BookDragon Archives - Page 19 of 230

The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur [in Booklist]

01 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Korean Canadian June Hur’s enthralling debut, The Silence of Bones, vividly captured 19th-century fatal court intrigue during Korea’s Joseon Dynasty. Her follow-up is another tautly plotted thriller, set in 15th-century Joseon, and helmed by relative audiobook newbie Sue Jean Kim, who adroitly controls a sprawling...

Lemon by Yeo-sun Kwon, translated by Janet Hong [in Booklist]

30 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW The Western publishing world has taken a quarter-century to deliver one of Korea’s most lauded writers to English-reading audiences. Publishing and prize-winning since 1996, Yeo-sun Kwon is deftly translated by award-winning Korean Canadian Janet Hong. At 18, high-school senior Kim Hae-on “was perfection, bliss...

Captivated, by You by Yama Wayama, translated by Leighann Harvey [in Booklist]

29 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Adolescent challenges are a ubiquitous rite of passage from which no child seems immune. And yet relatively recent manga sensation Wayama – her three titles published in her native Japan have each won major lauds – manages to charmingly defuse some of the most potentially...

Between Perfect & Real by Ray Stoeve [in Booklist]

28 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Debut novelist Ray Stoeve’s first chapter has three short sentences: “I think I might be trans. I mean, I know I am. I think.” Seattle high-school senior Dean already came out as lesbian, is lovingly partnered with Zoe, and has supportive friends (quality over quantity)....

Night Bus by Zuo Ma, translated by R. Orion Martin [in Booklist]

27 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Translation

“If I could put it into words, I wouldn’t be drawing it,” the cartoonist insists. In mostly black-and-white panels laden with exquisite details, Zuo Ma intertwines autobiography with fantasy, their relationship revealed some 200 pages into the unpredictable narrative. A young man returns home from city...

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue [in Booklist]

26 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Imbolo Mbue’s PEN/Faulkner-winning Behold the Dreamers unveiled immigrants chasing the American Dream; her searing sophomore title exposes U.S. destruction beyond its borders. In an unnamed African nation, oil giant Pexton has been poisoning the farming village of Kosawa – water, land, air, and people....

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...

Hao: Stories by Ye Chun [in Booklist]

24 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Bilingual Chinese American writer, poet, and translator Ye Chun showcases her linguistic prowess in a prodigious debut collection featuring women on both sides of the globe, many defined and confined by and reliant on motherhood. The titular “hao” recurs, meaning “Good, yes, okay. The most...

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...

Edge Case by YZ Chin [in Booklist]

22 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Malaysian American, Repost

Eighteen days is all it takes for the (d)evolution of a marriage in YZ Chin’s debut novel. Edwina and Marlin are green-card-seeking Malaysian transplants to New York City. She’s a quality-assurance analyst (and only woman) at AInstein, where she works on joke-telling robots. He’s a...

Once Upon a Quinceañera by Monica Gomez-Hira [in Booklist]

21 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

Not to be confused with bestselling Julia Alvarez’s book of the same title – hers, a nonfiction examination of Latina coming-of-age quinceañera traditions – Monica Gomez-Hira makes her YA debut with a rollicking fable of quinceañeras lost and found. Eighteen-year-old Carmen never got her party: her...

Child of the Flower-Song People: Luz Jiménez, Daughter of the Nahua by Gloria Amescua, illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh [in Shelf Awareness]

20 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Biography, Children/Picture Books, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Repost

Educator and poet Gloria Amescua makes her picture-book debut with the inspiring Child of the Flower-Song People, spectacularly illustrated by award-winning Mexican American author/artist Duncan Tonatiuh (Undocumented). Amescua poignantly uses her own experiences of "almost losing my Spanish language and culture" as a Latina in Texas...

Poultrygeist by Eric Geron, illustrated by Pete Oswald [in Shelf Awareness]

19 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Even before the title page, we've got a country road, an ambling rooster and a barreling semi – this can't end well ...

One Line by Ray Fawkes [in Shelf Awareness]

18 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Ray Fawkes's One Soul debuted in 2011, earning extensive adulation (including an Eisner nomination) for its never-before-done graphic presentation of 18 lives via 18-panel grids divided across two-page spreads. His 2014 follow-up, The People Inside, used a similar format to follow 24 individuals through various relationships. One...

Matrix by Lauren Groff [in Shelf Awareness]

17 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British, European, Fiction, French, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Lauren Groff has built a significant career crafting novels and stories featuring sharp observations by and about modern women. In a surprising feat of time travel, the two-time National Book Award finalist (for Fates and Furies and Florida) leaps back to 12th-century England in Matrix and fictionalizes the life...

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner [in Booklist]

16 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Hapa/Mixed-race, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Michelle Zauner’s mother Chongmi died in 2014 – she was just 56, Zauner 25. Her grief inspired her first album as Japanese Breakfast in 2016. Her viral 2018 New Yorker essay, “Crying in H Mart,” morphed into the first chapter of this, her dual author/narrator...

The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs [in Booklist]

15 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost

Sociology scholar Anna Malaika Tubbs double debuts as author and narrator in her empowering examination of three mothers: Alberta King, Berdis Baldwin, and Louise Little, who “have been almost entirely ignored throughout history,” although their sons are renowned: Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin, and...

Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell [in Booklist]

14 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Argentinian, Audio, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories, South American, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Mariana Enriquez’s second collection, after 2017’s Things We Lost in the Fire, is insatiably addicting even as the dozen stories are gruesome, lurid, and utterly weird. As a Buenos Aires journalist, she witnessed true horror, the consequences of dictatorship, corruption, 30,000 disappeared; her literary...

So We Meet Again by Suzanne Park [in Shelf Awareness]

13 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

Suzanne Park (Loathe at First Sight) crafts another engaging enemies-to-lovers romance in So We Meet Again. Back in junior high, Jessie Kim and Daniel Choi were pitted against each other by their competitive Korean American parents as beacons of near-perfection. Both eventually escaped: Jess landed on...

A Play for the End of the World by Jai Chakrabarti [in Shelf Awareness]

12 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Eastern European, European, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

Time, geographies, and backgrounds all seem to flow effortlessly through Jai Chakrabarti's exquisite debut novel, A Play for the End of the World. At its core is the provenance of a possible love story between two strangers in New York City. Interwoven into this uncertain...

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