Jess
Oof, my heart. HEART BERRIES by Terese Marie Mailhot has this immense power to it. In just 160 pages Mailhot examines her life with a rawness that leaps off the pages.
Content warnings: sexual assault, sexual abuse of a child, suicidal ideation, self harm, PTSD.
I could neatly summarize it as an exploration of Indigenous identity, mental health and mental illness, dating outside of one's race, and complex motherhood but that would be pretty reductionist of me. Mailhot's writing first calls on the trauma of existence, of being an Indigenous person, of being a woman and then what it is to face that trauma and make choices that wind and twist around that trauma. I'm not a parent (by choice) but there are some truly heartbreaking moments when Mailhot talks about her firstborn being taken from her custody on the same day her second child was born. Definitely steel yourself for some tough walks down memory lane.
Most of my reads recently have either been EXTREMELY HARD or lighthearted and fun. This is as you can imagine, one of the former. I've already talked about how paltry my Indigenous reading has been this year, but I also realized one of my gaps is in not having read much Indigenous memoir.
I'll tell you this. Do not go hungry into reading DATING MAKES PERFECT, lest you find yourself eating an entire bag of popcorn at 11:30 in the evening. Thanks so much to the author, Entangled Teen, and Hear Our Voices Book Tours for having me as a host and for the opportunity to read and review in advance.
The basic synopsis is that the Tech sisters have never been allowed to date. But then when our protagonist Winnie's sisters head off to college, they refuse to start dating. What ensues is a hare-brained plan for Winnie to “pretend date” her enemy Mat.
I adored this book. We get fake dating AND a friends to enemies to lovers plot with lots of spicy, eyebrow-waggly thoughts from both Winnie and Mat, our two protagonists. (I was like, “Despite nothing ~actually~ happening, everyone's thinking about sex A LOT”
This book fundamentally centers the Japanese experience of World War II, the before, during, and after, but does so without constantly referencing the Western story so many of us are familiar with. Serizawa doesn't shy away from unpacking the problematic and systematically harmful actions the Japanese took in order to assert power. Some make concerted choices to participate and be complicit in imperialism. Other characters I empathized with, watching them make impossible decisions amid hardship.
Serizawa is deft at weaving complex storytelling and analysis into beautiful prose that feels labyrinthine. If you've ever read a book told from multiple character voices but they all sounded alike, and you were annoyed, then good news – the voices in this book all sound different. She also jumps forward in time – not to current day, but to the future, and envisions what the world could look like.
As I keep turning around the events that transpire within this family, I wondered:
- How do we inherit identities?
- Is to inherit also to take? Is it more taking than giving?
- What does it mean to inherit trauma?
- Family trees are like spokes that all feed back into one trunk, but what happens when breakage happens (intentional or otherwise)?
“Luna,” “Train to Harbin,” and “Pavilion” are the stories in this book that defined the reading experience for me.
Ultimately, I was also curious about the dearth of books - at least in English - that are about World War II that pertain to non-Western experiences.
Thank you to Doubleday Books for gifting me a finished copy of this book. It did not influence my review and I was not compensated.
This debut novel explores the complex livelihoods of Excel and his mother Maxima, two undocumented Filipinx immigrants living on the margins. The constant thread of light tension and sometimes very funny scenes worked so well in this book.
I loved that every food description, conversation, and cultural element wasn't explained. It comes across as hopeful for a diverse audience and one less centered in the white American experience. Because we see life from Excel's point of view, there are times in the book that he has no idea what's really going on because Maxima is having a conversation in Tagalog that he can't follow.
I also thought that THE SON OF GOOD FORTUNE represented queer people in a positive way. There are a couple of queer characters who are important to the plot. They're accepted, they're not in danger, their lives are valued as much as anyone else's.
This book is told mostly from Excel's perspective, but I spent a lot of time wanting more about Maxima's life. Her obsession with her B-movie career back in the Philippines. She's a strong character but in unexpected ways – she's physically strong, she'll kick your ass.
I have a new favorite book this year and I'm pretty sure it's cresting into my top 10 books of all time: INTERIOR CHINATOWN by Charles Yu.
The storytelling in INTERIOR CHINATOWN is commanding. I had no idea TV scripts - the scripts themselves, not the acting bringing the scripts to life - could be so arresting.
It's difficult to explain what this book is because it's so many things. It's an exploration of Asian American masculinity interlaced with the model minority myth – all told from the perspective of our protagonist, Willis Wu. It's also a glimpse behind the scenes at pop culture and Hollywood tropes. This book challenges you to center neither white nor Black, but the unique experiences of marginalized people who don't fit into the racial binary. Ugh this is all coming out clunkily - I'm a reader, not a writer - but it's very meta while still being character-driven.
If you're like me, at some points in this book you might be confused. “Are we in the script, or are we out? Are all these people who live in the Chinatown SRO actually actors, or are we in the show when we're not in the show?” Around the 50 page mark, “have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?” kept popping into my head. (It's a Westworld quote.) For good reason, I found out; Yu is also an award-winning story editor and writer on Westworld. Stick with it. He makes biting and incisive social commentary that is also really funny. Yu delves into what it means to be a trope in the real world, and what it's like when society has already made up its mind about you.
TENDER IS THE FLESH will blow your mind. WHERE DO I EVEN START. This book is dystopian horror to the nth degree and not for the faint of heart. Envision a world in which we no longer consume animal meat due to a virus, and instead we breed humans as “special meat.” Bazterrica is heavy-handed and gets very detailed about this gruesome new world, clearly making a statement about overpopulation, the meat industry, and what happens when we fool ourselves by using pretty language instead of calling a thing what it is. Despite the intensity and graphic nature of the plot, I had a hard time putting it down.
Content warnings: cannibalism, rape, experiments on non-consenting humans, suicide, infertility, death of a child, trafficking, animal harm and killings, graphic descriptions of EVERYTHING.
Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the digital ARC and opportunity to review early.
THE DISASTER TOURIST is a new book in the climate fiction subgenre. This dark satire looks at workplace harassment, feminism, and disaster profiteering. The word “manufactured” sticks with me as a central theme, and not in the obvious way of being fake or unrealistic; I'm referring to the societal tendency to influence the future with our past and current actions. Mentally this book felt like it had three distinct phases, each one unraveling further.
Content warnings: sexual harassment.
Thank you to NetGalley and Counterpoint Press for the digital ARC and opportunity to review early.
Never has a book resonated with me quite like this one.
Like the protagonist Rowan (and the author, Sharkey), I was adopted as an infant by a Catholic family in New York State. (Theirs, Irish Catholic on Long Island; mine, Italian Catholic in Rochester.) We were “raised to be white,” which is a sentence I spent a while trying to articulate recently. While Rowan's path is not my own, I see in her story an alternate reality.
I saw so many parts of myself in this book. For POC and Korean transracial adoptees, this is one of the most validating experiences – to be acknowledged, to be seen. Sharkey says it best: “You are Asian to the people around you but not to yourself.” Transracial adoptees exist in a liminal state. We're on the outside looking in, usually on both sides. Even if we're assimilated and consider ourselves mostly white, we still face othering. We're potentially considered more Korean than our biracial/hapa friends. When people pressure us to tell us where we're really from, they're always victorious when they poke hard enough for us to reveal that no, we weren't born in this country.
All I have to say about this book is that if you want to begin exploring what Korean transracial adoption is like for adoptees from an #ownvoices perspective, find a copy of this book.
I received an e-ARC of this book courtesy of Berkley and NetGalley. This has not influenced my review or opinions of this book.
I loved the premise for this - a Nigerian Canadian woman flouts expectation - but SPOILER ALERT the surprise baby trope is one of my most hated tropes and so that soured my experience. But. I really liked Azere as a character, and I thought Igharo painted such a great portrait of a young woman. Wasn't the biggest fan of Rafael or the love triangle, but alas. I'm still very excited to see what Igharo comes out with next!
If you're looking for a YA romance with characters from diverse backgrounds, skip E&P and read this. FRANKLY IN LOVE, at its core, is a YA rom com involving a fake relationship and a love triangle. There are nerdy AP students (“Apeys”) who still curse like sailors and can be both geeky and cool. It delves into interracial relationships, falling in and out of love, anti-Black racism within the Korean American community, and mortality. At various points, Frank contemplates the stories we tell to our parents, and how those differ from what we tell our friends and what we tell ourselves. This book covers a lot of ground for what at first looks like your average YA.
I've heard some mixed reviews on this book, that the romance elements move too fast to be “realistic.” I'd actually say the opposite. When you're in high school, you can go from crushing on someone to dating them to hating them in a span of three weeks. So the fast speed of teen romance didn't bother me and actually lent itself to what I thought was a realistic plot.
While #readcaribbean is “over” (as a month-long challenge), I'm excited about all of the amazing Caribbean-authored books on my TBR and will be continuing to read Caribbean all year long.
But let's get to the good stuff. ONE YEAR OF UGLY by @carolinemackenziewrites, out July 7 in the U.S. (Thank you @netgalley, @37inkbooks, @simonbooks for the digital ARC.) This book is hilarious. Here's my one-sentence synopsis: an undocumented Venezuelan family living in Trinidad ends up indebted to a local crime lord; shenanigans ensue. This is contemporary fiction that explores tough issues in a really fun way. It's so hard to explain how funny and astute this book is without a couple of quotes.
〰️ “So I boarded the denial canoe alongside the twins and picked up my oar.”
〰️ “I'd have asked her about it, but she and my mother were doing this classic woman thing where they didn't say a word but were doing everything with passive-aggressive force, slicing into baked potatoes like they were disemboweling torture victims, launching balled-up foil into the garbage with the undue force of an Olympian hurling a discus.” (Obviously this one purports a stereotype around women's anger, which may or may not resonate with you, but nonetheless this paints a word picture.)
This book is perfect for a hot summer day or a long weekend, and I'm really glad I read it. Not only was it a fun romp, I also learned a lot about Venezuelan perception in Trinidad. While I studied Venezuelan politics in college, I'm not as up-to-date on current state; embarrassingly, I didn't even realize quite how close Venezuela and Trinidad are in geographic proximity. I'm looking forward to learning more!
4.5 stars. Thank you, Avon and NetGalley for the digital ARC!
WRITTEN IN THE STARS is such a lovely, #ownvoices F/F romance that manages to pull off charming, funny, and realistic so well. Darcy is an actuary who has gone through the ringer with an ex and is lasered focused on being rational, while Elle is a romantic at heart with a passion for astrology.
Their romance has a slow burn, founded on a mutual physical attraction that turns into a full-fledged love story. It has plenty of steam, and overall the book feels modern and fresh.
I enjoyed seeing Elle and Darcy weather the storm supporting each other in individual struggles, especially the pain points of dealing with overbearing family members and where to go next in one's career.
I'm mostly sad that I can't encourage friends to pick this up sooner, since it won't be out until November! I do think this would make a fantastic cozy, autumn romance read.
Fans of Jasmine Guillory and Mhairi McFarlane looking for a F/F romance should definitely add this one to their list.
Disclosure: I received a digital ARC from NetGalley.
Lately, Christina Lauren has been hit or miss for me; there are some books I loved - Autoboyography and The Unhoneymooners - and then others that missed the mark for me (The Honey Don't List). In a Holidaze is somewhere in the middle.
The premise is fun, especially if you liked The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver or other books with a touch of magic in them. At first I thought we'd rehash the same period over and over but the authors manage to pass the time in the alternate versions in a way that feels authentic.
I also love the setting of this book; I actually live IN Park City, where this book is set. While there's not an excessive number of references, there was a subtle nod to the neighborhoods and businesses that have been here a long time. And I can vouch for the beautiful mountain winters. Given that Christina Hobbs lives in Utah, I'm not surprised to see this well-depicted.
The book starts off in a bit of a weird fashion, with the female protagonist going to an uncle-like figure to talk about something that happened the night before. But that aside, the plot continues in fun and zany ways. I do get a little frustrated with the protagonists in recent Christina Lauren books; the female protagonists are almost always zany, hate their jobs, aimless, or self-described as “quirky” while the male protagonists are almost always either perfect or awful. I think that's why Autoboyography being a queer YA love story felt fresh and different in a good way.
Overall this book was a great break from everyday chaos - and there's a lot of it right now. When it comes out in October, it's going to feel like a cozy and warm afternoon reading Groundhog Day meets The Family Stone.
I enjoyed Daria's previous two books immensely, and You Had Me at Hola did not disappoint. Jasmine and Ashton are not only likable, they're flawed, which makes for a romcom where people are fallible and human in relatable ways. It's a book full of diversity that feels authentic and prescient; it unpacks the glamour of fame while also showing its dark side too. The romance was believable with a great arc throughout, complementing the TV show scripts as part of the plot line.
I received a digital ARC from NetGalley.