"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." "Frailty, thy name is woman." "Women always have the last word." All manner of pithy, less-than-admirable aphorisms about women come to mind after reading Samrat Upadhyay’s recent novel; such words as shocking, disturbing, wrenching, shattering also seem quite appropriate. And in case you...
"As the biggest, [Boniface] had to care for the littlest." He's one of the older boys living in a Kenyan orphanage, known for his gentleness and patience. "[A]ll the children in the orphanage were like a family." On one of their outings to fetch water at...
Here's lucky number seven of this internationally lauded, gender-bender series starring two sensitive, searching middle schoolers navigating through the challenges of gender-fluid adolescence. To catch up, click here – this is most definitely a multi-volume narrative that requires careful sequential attention. Shuichi, the boy who wants...
To not stick this one in your ears would be such the missed opportunity. At just over four hours, this is undoubtedly longer than your usual theater performance, but with Eve Ensler herself so passionately narrating, her memoir transforms into a spectacular aural extravaganza. At 57, the woman...
Ling and Ting are back ...
The title of Paula Young Lee's latest book (her fifth) is Deer Hunting in Paris. The subtitle, which announces it's a memoir (her first), includes two very loaded words, "God" and "Guns." The sub-subtitle explains further: "How a preacher's daughter refuses to get married, travels...
Every once in a while, a pretty-much-happily-after novel is just what the heart needs. The ears get a treat here, too, if you choose to go aural, as narrator Angela Lin emotes with just enough angst blended with the growing assurance of fulfilling self-discovery. Like...
Even more than Reeve who is lying in a hospital bed – his intended college football career probably shattered – Lillia, Kat, and Mary are the ones who need to recover from the shocker that was Homecoming. Guilt, for now, is as paralyzing as any cast...
*STARRED REVIEW CIA agent Gary Shang was convicted of spying for China yet called himself "a patriot of both the United States and China." Decades after Gary's death, Lilian, his only child with his American wife, unexpectedly inherits his diary from his longtime mistress and discovers...
Ellen Oh, author of the acclaimed Prophecy trilogy – starring a third-century, yellow-eyed, teenage supergirl demon slayer – is channeling her own colorful fighting spirit. Two-thirds of her series, Prophecy and Warrior, are available now. King hits shelves this coming December. In the meantime, Oh herself has gone...
Ellen Oh’s Prophecy Trilogy and Why #WeNeedDiverseBooks For Ellen Oh, good things seem to happen in threes. She’s the proud mother of three daughters. She’s had three careers – lawyer, professor, and finally a published writer (after 40!). The third book she wrote got her a three-book...
As in my post for Beirut’s preceding, award-winning companion title, A Game for Swallows, I find I need to start at book's end. "I remember Georges Perec!" the final image announces. Initially seeming to be unrelated to the rest of the book, the unexpected homage to the experimental...
"This is the story of a cruel mother, her daughter, and her blind son." That 'cruel' is fair warning that this is not a happily-ever-after fairy tale. It is, however, "one of the most ancient and commonly told [stories] in Inuit history," filmmaker/creator Alethea Arnaquq-Baril writes in...
The first of a trilogy (#3 debuts next month; I'm arriving on Jar Island a little late), Burn is inarguably shocking, but it definitely sets the stage for more chills to come. Mary, who left Jar Island in 7th grade, is back in 11th completely transformed. Lillia, once...
If the cover looks somewhat familiar, that's because Sisters continues Raina Telgemeier’s highly entertaining (for the reader, certainly) coming-of-age escapades she shared in Smile, published four years ago to bestselling success. In Sisters, she's hasn't quite shed her braces, but she's heading to high school come fall. That pivotal summer...
Probably my brain is showing its advancing age, but I can't remember the last time I stayed up half the night to finish a book unless I had an impending deadline (procrastinate? me?!). While I started Sleepwalk-ing in daylight stuck in the ears (debut novelist Mira Jacob...
The wait is just about over: Book Six hits shelves in just 11 days. Yes, almost two years have passed since Book Five pubbed, but creator Kazu Kibuishi has hardly been resting on his mega-bestseller laurels: that he was the artist chosen to give the legendary...
"Once upon a time, there was a family with two daughters, and a mother and father who promised to love them both exactly the same." "She was my twin, my fun-house mirror, my whirlwind other half. It's important to note that I was also all those...
When Jace Witherspoon arrives at Christian Marshall's address after 19 hours of driving straight from Chicago to Albuquerque, he's not quite sure what he's going to say. "'I was in the neighborhood,' ...
Welcome to Ramadan at Shirin's house: she sky-gazes with her father, listens to stories told by her grandmother, helps her mother sort squares for a new quilt ...
