So, where do I begin to review a seminal work such as Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart (1943)? When I got my hands on an advanced review copy of the Penguin Classics edition, I had recently finished reading AIH in preparation for my PhD exam. The library copy I had borrowed for that…

Erin Entrada Kelly’s books have been on my “to read” list for a while. So, I was thrilled when she came out with a new middle grade fiction this fall, Lalani of the Distant Sea (2019). “Imagine a place where the binty sing. An island far in the north, where they raise their heads like…

A British Chinese Malaysian author Natasha Ngan’s third book and her first venture into fantasy was one of my recent finds in flash ebook deals. I have been on a YA SFF streak during summer. So, I was certainly in the mood for more action-packed books. To my surprise, Girls of Paper and Fire was…

According to Fae Myenne Ng, bones, papers, and stories, those are what hold together a Chinese immigrant family – Leila, Ona, Nina, Leon, Mah, and Grandpa Leong – based in San Francisco more than blood. Published in 1993, Ng’s novel, Bone, follows a circular narrative that revolves around the death of Ona, the middle daughter of…

Maura Milan’s Ignite the Stars (2018) came to me as a gift with a glowing review. So, I saved it for a day when I could just immerse myself in a fictional world without being disturbed. After having been buried in a pile of books that are compelling but heavy on the heart for a…

Ocean of Minutes is another brilliant debut by an Asian North American author that came out last year. Thea Lim brings in an added twist to a now familiar structure of an outbreak narrative by introducing the element of time travel. What I immediately found interesting was that Lim chose to explore an alternate version…

My review of Ling Ma’s Severance is intentionally short though it is one of my top picks for books read in 2018. Sometimes, I find that it is difficult to disentangle my thoughts from a text that I have been working with for a relatively long time. So, I am sticking to the basics in…

Set in the futuristic New York City, the premise of Rachel Heng’s debut is deceptively simple. What happens when humanity achieves near-immortality? What will be the cost of defying death? When I began reading Suicide Club, I had just found out through one of my students that there are indeed conferences devoted to “curing” aging…

I was first introduced to Lois-Ann Yamanaka through Blu’s Hanging (1997). So, I thought I was prepared for the series of heartbreaks that ensue from her seventh novel, Behold the Many (2006). I was wrong. The opening scene, alone, reveals how sexual and racial traumas carved onto a young woman’s body are also manifest in the landscape…

Sandi Tan’s debut, The Black Isle (2012), is a dark and wild coming-of-age story that left me wide awake after finishing it late in the night. The novel is part-horror and part-historical fiction that spans 480 pages. The protagonist, Cassandra, is gifted (or cursed) with the ability to see and communicate with ghosts. She is…