Booklist Archives - Page 14 of 39

Serena Singh Flips the Script by Sonya Lalli [in Booklist]

25 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

Actor/dancer Ulka Simone Mohanty confidently makes her solo debut and is clearly poised to become a chosen voice for contemporary South Asian American protagonists. Her versatility is immediately clear as she effortlessly ciphers Sonya Lalli’s (Grown-Up Pose, 2020) diverse cast: beyond career-driven exec Serena Singh,...

We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire by Joy McCullough [in Booklist]

19 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, Nonethnic-specific, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Invoking the shocking Chanel Miller case, Joy McCullough introduces a mixed Guatemalan/presumed-to-be-white family in which older daughter Elinor is brutally raped; although found guilty, the rapist is released for “time served.” Despite best intentions, younger daughter Marianne’s social justice-driven public outrage only causes further damage...

Chlorine Sky by Mahogany L. Browne [in Booklist]

15 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Mahogany L. Browne takes aural control of her novel-in-verse – a first novel for the prolific poet and writer (Black Girl Magic, 2018) – enhancing her story with soft, determined rhythms. “ME & LAY LI AIN’T TALKING,” Browne opens, “cause she think she cute / cause...

Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia [in Booklist]

04 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Repost

Gabriela Garcia turns her MFA thesis for Purdue University (where she studied with the revered Roxane Gay) into her widely buzzed first novel. Presented in 12 chapters that read more like interlinked stories, Garcia channels her Miami-based Cuban-Mexican American heritage into five generations of a...

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro [in Booklist]

02 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British, British Asian, Fiction, Repost

With echoes of themes in his internationally lauded Never Let Me Go (2005) – that life can be manufactured, bartered, bought – Booker-ed, Nobel-ed, and knighted Kazuo Ishiguro presents a bittersweet fable about the human heart as “[s]omething that makes each of us special and...

Are You Enjoying by Mira Sethi [in Booklist]

01 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Pakistani, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian

*STARRED REVIEW Mira Sethi showcases her literary lineage as the daughter of internationally renowned, award-winning journalists Najam Sethi and Jugnu Mohsin, and the younger sister of lauded author and musician Ali Sethi. Already an established actor and journalist, Sethi makes her fiction debut with six partially...

At the End of the Matinee by Keiichiro Hirano, translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter [in Booklist]

25 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

The I-narrator of the opening prologue, presented rather like an author’s note, sets up a revealing frame for the love story to come even as he inserts, then immediately elides himself. “If I were absolutely faithful to the truth, I myself would have to make...

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw [in Booklist]

17 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Debut author Deesha Philyaw’s 2020 National Book Award finalist in fiction gets an almost (we can just ignore those minor, clumsy production glitches) flawless performance from prolific, expert Janina Edwards. Throughout the nine consistently superb stories, Edwards adapts effortlessly between mothers and daughters, friends...

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto [in Booklist]

15 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Indonesian American, Repost, Singaporean American

Murder is never funny, except when it is. In Jesse Q. Sutanto’s rollicking debut, which she describes in a “Dear reader” foreword as “a love letter to my family – a ridiculously large bunch with a long history of immigration,” a fatal accident begets family...

Asadora! (vol. 1) by Naoki Urasawa, translated by John Werry [in Booklist]

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

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...

Nights When Nothing Happened by Simon Han [in Booklist]

11 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Jack is the older brother to six-years-younger Annabel, but in many ways, he’s the newest among the Cheng family. Born in China, he was raised by his grandparents when his mother, Patty, left to pursue a physics PhD in the U.S. with his photographer father,...

The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing by Sonia Faleiro [in Booklist]

08 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Indian, Indian American, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

International headlines about the 2012 Delhi rape victim exposed the Indian megacity as “the rape capital of the world,” spurring award-winning journalist Sonia Faleiro (Beautiful Thing, 2012) to “find out, and to gather my findings in a book-length study of rape in India.” She finds...

Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto, illustrated by Ann Xu [in Booklist]

05 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Commonwealth Writers’ Prize-winning Canadian Japanese novelist/poet Hiromi Goto (Half World, 2010) makes her stupendous graphic debut, in splendid artistic synchronization with Ignatz-nominated Ann Xu. “It never felt right here,” Kumiko thinks as she sneaks out of an assisted-living facility her daughters thought would be the...

To Be a Man by Nicole Krauss [in Booklist]

04 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Jewish, Repost, Short Stories

Nicole Krauss hasn’t audiobooked since joining an all-star cast for the aural adaptation of Etgar Keret’s collection, Suddenly, a Knock on the Door (2012). She is clearly an ideal choice for narrating her own writing in this, her full aural debut, with her collection examining and...

Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejidé [in Booklist]

02 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

Back in 1977, “Anacostia was still the New World, an isle of blood and desire.” In Washington, DC-native Morowa Yejidé’s (Time of the Locust, 2014) moody, bleak sophomore title, boundaries between the living and the dead are indiscernible. Once upon a time, Nephthys and Osiris...

A Sweet Mess by Jayci Lee [in Booklist]

01 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

Before Jayci Lee’s latest even hit shelves, Lost/Hawaii Five-0 heartthrob Daniel Dae Kim optioned the rom-com as producer and star. Before Kim goes celluloid, narrator Natalie Naudus whets your appetite with this delectably sweet happily-ever-after affair. With his borrowed car broken down in tiny Weldon, California, celebrity food critic...

The Parakeet by Espé, translated by Hannah Chute [in Booklist]

28 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Penn State University Press, already a publisher of award-winning graphic titles, launches a new imprint, Graphic Mundi, showcasing comics intent on “drawing our worlds together.” Among its inaugural line-up is French comics artist Espé’s spectacular, autobiographically inspired homage to a childhood haunted by mental...

Fathoms: The World in the Whale By Rebecca Giggs [in Booklist]

27 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

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...

Parenthesis by Élodie Durand, translated by Edward Gauvin [in Booklist]

22 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

At 24, “in 1994, or maybe 1995 already,” French artist Élodie Durand first began experiencing symptoms – what her family would later call her “spells” – that included abrupt memory loss and erratic behavior, such as baseless rage and violent outbursts. Her diagnosis of epilepsy...

Rabbit Island by Elvira Navarro, translated by Christina MacSweeney [in Booklist]

20 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories, Spanish, Translation

Spare in pages, Elvira Navarro’s collection of 11 short stories proves dense with disconnection, dysfunction, and dismay as families fray, couples sunder, and animals are brutalized. Set between the seemingly familiar and elusively surreal, Navarro’s tales unsettle readers through oneiric landscapes. In “Rabbit Island,” a non-inventor...

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