Coming-of-age Archives - Page 4 of 55

Cold by Mariko Tamaki [in Booklist]

18 May, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

The recording begins with supposed-to-be-eerie tinkling notes. By the time they gratingly repeat 4.5 hours later, eyes might roll, ears could need clearing, and yet Mariko Tamaki’s dual-voiced thriller just might be immersive enough for listeners to overlook this uneven production. Katharine Chin opens as awkward...

Circa by Devi S. Laskar [in Shelf Awareness]

10 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

Devi S. Laskar's sophomore novel, Circa, is an intense meditation on multigenerational grief and loss. Laskar (The Atlas of Reds and Blues) adopts an uncommon second-person narration for Heera, born in New York and raised in Raleigh, N.C., by Indian immigrant parents. She's American by birthright,...

Timeless Tales: APA Creators Draw on Myth and Folklore to Craft Personal, yet Universal Stories [in School Library Journal]

09 May, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hawaiian, Japanese, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Southeast Asian American, Translation, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

Welcome to one of the more hope-filled, albeit cautious, Asian Pacific American (APA) Heritage Months in recent history. Plenty remains unsettled, challenging, and tragic, but a glass-half-full outlook extols the news that the world is finally, excitedly opening up from the last two-plus years of...

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 ...

Talking Stories for Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month [in Booklist Reader]

05 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cambodian, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian American, Korean American, Lists, Pakistani American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American, Southeast Asian American

Short-story collections can be uneven, but readers will be consistently impressed by these extraordinary, resonant, and exhilarating debuts by a dozen diverse writers. Afterparties. By Anthony Veasna So. 2021. Ecco. So’s nine electrifying stories magnificently create an interconnected Cambodian American community. So’s death in December 2020 at just...

Our Colors by Gengoroh Tagame, translated by Anne Ishii [in Booklist]

03 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Japanese manga powerhouse Gengoroh Tagame follows the phenomenal success of My Brother’s Husband with another poignant, empowering, gay-centered narrative, again translated by queer manga expert Anne Ishii. Sora and Nao have been neighbors and close friends since early childhood. Now that they’re older, their interactions are...

When We Fell Apart by Soon Wiley [in Shelf Awareness]

02 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Korean American, Repost

Soon Wiley's searing debut, When We Fell Apart, deftly reveals in alternating chapters an abruptly truncated love story. Min Ford, a biracial Korean American, is a Samsung cultural specialist who has lived for three years in Seoul. Kim Yu-jin is in her final year at...

The Color of the Sky Is the Shape of the Heart by Chesil, translated by Takami Nieda [in Shelf Awareness]

28 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Debut author Chesil commemorated the end of her 20s by writing a novel based on her childhood experiences. The result, The Color of the Sky Is the Shape of the Heart, is a literary triumph that's both outstanding storytelling and searing societal commentary. "High school was...

The Most Precious Substance on Earth by Shashi Bhat [in Shelf Awareness]

25 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Uncategorized

Shashi Bhat's dedication for her potent second novel, The Most Precious Substance on Earth, speaks volumes: "For the girls who stay quiet." Turn the page to an epigraph from Sophocles: "Silence is a woman's best garment." Bhat's protagonist – a Canadian of Indian background like herself...

Mister Lightbulb by Wojtek Wawszczyk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones [in Booklist]

15 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Polish, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Award-winning animator Wojtek Wawszczyk’s graphic debut, which won the Polish Comics Association’s 2019 Best Graphic Novel award, is available now for English-language readers thanks to this translation by the lauded Antonia Lloyd-Jones. A decade-plus in the making, this epic bildungsroman superbly imbues the surreal...

Rave by Jessica Campbell [in Shelf Awareness]

08 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Canadian artist Jessica Campbell (XTC69) introduces Rave with a provocative epigraph from controversial televangelist Pat Robertson that condemns feminism as "anti-family ...

Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li [in Booklist]

28 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Long before the first alarms are triggered here, renowned museums have been legal showcases for artful plunder: Nefertiti’s Bust in Berlin’s Neues Museum, the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum, the Koh-i-Noor in the Tower of London. Grace D. Li’s fascinating albeit uneven debut zeros...

Forbidden City by Vanessa Hua [in Booklist]

24 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

In her first historical novel, Vanessa Hua (A River of Stars, 2018) draws on 20-plus years of experience as a journalist covering Asia and the diaspora to reclaim a few of the “millions of impoverished women who have shaped China in their own ways yet...

Booklist Backlist: Diverse Debut Story Collections [in Booklist]

21 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Cambodian American, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese American, Fiction, Indian American, Korean American, Laotian American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Mexican American, Pakistani American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American, Southeast Asian American

Short-story collections can be uneven, but readers will be consistently impressed by these extraordinary, resonant, and exhilarating debuts by a dozen diverse writers. Afterparties. By Anthony Veasna So. 2021. Ecco. So’s nine electrifying stories magnificently create an interconnected Cambodian American community. The most autobiographical is “Human Development,” in...

Time Zone J by Julie Doucet [in Shelf Awareness]

15 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Canadian, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Julie Doucet is a legendary alternative comics pioneer, especially in an arena dominated by men. Her fame was further elevated by her frustrated abandonment of the industry in 2006. Her semi-autobiographical Dirty Plotte (quite the double entendre: "plotte" is Québécois slang for the c-word) began as...

People Change by Vivek Shraya [in Booklist]

03 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Indian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American

Multi-disciplinary artist and writer Vivek Shraya (The Subtweet, 2020) continues her thoughtful, deliberate self-narrations. Her latest essay collection centers change: “If I were to have anything resembling a higher purpose, I’d now say that it’s to evolve and to model evolution. To demonstrate the beauty...

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,...

Violets by Kyung-sook Shin, translated by Anton Hur [in Booklist]

24 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Mention of Wim Wenders’ Buena Vista Social Club sets this novel in 1999, when Oh San turns 23 that summer. She left her childhood village years ago, haunted by the memory of a best friendship’s wrenching cleaving. After being repeatedly abandoned by her mother,...

How to Find What You’re Not Looking For by Veera Hiranandani [in Booklist]

25 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Indian American, Jewish, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, South Asian American

The second of Veera Hiranandani’s novels with geneses in the award-winning author’s Indian Jewish family history is ideally paired with versatile Priya Ayyar. For Hiranandani’s The Night Diary, Ayyar persuasively drew on her own South Asian heritage. Here Ayyar ciphers Hiranandani’s maternally-inspired latest, channeling her...

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...

BookDragon Coming-of-age Tag