of the Month May 2026
Kin by Tayari Jones
Vernice and Annie are ‘cradle friends’, both born in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, both destined never to know their mothers. The girls are inseparable, bound by a friendship far deeper than sisterhood, but as they grow up, their lives start to look very different in the segregated America of the 1950s and 60s.
Both girls leave Honeysuckle in search of something that might fill the hole left by their absent mothers: a university education, the promise of a first love affair, the hope offered by the simmering civil rights movement. But it is Annie whose bad decisions pull her into a world of danger, leaving her oldest friend to battle to save her.
Tayari Jones returns with an exuberant, richly told novel about mothers and daughters, about a lifelong friendship, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South.
“Jones’s emotional directness lends her prose a deep warmth. . . . Kin bucks contemporary expectations by hewing to older ones. In doing so, Jones gives the novel the same sense of inevitable tragedy that animates Edith Wharton’s books.” —The Atlantic
“Wise, often side-splittingly funny. . . . [Kin] is a pleasure to read.” —The Minnesota Star Tribune
“Kin is the kind of all-encompassing reading experience I’m always hoping to find: smart and funny and deftly profound. This is Tayari Jones’s very best work.” —Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake
“A triumphant return of one of the most important literary voices today. Vibrant, funny, moving and powerful, Kin is an unforgettable read.” —Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, author of The Mountains Sing
“A riveting and deeply moving portrait of indelible female friendship, found family and finding your way. . . . This gorgeous novel already feels like a future classic.” —Roisin O’Donnell, author of Nesting
“Beautifully written and powerfully compelling. . . . Tayari Jones interrogates social injustice through the lens of personal relationships while exploring the ways in which it shapes those relationships, and she does this in language that is intimate, conversational, and musical all at once.” —Kirkus (starred review)
“Jones delivers a triumphant novel of two motherless girls from rural Honeysuckle, Louisiana, who follow very different paths into adulthood. . . . Throughout, Jones tells her protagonists’ stories with grace, humor, and pathos. Kin is a tour de force.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Jones deftly coneys the nuances of Southern Black culture in this novel full of depth, pain, and beauty. . . . A tender love song to southern Black families, communities, and female friendships.” —Booklist (starred review)
Also by Tayari Jones
An American Marriage
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of the American Dream. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. Until one day they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit.
Devastated and unmoored, Celestial finds herself struggling to hold on to the love that has been her centre, taking comfort in Andre, their closest friend. When Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, he returns home ready to resume their life together.
Leaving Atlanta
It’s the end of summer in Atlanta, and fifth-grade classmates Tasha Baxter, Rodney Green, and Octavia Harrison will discover that back-to-school means facing everyday challenges in a new world of safety lessons, terrified parents, and constant fear. Because it was the summer during which Atlanta’s African-American children were vanishing.
The moving story of their struggle to grow up and survive shimmers with the piercing, ineffable quality of childhood, as it captures all the hurts and little wins, the all-too-sudden changes, and the merciless, outside forces that can sweep the young into adulthood and forever shape their lives.
If you enjoyed our Book of the Month May 2026, check out 5 Marvelous New Books for May 2026