Fiction Archives - Page 26 of 172

Algériennes: The Forgotten Women of the Algerian Revolution by Swann Meralli, illustrated by Deloupy, translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger [in Booklist]

29 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, European, Fiction, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Translation

While reading about the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62), contemporary French woman Beatrice learns she has a specific label: she’s an “enfant d’appelé,” literally “a child of one called up” to serve in the Algerian War. Her father was such a soldier, but he’s never...

We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly [in Booklist]

28 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Ramón De Ocampo, co-narrator of Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly’s Hello, Universe (2017) and a fellow Filipino American, returns to Kelly’s work solo this time, ciphering three siblings who share an address but seemingly little else. Their combative parents are too distracted to be nurturing, leaving...

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart [in Booklist]

27 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Repost

Seventeen-and-a-half-hours is a long, lonnnnnng commitment, and Scottish actor Angus King takes on his fellow Glaswegian Douglas Stuart’s resonating debut with meticulous devotion. While the title belongs to young Shuggie Bain, who comes of age in the poorest neighborhoods around Glasgow in the 1980s, the narrative...

Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, translated by Polly Barton [in Booklist]

24 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Preface any storytelling format with “traditional,” and audiences will have no expectations of feminist agency. Thankfully, prizewinning Japanese writer Aoko Matsuda imagines reclamation and brilliantly transforms fairy tales and folk legends into empowering exposés, adventures, manifestos. The 17 stories – adroitly translated by UK-based Polly Barton...

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori [in Booklist]

22 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Akutagawa Prize-winning Sayaka Murata (Convenience Store Woman, 2018), with her lauded, chosen translator Ginny Tapley Takemori – two short stories and now two novels thus far – returns for more societally defiant, shockingly disconnected, disturbingly satisfying fiction. At 11, Natsuki is already aware she doesn’t fit...

Fly on the Wall by Remy Lai [in Shelf Awareness]

18 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Australian, Australian Asian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indonesian, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Singaporean

Duplicating the prose and graphic hybrid format of her award-winning debut, Pie in the Sky, Indonesia-born Remy Lai presents Fly on the Wall, another pitch-perfect middle-grade book about the longing to belong. As the youngest Khoo, 12-year-old Henry is "FORBIDDEN from Doing Anything on His Own...

Tigers, Not Daughters by Samantha Mabry [in School Library Journal]

16 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW A year has passed since the oldest Torres daughter, Ana, fatally fell (jumped?) from her bedroom window. Her sisters have endured their loss behind rigid defenses: Jessica assumed Ana's life, including claiming Ana's boyfriend; Iridian assuages her loneliness with Ana's books and writing; Rosa...

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor [The Carls, Book 2] by Hank Green [in Booklist]

15 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Chinese American, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Yes, indubitably, you’ll need to first read/listen to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (2018) to fully appreciate April’s resurrection, why/how we’re not alone, the need to save humanity despite, well, humans. While Kristen Sieh helmed Hank Green’s bestselling debut almost solo – Green himself did a...

Night Theater by Vikram Paralkar [in Library Journal]

14 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW Banished from a large private city hospital, the doctor has run a remote village clinic for three years. His “pharmacist” is an untrained young woman, her husband on call for urgent labor. Despite the doctor’s acerbic demeanor, his care is unreproachable, even self-funding necessary...

Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby [in Booklist]

11 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW S.A. Cosby and Blacktop Wasteland were featured in Booklist’s 2020 Spotlight on Crime Fiction, and his editorial proved to be thought-provoking and memorable. For readers seeking further Cosby-talk, choose the audiobook, because, while actor Adam Lazarre-White is absolutely convincing, the recording’s highlight just might be Cosby’s 10-minute...

Parachutes by Kelly Yang [in Booklist]

10 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

After a minute of unnecessary, ill-suited music, this recording opens with a chilling content warning: “This book contains scenes depicting sexual harassment and rape.” Kelly Yang’s highly anticipated follow-up to her award-winning middle-grade debut, Front Desk (2018), is markedly different from that book, as she...

Julián at the Wedding by Jessica Love [in Shelf Awareness]

09 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Repost

Introduced in author/illustrator Jessica Love’s 2018 Julián Is a Mermaid, self-expressive Julián returns for a command performance in Julián at the Wedding, this time with a fabulous partner-in-play, Marisol. Repeating her memorably affecting formula of minimal text/maximum art, Love again offers another sparkling gift to...

Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan [in Booklist]

08 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Repost

Readers might need the opening sentence repeated here: “Somewhere in the Américas, many years after once-upon-a-time and long before happily-ever-after, a boy climbed the cobbled steps of an arched bridge in the tiny village of Santa Maria in the country of the same name.” The...

Bestiary by K-Ming Chang [in Booklist]

07 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

At almost 19, Ama already has a dead soldier husband and three daughters. She marries two-decades-older Agong, another soldier with whom she has two more daughters. The youngest becomes Mother, who moves with Ama, Agong, and Jie (older sister), from Taiwan to Arkansas, only to be displaced...

Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner [in Booklist]

04 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

If the narrator sounds immediately familiar, here’s why: Danielle Macdonald played Willowdean Dickson in the popular Netflix adaptation of Julie Murphy’s bestselling Dumplin'. Making her narrator debut in Jennifer Weiner’s plus-size empowering latest, Macdonald is so convincing that once listeners have begun the story, stopping...

The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta [in School Library Journal]

03 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, British, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW British-born to a Greek Cypriot mother and Jamaican father, Dean Atta established himself as a poet and performer in 2012. Here he gorgeously debuts as both author and narrator of his novel-in-verse in which his fictional stand-in, Michael Angeli, matures from an end-of-the-millennium baby...

Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan [in Booklist]

02 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, European, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost, Singaporean, Singaporean American

Following the über-success of his three-part Crazy Rich Asians, Kevin Kwan returns with another over-the-top bestseller, this time contemporizing and diversifying E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View. Lydia Look, narrator for previous Kwan titles, ushers the characters through a (practically) royal East/West wedding in Capri, then a...

A Room Called Earth by Madeleine Ryan [in Booklist]

01 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Australian, Fiction, Repost

Madeleine Ryan’s novel covers less than 24 hours, but by book’s end, readers are left feeling remarkably bonded with this fiercely independent young woman who thinks, acts, and lives differently from the so-called norm. What actually happens over 300-plus pages is relatively minimal: she prepares...

Likes by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum [in Booklist]

31 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost, Short Stories

Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum’s (Ms. Hempel Chronicles, 2008) prowess here lies in her ingenious ability to elevate seemingly minor moments into the pivotal crux of a narrative. Take, for example, in “Julia and Sunny,” perhaps the most affecting of Bynum’s nine stories, “a small square of silky, pale blue material” that...

Foul Is Fair by Hannah Capin [in School Library Journal]

30 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, Southeast Asian American, Young Adult Readers

Emily Lawrence narrates Hannah Capin's contemporized adaptation of Macbeth, featuring overprivileged L.A. teens with a #MeToo narrative overlay. Out at a party with her three best friends, Elizabeth Jade Khanjara is gang-raped by a group of prep school lacrosse stars. She refuses to be labeled...

BookDragon Fiction