With so many writers releasing debut novels each year, it’s often difficult to decide which ones to take a chance on. So, let me make this easy for you: Leila Renee’s Soft Spots is a gem you don’t want to miss.
A witty and sharply realistic coming-of-age tale, the novel follows new college grad Robin Clarke as she ventures out into the world on her own. Robin’s path to this point hasn’t been easy—she literally had to run away from her isolated upbringing in an abusive family. Now landing a gig in a Teach for America-esque program and settling into a downtrodden South Bend, Indiana apartment, Robin has true independence for the first time.
The freedom can be paralyzing, though. While she yearns to move forward, putting her English degree to good use with a goal to become the best teacher at Topinabee High School, everything about this new life is overwhelming. Her perfectly perfect roommate, Naomi, isn’t quite the best friend Robin hoped for. Her teaching mentor, Mrs. N, inappropriately blurs boundaries on the best of days and spouts racist microaggressions on the worst. Add to that the weight of others typecasting her, both overtly and implicitly, as the “strong Black woman” … while it takes every ounce of energy she has to wake up, shake off the trauma reminders, and do life each day.
Then there’s the older brother Robin left behind. Once a promising basketball player, Will is now a college dropout living at home and working a fast food gig. In a similar but different way, he’s also at a loss for where to go from here. Willfully oblivious to why Robin bailed without warning, he finds himself alone and stuck supporting the family when their father’s health begins to fail.
As the chapters bounce back and forth between the siblings, big questions loom: Will they learn to navigate these new lives on their own? If so, how? And what will they gain or lose in the process?
Like any great literary work, Soft Spots hooks the reader right from the start. Without spoiling anything, the story opens by alluding to the fallout of a life-altering incident that occurred months ago. This fades into a flashback that ultimately walks the reader full circle back to the present day by the end of the book.
While this plot structure has plenty of engaging moments, it’s the characters that truly carry the novel. Robin is one of the most distressingly lovable characters I’ve read in a long time. Her narrative voice is unique, her pain palpable to the reader. Although you will certainly anticipate that her journey is going to end badly, this doesn’t stop her from grabbing your whole heart.
Soft Spots has a simple clarity in the way it captures the facts of life. We each survive our experiences the best way we know how—but that doesn’t mean we always make the best choices. Try as she might, the best Robin can do is stumble forward, one questionable decision after another. But at least she keeps stumbling forward. Her story reminds us that our soft spots, hidden away from the world beneath the shields we erect for protection, may be raw and wide open to suffering, but they also make us human.
Leila Renee tenderly probes these soft spots, rendering them memorably on the page. She convincingly crafts the feeling of separateness that defines Robin’s life, the way we each hold experiences inside ourselves that those on the outside cannot imagine. She captures how we are hard-wired to love our parents even when they have caused us the most harm. She explores the way loss and grief can tear us apart—and sometimes push us together. The result is a story that is both moving and amusing in turn, an emotionally resonant new novel that you won’t soon forget.
Soft Spots is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of August 4th 2026.
Will you be picking up Soft Spots? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis
“Raven Leilani’s Luster meets Halle Butler’s The New Me, SOFT SPOTS is a darkly funny and off-kilter coming-of-age novel following recent college graduate Robin Clarke after she runs away from her family, only to be forced to confront whether she should reconcile with her father when his health takes a sudden turn for the worst.
After miraculously securing a teaching job at a dysfunctional high school, loner Robin moves to South Bend, Indiana, where she’s paired with an eerily perfect roommate: Naomi. Freshly estranged from her abusive parents, Robin obsesses over two absurd goals: to be the best teacher at the school, despite never having taught, and to become best friends with Naomi, who could not be more her opposite. Meanwhile back home, Robin’s brother must decide between being loyal to his sister or their parents.
Just as Robin grows closer to her students and Naomi, she receives earth-shattering news from her brother. Desperate to cope, Robin redoubles her efforts to befriend Naomi, spiraling even deeper into obsession and self-sabotage. Everything comes to a head when one of Robin’s many bad choices come back to bite her, and she must confront the limits of forgiveness, the weight of memory, and the true cost of estrangement.”
