Anita de Monte Laughs Last

Two timelines meet in Xochitl Gonzalez's novel. In 1985 Anita de Monte, an artist whose career is on the rise, is found dead in New York City, and by 1998 her name is all but forgotten. That year Raquel, a third-year art history student working on her thesis, feels like an outsider among privileged classmates on College Hill, where students of color are few and feel pressure to put in double the effort for equal chances. A romance with an older, well-connected art student lifts her up the social ladder, and she comes across Anita's story. The story moves back and forth in time, told from the perspectives of both women.

Reese Witherspoon made it her March pick for Reese's Book Club, saying she has always loved painting and that it plunges into the mysterious art world and the question of which artists get celebrated.