Two genres set my reading heart aflutter: novels in verse (highly ironic as I am an utter poetry dullard) and interlinked short storied novels. Hapa Hawaiian native Letitia Moffit’s Sidewalk Dancing falls in the latter category ...
So this might seem like a Chinese New Year title (because it is – although I just received a copy; the first print run sold out almost immediately, yippee!), but it's even more about sharing, forgiveness, and friendship. Which means don't read it just once a...
You can go two ways here: 1. Just read this as is, without context or background, and you would enjoy it immensely because it's just so much fun; 2. Invest a little research time before you open the book and reach the final page satisfied and...
While production doesn't seem to have started just yet, news that Marie Lu's bestselling dystopic trilogy is coming to a theater near you keeps resurfacing since CBS Films bought rights to Legend in 2011. That Lu has a much-hyped new series, The Young Elites, hitting shelves this fall, will surely add pressure to...
Sometimes my timing is so serendipitous, I wonder if I have a book angel whispering to me in my sleep. Somehow, I hit 'play' on this irreverent, potty-mouthed, guffaw-inducing, jaw-dropping memoir last week, only to see it pop up this week in my virtual world...
*STARRED REVIEW Celeste Ng’s debut is one of those aching stories about which the reader knows so much more than any of the characters, even as each yearns for the unknowable truth. “Lydia is dead,” the novel opens – blunt, unnerving, devastating. She’s only 16, the middle of three...
You might consider duct-taping your jaw shut because Manhattan-based Singaporean author Kevin Kwan insists on the veracity of the excesses in his outrageous, hilarious, train-wreck tragic debut novel: "So many aspects of and stories in the book I actually had to tone down!" he told...
In the small town of Caledonia, Iowa, Jewel stands out: she's "'half-Jamaican, a quarter white, and a quarter Mexican.'" As if to provide a physical embodiment of Jewel's hapa background, the audible producers cast Amandla Stenberg, who played the heartbreaking role of young Rue in the film version of The...
When I read Andrea Cheng's The Year of the Book almost two years ago, I had no clue it would turn out to be a series! Such staying power bodes well that later printings of Book have been fully corrected; click on The Year of the Book post for...
Theater producer/critic/playwright Warren Hoffman (The Passing Game) insists that audiences have been "duped" into believing that the Broadway musical "is the most innocent of art forms when, in fact, it is one of America's most powerful, influential, and even at times polemical arts precisely because...
Although our son incessantly watched various versions of the Avatar series on television and even more often on DVD, I had little knowledge for years of who's who or what's what. The casting controversy of the 2010 film version disastrously directed by M. Night Shyamalan is what...
Before Danica Novgorodoff’s story even begins, her dedication page offers crucial tidbits: in paying homage to her grandparents, she reveals both her Chinese heritage and inspiration ["To my grandparents, Eugene and Ellen Chen Novgorodoff"]; in quoting a July 2007 article from The Economist (we're talking pretty...
In spite of a history that spans centuries – especially in California – Hollywood has long remained an elusive destination for Asian Pacific Americans seeking not always celluloid glory, but at the very least, mere participation and fair representation. From immigration restrictions, limited casting opportunities, miscegenation laws,...
Here's what a fairly recent (pubbed September 2013) bestseller looks like. It hasn't gotten any major nominations or awards (perhaps I should add 'yet,' as author Jamie Ford's debut, Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, garnered a few nods); nevertheless, it's certainly sold plenty of...
*STARRED REVIEW In her first title since she received a 2010 MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, Yiyun Li again explores the far-reaching repercussions of a single person's death. While her mesmerizing The Vagrants (2009) revolved around the execution of a young political victim, here, three childhood friends take...
Get ready to ring in the new year ...
Lan Samantha Chang is a literary success of countless accolades, from her Ivy pedigrees (Yale, Harvard) to coveted fellowships (Guggenheim, Stanford's Stegner, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study) to her directorship since 2006 of what many believe is the country's (the world's?) top creative writing program,...
At 22, Julie Wu had a “vision” about a sad young boy that she immediately rushed to capture in words. From those initial notes, she would take almost a quarter century to bring him to the page: at age 46, she “bloomed” as a first-time novelist....
Vision and Reinvention: Julie Wu’s The Third Son So how many detours can a writer make before becoming that writer? If you’re newbie novelist Julie Wu – who knew as a Harvard undergraduate in the 1980s that writing was what she wanted to do – the answer might include a Master’s program...
Let's start with this fascinating article: "The One Thing White Writers Get Away With, But Authors of Color Don't" by PolicyMic’s Gracie Jin – go ahead, take a few minutes to read it. You'll see from that giant close-up photo that author Bill Cheng is indeed of...
