SIBookDragon, Author at BookDragon

Asian American #OwnVoices: Artfully Narrated Middle Grade, YA, and Crossover Audiobooks [in School Library Journal]

17 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Indian American, Iranian American, Japanese American, Korean American, Lists, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Pakistani American, Persian American, Repost, South Asian American, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

Welcome to Asian Pacific American (APA) Heritage Month. The year remains somber, as the APA community combats dramatically increasing anti-Asian violence around the country and continues to mourn the eight people, including six women of Asian descent, killed in a Georgia mass shooting. Despite a U.S....

Angel & Hannah by Ishle Yi Park [in Shelf Awareness]

14 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Poetry, Puerto Rican, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Poet/singer Ishle Yi Park crafts an elegiac debut novel-in-verse featuring star-crossed teens, a "rebel/ Romeo & Juliet." From the opening line of Angel & Hannah, Park immediately commands complicity in sharing something secret involving diverse backgrounds: "Psst," she warns, "Ven acá. Illuwah" – "come here," in Spanish,...

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo [in Shelf Awareness]

13 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese American

Everyone and every place remain assuredly familiar here: Nick, Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, Jordan, Myrtle and George drink, dance, manipulate and die throughout East Egg, West Egg, Nick's cottage, Gatsby's mansion, the Plaza suite, and the green-lit dock. But Nghi Vo's first novel (after novellas The...

Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastašić [in Booklist]

12 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Bosnian, Eastern European, European, Fiction, Repost, Translation

Once upon a time, two Bosnian girls arrived at kindergarten with paper-doll selfies. Sara’s mother made hers, garbed in pink and glittery. Lejla’s was blank. “[I]t’s not like I wear the same clothes every day,” she insisted, as if already aware that future incarnations –...

Monkey Boy by Francisco Goldman [in Shelf Awareness]

11 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Jewish, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW That the protagonist's name is Francisco Goldberg – an amalgam of maternal Guatemalan immigrant and paternal Jewish parentage – presents an irresistible invitation to explore autobiographical overlaps with award-winning creator Francisco Goldman. The parallels are immediate: both are peripatetic journalist/writers with connections to Boston,...

From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement by Paula Yoo [in Shelf Awareness]

10 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Korean American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

On June 19, 1982, 27-year-old Chinese American Vincent Chin was bludgeoned with a baseball bat by Ronald Ebens and stepson Michael Nitz. The two white men, like too many others, were driven by anti-Asian resentment over Detroit's declining auto industry due to Japanese competition. "It's...

Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff [in Shelf Awareness]

07 May, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Kyle Lukoff has already received acclaim for his picture books, including his #OwnVoices 2020 Stonewall Award-winning When Aidan Became a Brother. Lukoff's middle-grade debut, Too Bright to See, is another illuminating story that explores gender identity, featuring a trans tween who's finally ready to...

The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin [in Shelf Awareness]

06 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Warning: the number of corpses could actually exceed the page count in Tom Lin's addictively gruesome debut, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu. Set between the Utah Territories and California in the late 1800s, Lin's novel manages to enhance a wild, wild western with Odyssean devotion, magic...

Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi [in Booklist]

05 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Afghan, Afghan American, Audio, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Veteran narrator Mozhan Marnò has one of those gratifyingly recognizable, sigh-inducing audiobook voices that immediately immerses readers. Here, for 12 hours, she commands Afghan American pediatrician-turned-novelist Nadia Hashimi’s (A House without Windows, 2018) latest, ciphering the multi-pronged epic over decades and across continents, cultures, and...

One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle over American Immigration, 1924–1965 by Jia Lynn Yang [in Booklist]

04 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Repost, Taiwanese American, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Pulitzer Prized NYT editor/journalist Jia Lynn Yang makes history intimately personal: “This book is an attempt to fuse my family’s history to the history of the country that found a place for us ...

A Phở Love Story by Loan Le [in Booklist]

03 May, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Repost, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

Ryan Do and Vyvy Nguyen might be audiobook newbies, but they’re just what debut novelist Loan Le must have ordered: together, the trio offers an #OwnVoices treat combining a never-meant-to-be love story, family feuds, and drool-worthy Vietnamese cuisine. Vibrant Nguyen is Linh Mai, who’s always been...

The Removed by Brandon Hobson [in Booklist]

29 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW A stellar #OwnVoices all-Indigenous cast gathers to heighten Brandon Hobson’s luminous follow-up to the 2018 National Book Award finalist Where the Dead Sit Walking. During the 15 years since Ray-Ray was wrongly, fatally shot by a white police officer, his surviving family has fractured....

Things We Lost to the Water by Eric Nguyen [in Booklist]

28 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese American

*STARRED REVIEW While the story arc might sound familiar – other-side-of-the-world refugees who endure challenging lives in the U.S. – Nguyen’s gentle precision nevertheless produces an extraordinary debut with undeniable resonance. As the MFA-ed, prestigiously fellowshipped (Lambda, Tin House) editor-in-chief of diaCRITICS, Nguyen ciphers all that...

What Could Be Saved by Liese O’Halloran Schwarz [in Booklist]

27 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Here’s where veteran narrator Lisa Flanagan excels: unflaggingly individualizing myriad varied characters. Here’s where she disappoints: stumbling over non-English words and using a grating French accent. Quibbles aside, Flanagan consistently, remarkably maintains distinct voices for the peripatetic Preston family in Liese O'Halloran Schwarz’s (The Possible...

Tastes Like War by Grace M. Cho [in Booklist]

26 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Hapa/Mixed-race, Korean, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW “In my lifetime, I’ve had at least three mothers,” Grace M. Cho writes. After surviving the Korean War, Cho’s mother worked as a bar girl at a U.S. naval base during the U.S. occupation of South Korea. In 1971, she married Cho’s father, a...

Here We Are by Graham Swift [in Booklist]

23 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

British actor Phil Davis makes his solo narrating debut, his voice controlled and resonant, softened just slightly for the single female among Swift’s elusive trio. Here We Are, the title proclaims, and yet – well, the threesome is more fleeting illusion than solid presence. In 1959...

City of a Thousand Gates by Rebecca Sacks [in Booklist]

22 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Israeli, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Palestinian, Repost

Lameece Issaq reads languidly, her voice an ongoing invitation to Rebecca Sacks’ debut in which so much happens, but by book’s end might feel narratively stagnant – not because of Sacks’ writing, but because Israel and Palestine remain relentlessly enshrouded in conflict. The opening credits wisely...

Lies We Bury by Elle Marr [in Booklist]

21 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

Claire Lou is restarting her life in Portland, Oregon, where she’s managed to find a new apartment (never mind the money she still owes on the security deposit) and she’s even gotten herself hired as the Portland Post’s photographer. Her mother is just two hours...

Seven Years of Darkness by You-Jeong Jeong, translated by Chi-Young Kim [in Booklist]

20 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

Seven years ago, 11-year-old Sowon was left a virtual orphan: his father, Hyonsu was convicted of killing Sowon’s mother and a father and young daughter, then opening the Seryong Village dam’s floodgates, which wiped out half the town, drowning four policemen. While Hyonsu landed on...

Nancy by Bruno Lloret, translated by Ellen Jones [in Shelf Awareness]

19 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chilean, Fiction, Repost, South American, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW In Chilean author Bruno Lloret's inventively sly debut novel, Nancy, the narrative might seem relatively transparent: titular Nancy approaches death by cancer and recalls her happy childhood, her dangerous adolescence, her brother's disappearance, her mother's abandonment, her father's Mormon conversion, her husband's gruesome death....

BookDragon Author: SIBookDragon