*STARRED REVIEW “The End of the World as I Know It” – Robin Ha’s first chapter heading – happened when she was 14. As a student in 1995 in Seoul, Korea, Ha was mostly a typical teenager, enjoying close friendships, studying hard, and obsessed with reading...
*STARRED REVIEW Busan-based wife-and-husband team Hyun Sook Kim and Ryan Estrada mine Kim’s young adult experiences to expose a chilling period of recent Korean history so antithetical to the globally addictive entertainment of K-dramas and K-pop currently synonymous with South Korea. In 1983, Hyun Sook is a...
L.A.-born, Madrid-raised Maite Jáuregui makes her audiobook debut with one of the year’s most anticipated/lauded/likely to be awarded titles. Jáuregui dominates a sizable cast (Joshua Kane, Robert Petkoff, Oliver Wyman, Richard Ferrone, Neil Hellegers, Liza Kaplan), while her co-stars take turns momentarily interrupting chapters with...
Born on the same day during a freak September blizzard in Tennessee, Eric and Morgan – and their families – "became friends for life." The shared birthday anchors them through life's most dramatic changes: Morgan's mother dies and Morgan's father shuts down, while Eric's once-perfect...
“Bringing these diverse books to life” is why Priya Ayyar does what she does. She narrates the books she didn’t have when she was growing up – books that resonate with her experiences as a California-born Indian American. “To think that someone who’s Muslim American...
When Simi’s habitual klutziness leads (surprise!) to the unlikely pairing of her recently single cousin with the furniture store owner’s lawyer-to-be son, her mother and masi – mother’s sister – have irrefutable proof that Simi’s inherited the family talent: matchmaking. For three generations, the women...
YouTube star Alex Bertie readily admits “that as far as trans people go, I’m very privileged. I’m a white educated male with family support, a roof over my head, and a job.” Being British also guaranteed access to a national health system that paid for...
According to a 2014 shocking reveal by creator Sanrio Japan, Hello Kitty isn't actually feline, she's a British child. Nevertheless, "this culture of anthropomorphic kitties is one of the reasons feline fever has taken so many forms," including – a Japanese historical first! – cat-owners...
Although audiobooks are just part of Priya Ayyar’s acting career, demand for her narrative talents shows no signs of slowing down. Recent highlights from Ayyar’s audio career are the focus of the “Now Hear This” column in the November 1 issue of Booklist, but Ayyar...
*STARRED REVIEW “I used to be a racist most of the time,” insists Ibram X. Kendi, a surprising revelation from 2016’s winner for the National Book Award for Nonfiction (Stamped from the Beginning). “The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist,’” he explains. “It is ‘antiracist’...
Best known for his brainy death-and-destruction mystery series featuring Detective Galileo and Detective Kaga, who have successfully arrived Stateside from Japan, Keigo Higashino reveals a softer side to his prolific imagination here. The Namiya General Store has been closed for decades, but three delinquent young men...
*STARRED REVIEW It’s 1989 and AIDS is a death warrant, but first love knows no limits. Despite a teeny little blip when Lauren Ambrose mispronounces “Audre Lorde,” the cast of Abdi Nazemian’s latest presents in near-perfect pitch. Ambrose is fashion-forward creative genius Judy (named after Garland),...
Vikas Adam has deservedly earned the title of Sandhya Menon’s male voice of choice, assuming hero status in all her titles thus far. He affably returns here as Ashish, the younger brother of Rishi from When Dimple Met Rishi (2017), and he’s about to get a Bollywood-worthy romance of...
*STARRED REVIEW Until his cousin Jun was murdered, Jay thought little of his Filipino heritage. A Michigan senior headed to university in the fall, Jay’s been on auto-pilot for most of his 17 years. Similar in age, Jun and Jay stayed avid pen pals after childhood...
In an unusual narrative structure, S. K. Ali (Saints and Misfits, 2017) inserts herself directly into her latest #OwnVoices Muslim rom-com, making her aural debut. She opens by introducing two teens intrigued with “marvels” and “oddities” – whose alternating journal entries follow – then intervenes...
*STARRED REVIEW Borders, walls, detention camps, caged children ...
Lauded for sweeping Bollywood-esque multicultural family dramas, Sonali Dev debuts an Austen-inspired series starring the Indian royalty-descended, Northern California-established Raje family. Her first installment riffs on P&P with an added gender mix-and-match. Second Raje daughter Trisha is an extraordinary Stanford neurosurgeon, but her personal relationships have...
Despite calling the small coastal community of Port Coral ‘home,’ Rosa has always avoided the water. She – and maybe the rest of the town – believes she’s been cursed by tragedy, since both her grandfather and father drowned as young men. Raised mostly by...
Despite the gruesome images depicting the workings of Chicago slaughterhouses and meatpacking factories in the late 19th century and into the early 20th century, Kristina Gehrmann's graphic adaptation is a surprisingly gentler, kinder read than Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel. Credited with inciting the public outcry...
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste Maaza Mengiste’s indelible debut, Beneath the Lion’s Gate (2010), put Ethiopian historical fiction on countless best-of, must-read, and award lists. Her monumental new novel draws inspiration from her great-grandmother, who as the eldest – and in Mulan-style! – answered Emperor...
