Welcome to Asian American Pacific Islander month, my friends. As both an Asian American and a Pacific Islander (Fijian), this month is very important to me. While I definitely don’t need the excuse of this month’s cultural observance to read Asian and Asian-American, and Islander books (I do that consistently year around already), it does give me a relative reason to scream about them unapologetically joyously for a few weeks… which I also do, but not the point. So, all four books for the week will be in the celebration of my people and people like me. There’s also a comic, but that’s because it looked gross and cool.
Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier (Asian-Am Contemporary Fiction): The story follows a pregnant pizza delivery gal who is in utmost denial and dysfunction about her current life shenanigans and discovers a way to ignore it all when she becomes obsessed with a regular customer at the pizza place.
This has been on my TBR for a while and the premise sounds intriguing to me. It might also end up being queer, which I will never ever say no to.
The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng (Malayan Historical Fiction): During the Second World War, on the Malayan island of Penang, a sixteen-year-old boy that is half-Chinese and half-English becomes intertwined in a web of wartime loyalties and deceits.
The Garden of Evening Mists, which was the author’s second novel and my very first one of theirs, imprinted them into my mind as the brilliant artist they are. It is also one of my favourite novels ever. They have a new release that will be hitting shelves in October (October 1st, specifically) so I wanted to read their debut—and the only one I haven’t read yet—before I hungrily dive into the latest work, The House of Doors.
Atomweight by Emi Sasagawa (Brazilian-Japanese-Canadian Literature): When the super well-behaved, good girl known as Aki tosses her first punch, she is immediately drawn into a dangerous world of relieving stress and “coping” with multicultural frustrations via brutal brawl fights.
(Seemingly) Fight Club but with a multicultural main character that is more than likely Queer and dealing with the various intersections of her identities? Fuck. Yes.
American Chinatown: A People’s History of Five Neighbourhoods by Bonnie Tsui (Chinese-American History, Nonfiction): A history book that examines the sometimes dark and fucked-up roots behind five of America’s most famous Chinatowns, told from the voices of the people who have lived and grown in these cities, to show us the beginnings of the Chinese-American identity.
I’m half way through this and I will be buying it because it’s fucking brilliant. I’ll save my raving for the review that’s coming, but needless to say that if you enjoy history and learning about diverse folx living in the States, and if you are someone that either loves or fetishises Chinese people and culture, just read this. It is incredibly insightful and something that everyone needs to read, especially since people continue to misunderstand Chinese and Chinese Americans to this fucking day.
Coffin Hill Volume 1: Forest of the Night by Caitlin Kittredge, Inaki Miranda (Horror Graphic Novel): After a wild ass night of sex, drugs, and witch-shenanigans in the dark woods, Eve Coffin wakes up naked as the day she burst from the womb, and covered in as a much blood, with no idea as to how the fuck she got there. She quickly learns one mate is missing and another one is in the madhouse, and only one person knows that Eve is responsible. Or is she?
This has nothing to do with AAPI month. I’ve been super into horror and the cover looked cool, so I checked it out from the Libs.
Spoiler-free reviews for all of these are planned to go up once I’ve finished with them, unless, of course, I feel so indifferently, I’ll have nothing to say (which I kind of doubt, but we shall see!). I’m gonna rage my fucking dreams in the rain, as you should always be raging your own. Until next time.
Also, Shinobi is a goober. Her life is one I aspire to every day.
Initial Dork 