Shelf Awareness Archives - Page 7 of 19

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...

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...

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...

It’s Not What You Thought It Would Be by Lizzy Stewart [in Shelf Awareness]

07 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Award-winning British children's author/illustrator Lizzy Stewart makes an impressive adult graphic debut with interlinked short episodes observing, analyzing and celebrating women's friendships. The nine chapters in It's Not What You Thought It Would Be could each stand alone, but Stewart cleverly relies on shades of orange to...

Made in China: A Memoir of Love and Labor by Anna Qu [in Shelf Awareness]

06 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

For most of her first seven years, Anna Qu was "the girl without parents; a father dead, a mother who left to start a new life." And yet those years held the "love" Qu names in the subtitle of her bittersweet debut, Made in China:...

Two-Week Wait: An I.V.F. Story by Luke C. Jackson, Kelly Jackson, illustrated by Mara Wild

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

The intimate struggles of a husband and wife desperate to become parents might not be universal literary fare, but with millions of couples worldwide attempting conception via IVF, Two-Week Wait will surely, deservedly find sympathetic audiences. Luke C. Jackson and Kelly Jackson "began their own IVF...

I Am the Subway by Kim Hyo-eun, translated by Deborah Smith [in Shelf Awareness]

03 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW The Seoul subway system's line #2 is a circular route that's also the city's busiest; it happens to include Gangnam – as in "Gangnam Style" – among its dozens of popular stations. Author/illustrator Kim Hyo-eun's magnificent I Am the Subway highlights a train traveling...

Let’s Not Talk Anymore by Weng Pixin [in Shelf Awareness]

30 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Repost, Singaporean, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Singaporean creator Weng Pixin's vibrant Let's Not Talk Anymore began with a "big 'f*ck this, f*ck you!' kind of attitude" after one of her "many disputes and disagreements with [her] Mom." The work made her think more deeply about not just her mother, but her...

Author Interview: Maxine Beneba Clarke [in Shelf Awareness]

27 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Australian, Author Interview/Profile, Children/Picture Books, Repost

Maxine Beneba Clarke: Uplifting Black Lives Matter Around the World Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Afro-Caribbean Australian author/artist who creates across genres and audiences: adult fiction, nonfiction, memoir and children's books. Her award-winning titles are steadily migrating to the United States, including her second picture book...

When We Say Black Lives Matter by Maxine Beneba Clarke [in Shelf Awareness]

26 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Australian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Repost

"Little one," two Black parents address the baby in their arms, "when we say Black Lives Matter, we're saying Black people are wonderful-strong." Award-winning Australian author/illustrator Maxine Beneba Clarke's opening sentence visually accentuates the phrase "wonderful-strong," distinguishing the lettering with yellow-orange color and gradually increasing...

Rebecca & Lucie in the Case of the Missing Neighbor by Pascal Girard, translated by Aleshia Jensen [in Shelf Awareness]

23 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Translation

A book about a possible murder, award-winning French Canadian Pascal Girard's Rebecca & Lucie in the Case of the Missing Neighbor guarantees delight – if nothing else but to laugh with Girard himself. Here in his vivid graphic world, translated by Aleshia Jensen, Pascal Girard...

Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness by Kristen Radtke [in Shelf Awareness]

20 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW When Kristen Radtke (Imagine Wanting Only This) began writing Seek You in 2016, the world was rather different. "Loneliness is one of the most universal things any person can feel," her author's note posits, but still-looming, pandemic-mandated isolation imbues her spectacular graphic memoir with...

Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara [in Shelf Awareness]

15 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese American, Repost

The incarceration of 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II is undoubtedly one of the most egregious episodes in 20th-century U.S. history. Third-generation Japanese American Naomi Hirahara carves a little-known sliver from that grievous experience and layers it with mystery to create her...

Paris Is a Party, Paris Is a Ghost by David Hoon Kim [in Shelf Awareness]

14 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

In 2007, the New Yorker published "Sweetheart Sorrow," which became the first chapter of David Hoon Kim's enigmatic debut, Paris Is a Party, Paris Is a Ghost. The duration of the novel's opening 30ish pages is the only time Fumiko – a Japanese student in Paris who...

People Like Them by Samira Sedira, translated by Lara Vergnaud [in Shelf Awareness]

13 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, European, Fiction, French, Repost, Translation

Samira Sedira's first English-language title, translated by Sara Vergnaud, is clearly marked "a novel" on its cover, and yet so much of the story is true. People Like Them is a fascinating amalgam of gruesome headlines – French newspapers in 2003 reported that an entire family...

A Song Everlasting by Ha Jin [in Shelf Awareness]

12 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Powerlessness pervades Ha Jin's perceptive A Song Everlasting, as his protagonist leaves fame and familiarity in one country to flee toward ambiguity and adaptation in another. Freedom, Yao Tian reasons, is his driving motive. National Book Award-winner Jin (A Map of Betrayal), notable for empathically crafting...

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