Siblings Archives - Page 7 of 44

Monkey Boy by Francisco Goldman [in Shelf Awareness]

11 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Jewish, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Repost

*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,...

The Removed by Brandon Hobson [in Booklist]

29 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW A stellar #OwnVoices all-Indigenous cast gathers to heighten Brandon Hobson’s luminous follow-up to the 2018 National Book Award finalist Where the Dead Sit Walking. During the 15 years since Ray-Ray was wrongly, fatally shot by a white police officer, his surviving family has fractured....

Things We Lost to the Water by Eric Nguyen [in Booklist]

28 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese American

*STARRED REVIEW While the story arc might sound familiar – other-side-of-the-world refugees who endure challenging lives in the U.S. – Nguyen’s gentle precision nevertheless produces an extraordinary debut with undeniable resonance. As the MFA-ed, prestigiously fellowshipped (Lambda, Tin House) editor-in-chief of diaCRITICS, Nguyen ciphers all that...

What Could Be Saved by Liese O’Halloran Schwarz [in Booklist]

27 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

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...

Tastes Like War by Grace M. Cho [in Booklist]

26 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Hapa/Mixed-race, Korean, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW “In my lifetime, I’ve had at least three mothers,” Grace M. Cho writes. After surviving the Korean War, Cho’s mother worked as a bar girl at a U.S. naval base during the U.S. occupation of South Korea. In 1971, she married Cho’s father, a...

Lies We Bury by Elle Marr [in Booklist]

21 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

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...

Nancy by Bruno Lloret, translated by Ellen Jones [in Shelf Awareness]

19 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chilean, Fiction, Repost, South American, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW In Chilean author Bruno Lloret's inventively sly debut novel, Nancy, the narrative might seem relatively transparent: titular Nancy approaches death by cancer and recalls her happy childhood, her dangerous adolescence, her brother's disappearance, her mother's abandonment, her father's Mormon conversion, her husband's gruesome death....

Afterlife by Julia Alvarez [in Booklist]

16 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

“Respected professor emeritus, writer, widow of a beloved doctor,” Antonia is trying to make the best of what should have been a pastoral Vermont retirement had her kind, grounding Sam not suddenly died. To her three sisters – “the Dominican Greek chorus,” she calls them...

The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed M. Masood [in Booklist]

12 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Pakistani, Pakistani American, Repost

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;...

The Parted Earth by Anjali Enjeti [in Booklist]

08 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

Before partition, the bloody 1947 cleaving that established India and Pakistan, Deepa was a happy teen in Delhi, loved by two parents who ran a medical clinic serving all in need. But hatred, politics, and fire destroyed her life. She left India, seemingly if not...

One of the Good Ones by Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite [in Booklist]

06 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

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...

Serena Singh Flips the Script by Sonya Lalli [in Booklist]

25 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

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,...

We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire by Joy McCullough [in Booklist]

19 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, Nonethnic-specific, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Invoking the shocking Chanel Miller case, Joy McCullough introduces a mixed Guatemalan/presumed-to-be-white family in which older daughter Elinor is brutally raped; although found guilty, the rapist is released for “time served.” Despite best intentions, younger daughter Marianne’s social justice-driven public outrage only causes further damage...

Illegal: A Disappeared Novel by Francisco X. Stork [in School Library Journal]

17 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Narrators Roxana Ortega and Christian Barillas resume the high-octane energy of the Zapata siblings introduced in Francisco X. Stork’s heart-thumping Disappeared. Separated after surviving the treacherous crossing over the U.S. border, former journalist Sara remains imprisoned in the Fort Stockton Detention Center, while teen Emiliano...

Chlorine Sky by Mahogany L. Browne [in Booklist]

15 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

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...

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto [in Booklist]

15 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Indonesian American, Repost, Singaporean American

Murder is never funny, except when it is. In Jesse Q. Sutanto’s rollicking debut, which she describes in a “Dear reader” foreword as “a love letter to my family – a ridiculously large bunch with a long history of immigration,” a fatal accident begets family...

Nights When Nothing Happened by Simon Han [in Booklist]

11 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

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,...

Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejidé [in Booklist]

02 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

Back in 1977, “Anacostia was still the New World, an isle of blood and desire.” In Washington, DC-native Morowa Yejidé’s (Time of the Locust, 2014) moody, bleak sophomore title, boundaries between the living and the dead are indiscernible. Once upon a time, Nephthys and Osiris...

Trout, Belly Up by Rodrigo Fuentes, translated by Ellen Jones [in Shelf Awareness]

29 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Latin American, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Not until the last of this ingenious seven-story collection do readers get the most intimate glimpse of Don Henrik, and even then, only through the lens of his not-quite stepson. Henrik, however, is the single connecting character in Rodrigo Fuentes's U.S. debut, Trout, Belly...

Dog Flowers by Danielle Geller [in Shelf Awareness]

26 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Memoir, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost

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...

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