*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...
“I want to write a novel that will allow young people who are tired of living to have a break from their own lives.” This is the starting point for Eto Mori’s tale, first published in Japan in 1998 and now a classic. Issues challenging...
BonHyung Jeong: Different Countries, Different Cultures, All Human Beings BonHyung Jeong makes her graphic novel debut with Kyle's Little Sister, from JY/Yen Press (June 22, 2021). Jeong's energetic title is a delightful middle-grade story that highlights the universal challenges of growing up, navigating friendships and overcoming a bit...
BonHyung Jeong, a Korea-born, internationally raised and U.S.-educated artist, astutely channels the universal experience of growing up – and sometimes growing away – in her delightfully boisterous middle-grade graphic novel debut, Kyle's Little Sister. For her entire life, Grace Bailey has "not once...
*STARRED REVIEW Athena-like, Lee Lai bursts onto the graphic scene fully formed and utterly realized with this jaw-dropping debut. Her stunning artistry and complex narrative skills prove inextricably stupendous in a story about all kinds of love – between lovers, of course, but also between complicated...
*STARRED REVIEW That the protagonist's name is Francisco Goldberg – an amalgam of maternal Guatemalan immigrant and paternal Jewish parentage – presents an irresistible invitation to explore autobiographical overlaps with award-winning creator Francisco Goldman. The parallels are immediate: both are peripatetic journalist/writers with connections to Boston,...
Here’s where veteran narrator Lisa Flanagan excels: unflaggingly individualizing myriad varied characters. Here’s where she disappoints: stumbling over non-English words and using a grating French accent. Quibbles aside, Flanagan consistently, remarkably maintains distinct voices for the peripatetic Preston family in Liese O'Halloran Schwarz’s (The Possible...
Claire Lou is restarting her life in Portland, Oregon, where she’s managed to find a new apartment (never mind the money she still owes on the security deposit) and she’s even gotten herself hired as the Portland Post’s photographer. Her mother is just two hours...
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;...
Ma likes to think her family is like Job’s, so much so that she and Dad named their daughters accordingly: Jemima Genesis, Keziah Leah, Keren Happuch. Generations on both sides have known tortuous tragedy, but no one is prepared when Kezi – a YouTube activist...
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,...
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...
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,...
Youthful romance has made Mary H.K. Choi (Permanent Record; Emergency Contact) a bestselling #OwnVoices author. In Yolk, she effectively pivots toward the familial, focusing the most significant of the book's relationships on two Seoul-born, San Antonio-raised sisters. Devoted audiences need not worry here about missing a love...
*STARRED REVIEW Born 10 months apart, September and July are the kind of sisters who don’t require words to communicate. Older September is clearly in charge, having trained July over years of playing “September says.” Something terrible has happened at their Oxford school, causing their mother,...
*STARRED REVIEW Once upon a time, the Galvin family seemed perfect. Father Don's work with the Air Force brought the family to (coincidentally, presciently named) Hidden Valley Road in Colorado. There, mother Mary oversaw the raising and nurturing of their dozen children – 10 boys and...
Keller's narrative can't be faulted – the story is achingly gorgeous. A widowed Korean American mother and her two mixed-race daughters move from California to Washington to live with their glamorous, unconventional Halmoni – grandmother" in Korean. Older sister Sam – suffering from sullen teenagerhood...
"You can't imagine how much the world can change in six months." Oh, but yes we can! With remarkable prescience, Lauren Beukes’ Afterland takes on an "unprecedented global pandemic" with chilling results – and surprising comic relief threaded throughout. Six years after the success of Broken...
In 1935, two unlikely tweens are connected across the Atlantic as assigned – albeit initially unwilling – pen pals. Made to write a full page to Charlie after dismissing her because she's a girl, Alex soon succumbs to her epistolary charms; their letters continue for...
With Spanish names, phrases, and whole sentences appearing every few pages, bilingual narrator Yaeli Arizmendi (the voice of Laura Esquivel’s Spanish editions) instinctively settles into Oscar Cásares’s (Amigoland) latest, in which he returns to his Tex-Mex border hometown of Brownsville. Almost-septuagenarian Nina’s life is not her...
