Tag: General Fiction

“Real Americans” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Real Americans” by Rachel Khong

Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster, and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn’t be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love.

In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can’t shake the sense she’s hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than it provides answers.

Review

This was a really interesting book. It’s a bit slow in places but completely worth it. I actually liked the last section of the book best which is May’s story (Lily’s mother/Nick’s Grandmother). It may seem strange to tell the book in that order but I think it really makes a solid point about how children can grow up questioning their parents’ choices and being resentful, without the full context of why the choices were made.

There are a lot of themes in the book with the biggest ones being about immigration and assimilation to a new country. Lily’s parents made a lot of choices when they arrived in the United States that had an impact down through the generations. One of those choices was to never teach Lily their own language. Which you end up seeing the consequences of when Lily goes to visit China and cannot speak to the people there.

There is also a thread of eugenics in the book that is not talked about in depth but is always there. Again choices were made that had an impact on both Lily and Nick. There’s a lot there that could be talked about but one of the main ideas is that choices can result in far reaching consequences.

The ending is one of the more abrupt endings that I’ve read, but I also think it works well for the book. I liked that we got to know that it’s possible that things could be resolved for the family members.

Additional reviews and warnings can be found on the StoryGraph page for “Real Americans”.

Book Details

The cover has multiple oval shapes going down the center of the cover which show various images inside in different colors yellow red and blue. The title of the book and then the authors name are written one line per word down the center of the page inside the ovals.

Author’s Website
Rachel Khong

Publisher / Date
Knopf, April 2024
Genre
General Fiction
Page Count
416
Completion Date
September 5, 2025

“Summer Bird Blue” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Summer Bird Blue” by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea.

Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of the “boys next door” — a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago — Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish.

Aching, powerful, and unflinchingly honest, Summer Bird Blue explores big truths about insurmountable grief, unconditional love, and how to forgive even when it feels impossible.

Review

I really enjoyed reading this book. Rumi has a lot to work through and her time in Hawaii helped put a lot of things into perspective. Her anger is a lot and she does come across as very mean but it’s also very understandable. I’m glad she developed such good friendships with Kai (along with his friend group) and Mr. Watanabe. While the situation with her mother seems horrible at first I ended up liking the way it was handled. It’s a lot more complicated than it first seems. Rumi isn’t always a reliable narrator in what’s happening due to her anger and grief, but there’s also things her mother needs to work as well. I thought the ending worked well for the story being told. There is a good outcome for the future as Rumi and her mother are dealing with their grief.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph Page for “Summer Bird Blue”.

Book Details

The background of the book cover has the appearance of a painted blue and green wave of water curling up from the bottom towards the top of the cover with the. There are two drawn images of birds at the top of bottom of the cover with the bottom one sitting on a flower. The title is written in the center of the cover with the author's name at the bottom.

Author’s Website
Akemi Dawn Bowman
Publisher / Date
Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers, September 2018
Genre
General Fiction, Young Adult
Page Count
384
Completion Date
August 5, 2024

“The Map of Salt and Stars” Review

Posted on by Jen

“The Map of Salt and Stars” by Zeyn Joukhadar

It is the summer of 2011, and Nour has just lost her father to cancer. Her mother, a cartographer who creates unusual, hand-painted maps, decides to move Nour and her sisters from New York City back to Syria to be closer to their family. But the country Nour’s mother once knew is changing, and it isn’t long before protests and shelling threaten their quiet Homs neighborhood. When a shell destroys Nour’s house and almost takes her life, she and her family are forced to choose: stay and risk more violence or flee as refugees across seven countries of the Middle East and North Africa in search of safety. As their journey becomes more and more challenging, Nour’s idea of home becomes a dream she struggles to remember and a hope she cannot live without.

More than eight hundred years earlier, Rawiya, sixteen and a widow’s daughter, knows she must do something to help her impoverished mother. Restless and longing to see the world, she leaves home to seek her fortune. Disguising herself as a boy named Rami, she becomes an apprentice to al-Idrisi, who has been commissioned by King Roger II of Sicily to create a map of the world. In his employ, Rawiya embarks on an epic journey across the Middle East and the north of Africa where she encounters ferocious mythical beasts, epic battles, and real historical figures.

Review

This was such a great book. Zeyn Joukhadar has such a lyrical way with words that fill his stories with a lot of details and descriptions that make for a fun read. I went in expecting alternating chapters but I should have realized that since Nour starts out telling the story of Rawiya it made more sense that each chapter after the first couple would start with a second from Rawiya and then continue on with Nour’s travels. I really enjoyed reading about all of the characters as they made their way across the lands. A lot of things happen along the way and I don’t want to spoil anything but I was happy with how everything ends up for both Nour and Rawiya. Be sure to read the notes chapter at the end for some interesting details as well.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Map of Salt and Stars”.

Book Details

A person stands in the desert looking up at the night sky which is full of stars. The author's name is at the top of cover with the title of the book underneath. The top and sides of the cover are beige with geometric shapes in various shades of blue all along the cover.

Author’s Website
Zeyn Joukhadar
Publisher / Date
Atria Books, May 2018
Genre
General Fiction
Page Count
368
Completion Date
July 11, 2024

2024 Trans Rights Read-a-Thon

Posted on by Jen

Information graphic announcing the read a thon and the dates March 22nd through 29th and my two goals to raise money for OUT MetroWest and to read at least three books. The covers for the books are displayed in the picture and are also named in the text of the postThe 2024 Trans Rights Read-a-Thon has begun and this year I am fundraising for OUT MetroWest located in Framingham, Massachusetts!

“The Trans Rights Readathon is an annual call to action to readers and book lovers in support of Trans Day of Visibility (TDOV) on March 31st.”

My Fundraiser for OUT MetroWest

More information about the Trans Rights Readathon

I will be reading the following books this year:

“This Arab is Queer: An Anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers”
Edited by Elias Jahshan

“Real Sugar is Hard to Find” a collection of short stories by
Sim Kern

“Breakout” – first novel in new series by Alek Cristea, described as a “space-opera/cyberpunk adventure featuring queer teens in space fighting back against oppression.”

Previous books I’ve read with Trans characters or written by Trans individuals include:

“The Thirty Names of Night” by Zeyn Joukhadar

“Seeds for the Swarm” by Sim Kern

“Transcendent: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction” by K.M. Szpara et al.

Other books written by or with Trans individuals

“Lakelore” by Anna-Marie McLemore

“Depart, Depart!” By Sim Kern

“Hell Followed With Us” by Andrew Joseph White

“We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir” by Samra Habib

“VenCo” by Cherie Dimaline

“The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester” by Maya MacGregor

“The Wicked Bargain” by Gabe Cole Novoa

“The Evolving Truth of Ever-Stronger Will” by Maya MacGregor

“The Free People’s Village” by Sim Kern

“The Gilded Ones” trilogy by Namina Forna

#TransRightsReadathon
#TRR24

“The Evolving Truth of Ever-Stronger Will” Review

Posted on by Jen

“The Evolving Truth of Ever-Stronger Will” by Maya MacGregor

Will is a 17-year-old on the cusp of freedom: freedom from providing and caring for their abusive, addicted mother, freedom from their small town with an even smaller mindset, and the freedom from having to hide who they truly are. When their drug dealer mother dies months before their 18th birthday, Will is granted their freedom earlier than expected. But their mother’s last words haunt Will: She cursed them with her dying breath, claiming her death was their fault. Soon their mother’s drug-dealing past threatens Will’s new shiny future, leaving Will scrambling to find their beloved former foster mother Raz before Child Protective Services or local drug dealers find them first. But how do you reconnect with family and embark on a new love when you’re convinced you destroy everything you touch?

Review

This was a great read. I really enjoyed reading about Will slowly being able to take control of their own life and figuring out how to deal with everything that was happening. The book is written in second person and is almost entirely stream of consciousness but it was fairly easy to read. I think perhaps some of the chapter endings and beginnings could have been different but for the most part the story worked well. I liked the differences in all the other characters that Will interacted with. Their best friend has a lot of privileges and I liked the conflict there with her realizing that fact later on in the book. I also liked the resolution of the entire station. It all worked out well in the end.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Evolving Truth of Ever-Stronger Will”.

Book Details

The pink/purple cover has the face of a person half covered with flowers of various types and colors. Their hair and one blue eye is visible along with their lips and cheek. The author's name and book title are written at the top of the cover.

Author’s Website
Maya MacGregor
Publisher / Date
Astra Books for Young Readers, July 2023
Genre
General Fiction, Young Adult
Page Count
264 pages
Completion Date
November 25, 2023

“Invisible Son” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Invisible Son” by Kim Johnson

Life can change in an instant.
When you’re wrongfully accused of a crime.
When a virus shuts everything down.
When the girl you love moves on.

Andre Jackson is determined to reclaim his identity. But returning from juvie doesn’t feel like coming home. His Portland, Oregon, neighborhood is rapidly gentrifying, and COVID-19 shuts down school before he can return. And Andre’s suspicions about his arrest for a crime he didn’t commit even taint his friendships. It’s as if his whole life has been erased.

The one thing Andre is counting on is his relationship with the Whitaker kids—especially his longtime crush, Sierra. But Sierra’s brother Eric is missing, and the facts don’t add up as their adoptive parents fight to keep up the act that their racially diverse family is picture-perfect. If Andre can find Eric, he just might uncover the truth about his own arrest. But in a world where power is held by a few and Andre is nearly invisible, searching for the truth is a dangerous game.

Review

This book deals with a lot due to the book starting in February 2020 and going through the summer to August. COVID, the murder of George Floyd, and the protests that took place in the aftermath all take place as Andre is trying to find Eric. I don’t want to spoil too much but since it’s the first year of COVID a lot happens because of that along with everything else. There’s a scene where Andre is eating some Ramen noodles and complains they’re too bland. Any reader who’s familiar with the symptoms of COVID will recognize that moment for what it is.

The crime Andre went away for is entirely someone else’s and the answers to why he was framed are all to realistic and simple considering who he’s dealing with. There’s a lot said about racism and the differences in how Black and Brown people are treated by the police and society and also the different outcomes for marginalized groups dealing with COVID along with everything else. I’m glad I read this book. I don’t want to ever get so comfortable in my own situation that I forget what others have dealt with and continue to deal with. This is definitely a book every white person should read. (That said if you’re currently dealing with ongoing issues from having had COVID and/or lost family members to COVID you may wish to avoid this book for that reason.)

As hard as it was I really enjoyed reading this book. Andre is a great characters and he has family and friends he can depend on. The family across the street was complicated but the kids are a good group of individuals who are finding their way. The ending is bittersweet – Andre is free at least, and there’s hope for the future, but his world is forever changed.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Invisible Son”.

Book Details

The cover is blue with streaks of purple and red. The face of a black teen is on the front with short black hair and headphones around his neck. His shoulders are seen but part of the blue of the cover.

Author’s Website
Kim Johnson
Publisher / Date
Random House Books for Young Readers, June 2023
Genre
General Fiction, Mystery, Young Adult
Page Count
416
Completion
September 18, 2023