Before the story even begins, the recording opens with a content warning for sexual abuse, rape, assault, child abuse, kidnapping, and opioid addiction. Tiffany D. Jackson’s (Let Me Hear a Rhyme) latest has all that and worse: the gruesome opening chapter introduces 17-year-old Enchanted Jones...
*STARRED REVIEW Once upon a time, Louis Chude-Sokei's parents were known as "the JFK and Jackie O of Biafra," a former West African nation "that had disappeared or been 'killed.'" Half a century later, Chude-Sokei examines what it meant to be "the first son of the...
The Night Marchers and Other Oceanian Tales is the fourth installment in Iron Circus Comics' geographically specific Cautionary Fables & Fairytales series: African tales in The Girl Who Married a Skull, Asian stories in Tamamo the Fox Maiden, and European fare in The Nixie of the Mill-Pond. Volume four...
Once upon a 1960s screentime, Japan’s NHK broadcast serial dramas in the mornings, a genre called “renzoku terebi shōsetsu,” literally “continuing TV novel,” shortened to “asadora,” meaning “morning drama.” Legendary Naoki Urasawa ingeniously riffs on the bygone genre, replacing “terebi” with “manga” to create Renzoku manga shōsetsu...
For much of the 12 hours here, prolific Shiromi Arserio’s crisp-yet-soft, melodic-but-never-sing-songy voice seems just right for narrating Australian journalist Rebecca Giggs’ stupendous cetacean debut. The London native’s aural transfer to Down Under is mostly convincing, but when she moves beyond English, her fluency stumbles...
Sherlock Holmes’ archnemesis, Professor James Moriarty, appeared in only six of Arthur Conan Doyle’s oeuvre, but popular manga-maker Ryosuke Takeuchi – with energetically animated art by Hikaru Miyoshi – continues to indulge his own empathy for villains in the second volume of many more to come. Here, the...
Emiko Jean: Searching for Belonging When Emiko Jean isn't writing, she's reading. Before she became a writer, she was an entomologist, a candlemaker, a florist, and most recently, a teacher. She is the author of Empress of All Seasons and We'll Never Be Apart. In her third novel, Tokyo Ever After (Flatiron...
After finding success with a psychological thriller, then a historical fantasy, Emiko Jean turns to contemporary romance with absolutely delightful aplomb. While the "I'm really a princess" trope is an enduringly popular narrative theme, Jean's effervescent third novel, Tokyo Ever After, is a fresh, funny, emotive,...
*STARRED REVIEW Laila Lalami dovetails her own journey as a Morocco-born, UK-and US-educated, naturalized Muslim American, expanding into a socio-historical examination of what it means to be a “conditional citizen” in the United States. Conditional citizens, she explains, “are Americans who cannot enjoy the full rights,...
When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930, his Sherlock Holmes legacy comprised four novels and 56 stories. Sherlock has since become an unstoppable literary institution, proliferating across mediums; although his archnemesis, Professor James Moriarty, only appeared in six of Doyle’s original works, his own...
Jenny Torres Sanchez’s latest doesn’t let up – beatings, rape, murder, and still more violence looms. Marisa Blake may be a relative newbie narrator, but her thoroughly bilingual ability ensures a fluent, heart-thumping listen following three teens on the run from their gang-controlled Guatemalan village...
*STARRED REVIEW Although Thai Italian artist Elisa Macellari’s Kusama (2020) hit U.S. shelves first, Papaya Salad is actually her debut title, originally published in 2018 in her native Italy. Introducing her tale as “a story the protagonist told me when I was a child and which I stumbled across...
Friends from infancy, Jamie and Maya haven’t seen each other in almost 10 years – until food-related fiascos (runaway tangelos, tipped-over soggy pastries) lead to an awkward reunion. Both now 17, white Jewish Jamie has grown up shy, clumsy, and especially wary of public speaking....
A chance to redo the past in Before the Coffee Gets Cold Time travel and café culture yields a lovely, wise brew in a translation of Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s popular play-turned-novel. Originally debuting onstage in Japan, Before the Coffee Gets Cold won praise and awards for its playwright, Toshikazu Kawaguchi....
The youngest winner ever of multiple important literary prizes in her native Korea, Ae-ran Kim’s first full-length novel arrives Stateside, hauntingly English-enabled by lauded translator Chi-Young Kim (no relation). Areum suffers from progeria, a rare disease that causes rapid, premature aging: “My dad sees his...
Wayétu Moore is the first to speak, although only briefly, to share her initial excitement over the possibility of narrating her elegant memoir. That opportunity, alas, became another “casualty of COVID-19,” preventing her from safe studio time, but she adds a personal thanks to narrator...
That she’s fluent in Korean, Japanese, and English ensures a smooth double debut – as memoirist and narrator – for poet E. J. Koh (A Lesser Love). Her languid delivery is a lulling invitation into emotional intimacy. From her San Jose, California, birth into early...
In a story of “they said, she heard, he believed, she can’t remember,” whom do you trust? Even the title misleads – True Story: A Novel – while the final words confirm little: “But I’m trusting you to see this is true ...
Prodigious Soneela Nankani – who reigns as the South Asian/South Asian American voice-of-choice – ventures onto onto a new continent, landing in Ghana to cipher debut novelist/gender scholar Peace Adzo Medie’s not-quite-Cinderella tale with energetic aplomb. Once upon a time, Afi was a poor village seamstress-in-training,...
What a striking confluence here: National Book Award finalist Ibi Zoboi’s co-writer, Yusef Salaam, was one of the Exonerated Five. Debut narrator Ethan Herisse portrayed the teenage Salaam in Ava DuVernay’s acclaimed dramatization of the aftermath of the Central Park jogger attack, When They See...
