Filipina/o American Archives

The Last Karankawas by Kimberly Garza [in Booklist]

09 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Filipina/o American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Debut author Kimberly Garza skillfully links brilliantly crafted episodes to create an unforgettable community in Galveston, TX. The novel’s core belongs to Carly Castillo, abandoned by her father and Filipina immigrant mother and raised by grandmother Magdalena, who claims Texas’ vanished indigenous Karankawas as...

Halina Filipina: A New Yorker in Manila by Arnold Arre [in Booklist]

21 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Indie publisher Tuttle showcases Filipino creator Arnold Arre, whose The Mythology Class (another Tuttle title) was the first comic to win the Philippine National Book Award. Renowned for his fantasy works, Arre describes Halina Filipina as a “no-frills relationship story” in an afterword describing the...

Blackmail and Bibingka by Mia P. Manansala [Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery 3] [in Shelf Awareness]

08 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost

Get ready for more delectable death. After the "rather dark places" both Mia P. Manansala and her protagonist, Lila Macapagal, endured in Homicide and Halo-Halo – the second novel in the Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery series – Manansala (Arsenic and Adobo) opens Blackmail and Bibingka with reassurance, writing...

Cinder & Glass by Melissa de la Cruz [in School Library Journal]

20 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Audio, European, Fiction, Filipina/o American, French, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz remarkably has two 2022 Cinderella adaptations: The Stolen Slippers, introducing not-evil stepsisters, and this, in which “Cendrillon” is a Lady in King Louis XIV’s Versailles Court. So much of de la Cruz’s exceptional retelling – with even a nod to...

After Lambana: Myth and Magic in Manila by Eliza Victoria, illustrated by Mervin Malonzo [in Booklist]

19 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost

Conrad needs help. He’s suffering from a fatal disease, and mitigating the excruciating agony is all he can do. Ignacio seems to be his only hope, navigating him through the Manila streets where humans – and other beings – pass between worlds. Beyond the last...

A Career in Books: A Novel about Friends, Money, and the Occasional Duck Bun by Kate Gavino [in Booklist]

12 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Nina, Silvia, and Shirin’s “now-mythical friendship origin story” began at NYU in their freshman writing workshop. As the only Asian Americans, they initially avoided each other, until a class trip to the New York Public Library led to a coincidental bathroom break that led to...

How to Read Now: Essays by Elaine Castillo [in Christian Science Monitor]

27 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Filipina/o American, Nonfiction, Repost

Bracing cultural criticism flows from the pen of Elaine Castillo Provocative and pointed literary criticism in How to Read Now: Essays challenges people to become better, smarter readers. Boundless erudition and eloquent exasperation define Elaine Castillo’s debut nonfiction, How to Read Now, an incandescent collection of essays...

Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades [in Booklist]

06 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost

“We live in the dregs of Queens, New York,” debut Filipina American author Daphne Palasi Andreades introduces her polyphonic Brown Girls, with names like “Khadija, Akanksha, Maribeth, Ximena, Breonna, Cherelle, Thanh, Yoon, Ellen ...

A Tiny Upward Shove by Melissa Chadburn [in Shelf Awareness]

28 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

Melissa Chadburn's electrifying debut novel, A Tiny Upward Shove, opens with gruesome death: "Dying hurts like f*ck-all everything." The description comes from "Aswang," a shape-shifting creature of Filipinx folklore, who knows "about the slow agonies of death" because she reanimates the body of 18-year-old Marina,...

Homicide and Halo-Halo [Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery 2] by Mia P. Manansala [in Shelf Awareness]

17 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost

Cozy mystery label aside, Mia P. Manansala's enticing second installment of her toothsome Tita Rosie's Kitchen series opens with a warning: "I wrote Homicide and Halo-Halo while both me and my protagonist, Lila, were in rather dark places in our lives." Introduced – and nearly...

Bibliolepsy by Gina Apostol [in Booklist]

21 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Repost

Philippines-born Gina Apostol has earned significant recognition for Insurrecto (2018) and The Gun Dealers’ Daughter (2012). Such success often inspires resurrection of older works, in this case, Apostol’s debut, which she began writing in 1983 at 19 and which won the 1997 Philippine National Book Award. “I changed nothing...

Uncle Rico’s Encore: Mostly True Stories of Filipino Seattle by Peter Bacho [in Booklist]

20 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Filipina/o American, Memoir, Repost, Short Stories

“Each morning when I rise, I pause to remember the preciousness of what I have lost, and I cherish it.” Septuagenarian Peter Bacho, whose first novel, Cebu (1991), won the American Book Award, commits those memories to the page in poignant, affecting “mostly true stories.” Bacho’s...

Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey by Erin Entrada Kelly

07 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Middle Grade Readers

“You’re scared of your own shadow,” Marisol’s older brother declares. She’s hurt but also admits, “Why do I have to be scared of everything all the time? No one else is.” Sometimes, eight-year-old Marisol’s ‘what-if’-worries prevent her from doing what she wants – including climbing her...

Mixed Plate: Chronicles of an All-American Combo by Jo Koy [in Booklist]

16 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Southeast Asian American

That Jo Koy has created a sold-out, standing-ovation-earning stand-up career making people laugh while mining intimate family stories means no one else could possibly narrate his memoir. His hard-earned superstardom translates seamlessly into an audiobook, giving him a double-debut credit as author and narrator, presenting...

Both Sides Now by Peyton Thomas [in Shelf Awareness]

25 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Canadian, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Peyton Thomas's auspicious YA debut, Both Sides Now, invites readers into the complicated transition year between parental reliance and university independence. Seniors Finch and Jonah are their Olympia, Wash., debate team headliners. Although they lose the state competition to their private school archnemeses, the pair still...

The Human Zoo by Sabina Murray [in Shelf Awareness]

23 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

Sabina Murray (The Caprices) has built a lofty career on her ability to craft intricately layered, thought-provoking fiction: what she initially presents as straightforward storytelling is intensified with piercing cultural, sociopolitical and historical nuances that encourage greater interaction for deeper satisfaction. The Human Zoo is yet...

Arsenic and Adobo [Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery 1] by Mia P. Manansala [in Christian Science Monitor]

07 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost, Southeast Asian American

When Lila Macapagal moves back to her small hometown, she has no idea she’ll have to solve a murder mystery in order to save her aunt’s restaurant. "Cozy mysteries," already a niche subgenre of crime fiction, contain yet another level of specialty: culinary cozy mysteries. For...

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....

Eleven Diverse Audiobooks in Verse [in School Library Journal]

01 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Arab American, Audio, Black/African American, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Indian American, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, South Asian American, Syrian American, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

April is National Poetry Month. Of course, reading, writing, and performing poetry can and should be done any time of the year, but April encourages newbies and doubters to give verses a try. Audiobooks are a particularly effective medium for poetry, with well-chosen narrators enhancing and...

Kimiko Does Cancer by Kimiko Tobimatsu, illustrated by Keet Geniza [in Booklist]

30 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Filipina/o American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Memoir, Repost

“I’m not a big fan of the common sentiment, ‘Cancer made me a better person,’” Kimiko Tobimatsu admits in her author’s note. “But then, cancer did make me a better person.” Diagnosed at 25 with “a rare form of breast cancer – mucinous,” Tobimatsu is...

BookDragon Filipina/o American