Her model – yep, as in runway – older sister Jeannie couldn’t be more perfect, leaving Liza all too familiar with their Taiwanese immigrant mother’s disappointment and frustration. Despite Mom’s “no dating while you’re in school” rule, she ironically can’t get over Liza’s lack of...
*STARRED REVIEW “Imagine that your home is on fire. You’re allowed to save one thing. / Your family and pets are safe … / Your Most Important Thing. Any size.” With that, Ms. Chang challenges her class to name their Most Important Things. “For once we...
Sure, reading is rewarding, but here you’ll want to listen in to share the delighted wonder of narrator Avi Roque and writer Aiden Thomas discussing their affirming #OwnVoices debuts as trans Latinx creators, a bonus at recording’s end. Deservedly lauded and awarded all over the...
Poet/singer Ishle Yi Park crafts an elegiac debut novel-in-verse featuring star-crossed teens, a "rebel/ Romeo & Juliet." From the opening line of Angel & Hannah, Park immediately commands complicity in sharing something secret involving diverse backgrounds: "Psst," she warns, "Ven acá. Illuwah" – "come here," in Spanish,...
*STARRED REVIEW Pulitzer Prized NYT editor/journalist Jia Lynn Yang makes history intimately personal: “This book is an attempt to fuse my family’s history to the history of the country that found a place for us ...
Ryan Do and Vyvy Nguyen might be audiobook newbies, but they’re just what debut novelist Loan Le must have ordered: together, the trio offers an #OwnVoices treat combining a never-meant-to-be love story, family feuds, and drool-worthy Vietnamese cuisine. Vibrant Nguyen is Linh Mai, who’s always been...
“I wake up late the morning I’m meant to go to the consulate,” Teju Cole’s spare novel opens. As if in mid-confession, Peter Jay Fernandez’s tone is immediately familiar. In mere seconds, he’s drawing audiences into his confidence, sharing experiences, disclosing comments, and divulging secrets...
YA novelist Syed M. Masood (More than Just a Pretty Face, 2019) makes his adult debut with a seemingly disparate dual narrative headed for collision. Self-described “lapsed lawyer” Anvar is drifting – he’s lost his love-of-his-life-since-childhood Zuha; he consistently embarrasses his devout Muslim Pakistani American family;...
*STARRED REVIEW The late Shigeru Mizuki's most recent posthumous import, Tono Monogatari – in English, Tales of Tono – is as multi-layered as the eminent manga creator himself. Venerated for his magnificently detailed histories – Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, for example – and cherished for his charming supernatural...
Following the success of her lauded “We Set the Dark on Fire” duology, Tehlor Kay Mejia makes her middle grade debut, proving mothers are always right, ghosts exist, and La Llorona is legit. From 12 to eternal, desperate parent to dismissive cop, madwoman to murderer,...
*STARRED REVIEW Elizabeth Miki Brina claims her voice with resounding clarity in her memoir, Speak, Okinawa. As the daughter of a U.S. soldier with Jamestown ancestry and an Okinawan immigrant mother, Brina's identity was always a negotiation of race, class, privilege. By opening her stupendous book...
Persian American Adib Khorram joyfully and playfully celebrates his heritage in Seven Special Somethings, his picture book debut, following his award-winning Darius the Great YA duology. Khorram is partnered with fellow debut picture book creator Zainab Faidhi, an Iraq-born artist whose animation background provides each page...
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...
That Danielle Geller survived to write Dog Flowers seems miraculous. Her raw debut might need a content warning: abandonment, alcoholism, attempted suicide, domestic violence, parental incarcerations, family deaths – much of which is intrinsically linked to her enigmatic, missing mother. In bearing elegiac witness to...
*STARRED REVIEW “They wanted to start a family, and now they’ve destroyed one,” Gabriel laments. When that family – including his closest friends – all gathered for a surprise party for his 75th birthday, Gabriel was still a grandfather to beloved Qinaya, adopted by his son,...
Emiko Jean: Searching for Belonging When Emiko Jean isn't writing, she's reading. Before she became a writer, she was an entomologist, a candlemaker, a florist, and most recently, a teacher. She is the author of Empress of All Seasons and We'll Never Be Apart. In her third novel, Tokyo Ever After (Flatiron...
After finding success with a psychological thriller, then a historical fantasy, Emiko Jean turns to contemporary romance with absolutely delightful aplomb. While the "I'm really a princess" trope is an enduringly popular narrative theme, Jean's effervescent third novel, Tokyo Ever After, is a fresh, funny, emotive,...
*STARRED REVIEW Although Thai Italian artist Elisa Macellari’s Kusama (2020) hit U.S. shelves first, Papaya Salad is actually her debut title, originally published in 2018 in her native Italy. Introducing her tale as “a story the protagonist told me when I was a child and which I stumbled across...
Some happy endings are inevitable ...
Friends from infancy, Jamie and Maya haven’t seen each other in almost 10 years – until food-related fiascos (runaway tangelos, tipped-over soggy pastries) lead to an awkward reunion. Both now 17, white Jewish Jamie has grown up shy, clumsy, and especially wary of public speaking....
