#aapi authors

[batmansymbol]

hello, my sweet sweet tumblr friends. i have a new book out one month from saturday. here we are together, the book and i:

this one was fun. i wrote it with my sister! when we were young, we were cutthroat competitive. she (older) would forbid me from reading the books on her shelves, and i (gremlin) would booby-trap her room, so you decide which of us committed the greater sin. now we have a blast.

our names are pronounced REE-uh-nock and SHEE-fra, and our book was pitched as THE PARENT TRAP meets THE VANISHING HALF. it releases August 15th, 2023. logline is "Two half-Chinese half-siblings collide for the first time at a summer art camp, not knowing they're related—and begin to understand who they are as artists, as brother and sister, and as Asian-Americans."

it's a book about summer camp hijinks, about passing, about what we long for and where we belong. it also says "Robinson & Robinson" on the spine, which makes us sound like an accidental injury law firm. sweet.

of all the books with my name on it, this one is probably the "book club"-iest. if you like coming-of-age novels or stories about the AAPI diaspora, you might like this one :)

you can preorder a signed copy from my local indie here, or non-signed copies from Bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon. i really cannot stress enough how much every single preorder helps, as i am what the industry calls "a midlist author," also known as "an obscure author who has difficulty placing projects with publishers because of sales figures lmao." (this is not to whinge. the majority of working authors exist in this financially & existentially precarious position)

alternatively, i would be totally thrilled if you reblogged this post, or mentioned the book to any teachers, librarians, bookstore workers, or other readers in your life :)

happy summer everybody—may it be the lazy river of your dreams. xoxoxo

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🌸 Books for AAPI Month

❤️ Celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with this list featuring some of the FEW empowering, vibrant stories written by AAPI authors or starring AAPI protagonists.

🌸 What books did you read for AAPI month?

✨ 2024 Releases ❤️ Night for Day - Roselle Lim 🌸 The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years - Shubnum Khan 🏮The Great Reclamation - Rachel Heng ❤️ Lies and Weddings - Kevin Kwan 🌸 Valley Verified - Kyla Zhao 🏮 The Catch - Amy Lea ❤️ Your Utopia - Bora Chung 🌸 Tehrangeles - Porochista Khakpour 🏮 Horse Barbie - Geena Rocero ❤️ Memory Piece - Lisa Ko 🌸 The Fetishist - Katherine Min 🏮 Real Americans - Rachel Khong ❤️ The Kamogawa Food Detectives - Hisashi Kashiwai 🌸 Manila Takes Manhattan - Carla de Guzman 🏮 The Last Phi Hunter - Salinee Goldenberg and Ilya Nazarov ❤️ May the Best Player Win - Kyla Zhao 🌸 Are You Nobody Too? - Tina Cane 🏮 The Design of Us - Sajni Patel ❤️ Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop - Hwang Bo-Reum 🌸 Heir - Sabaa Tahir 🏮 Maya's Laws of Love - Alina Khawaj ❤️ Midnights with You - Clare Osongco 🌸 Vilest Things - Chloe Gong 🏮 This Place is Magic - Irene Te ❤️ Guilt and Ginataan - Mia P. Manansal 🌸 Icon and Inferno - Marie Lu 🏮 Calling of Light - Lori M. Lee ❤️ Bite Me, Royce Taslim - Lauren Ho 🌸 Rules for Rule Breaking - Talia Tucker 🏮 What's Eating Jackie Oh? - Patricia Park ❤️ How to End a Love Story - Yulin Kuang 🌸 Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White - Amélie Wen Zhao 🏮 This Is How You Fall in Love - Anika Hussain ❤️ Just Playing House - Farah Heron 🌸 The Boyfriend Wish - Swati Teerdhala 🏮 A Tempest of Tea - Hafsah Faizal

✨ Romance ❤️ Dating Dr. Dil - Nisha Sharma 🌸 King of Wrath - Ana Huang 🏮 The Kiss Quotient - Helen Hoang ❤️ Girl Gone Viral - Alisha Rai 🌸 Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors - Sonali Dev 🏮 Role Playing - Cathy Yardley ❤️ The Hurricane Wars - Thea Guanzon 🌸 Ayesha at Last - Uzma Jalaluddin

✨ Fantasy ❤️ She Who Became the Sun - Shelley Parker-Chan 🌸 Babel - R.F. Kuang 🏮 Daughter of the Moon Goddess - Sue Lynn Tan ❤️ The Deep Sky - Yume Kitasei 🌸 The Jasmine Throne - Tasha Suri 🏮 Kaikeyi - Vaishnavi Patel ❤️ Light from Uncommon Stars - Ryka Aoki 🌸 Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

✨ Mystery ❤️ Arsenic and Adobo - Mia P. Manansala 🌸 Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers - Jesse Q. Sutanto 🏮 The Cartographers - Peng Shepherd ❤️ Miracle Creek - Angie Kim 🌸 A Disappearance in Fiji - Nilima Rao 🏮 The Leftover Woman - Jean Kwok ❤️ The Widows of Malabar Hill - Sujata Massey 🌸 Things We Do in the Dark - Jennifer Hillier

✨ Young Adult ❤️ The Wrath and the Dawn - Renée Ahdieh 🌸 All My Rage - Sabaa Tahir 🏮 Forget Me Not - Alyson Derrick ❤️ Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating - Adiba Jaigirdar 🌸 These Violent Delights - Chloe Gong 🏮 This Book Won't Burn - Samira Ahmed ❤️ American Betiya - Anuradha D. Rajurkar 🌸 Dragonfruit - Makiia Lucier

[ink-stained-clouds]

summer 2023

what’s happened so far

A grueling yet enjoyable summer job carries on

Been taking more walks lately, it’s been a strangely cool summer and I intend to take advantage of it

Reading more than during the school year. Daughters of the New Year by E.M. Tran was a heart wrencher and I cannot recommend it enough

Met my grad school mentor, she’s lovely

Got adopted by a cat, happy to be her second home and her owner doesn’t mind in the least (not that she could stop her if she did. She’s very persistent)

what’s still to come

A (hopefully annual) summer visit from a good friend

More plants! Just picked up a new planter off the curb

More books, just started Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

More time with friends and more adventures to find come July and August

I hope summer is treating you well

[rockislandadultreads]

Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month: Nonfiction Recommendations

Speak, Okinawa by Elizabeth Miki Brina

Elizabeth's mother was working on U.S.-occupied Okinawa when she met the American soldier who would become her husband. The language barrier and power imbalance defining their early relationship followed them to the predominantly white, upstate New York suburb where they moved to raise their daughter. There, Elizabeth grew up with the trappings of a typical American childhood, while feeling almost no connection to her mother's distant home and out of place among her peers. This account is a heartfelt exploration of identity and what it means to be an American.

Asian American Histories of the United States by Catherine Ceniza Choy

Original and expansive, this volume is a nearly 200-year history of Asian migration, labor, and community formation in the U.S. Reckoning with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the surge in anti-Asian hate and violence, historian Catherine Ceniza Choy presents an urgent social history of the fastest growing group of Americans. The book features the lived experiences and diverse voices of immigrants, refugees, US-born Asian Americans, multiracial Americans, and workers from industries spanning agriculture to healthcare.

Seeing Ghosts by Kat Chow

Born two years after her parents' only son died just hours after his birth, Kat Chow became unusually fixated with death. She worried constantly about her parents dying - especially her mother. Four years later when her mother dies unexpectedly from cancer, Kat, her two older sisters, and their father are plunged into a debilitating, lonely grief. In this memoir, Kat weaves together what is part ghost story and part excavation of her family's history of loss spanning three generations and their immigration from China and Hong Kong to America and Cuba.

Rise by Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, & Philip Wang

In this intimate, eye-opening, and frequently hilarious guided tour through the pop-cultural touchstones and sociopolitical shifts of the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and beyond, authors Yang, Yu, and Wang chronicle how we’ve arrived at today’s unprecedented diversity of Asian American cultural representation through engaging, interactive graphics, charts, graphic essays from major AAPI artists, exclusive roundtables with Asian American cultural icons, and more.

[rogloptimist]

book recs for aapi heritage month 🕺🕺

a bit late, but happy aapi heritage month! i’ve been getting back into reading this past year after my pandemic slump, so here’s some books that i really enjoyed by aapi authors 

the poppy war trilogy by rf kuang - this series is a fantasy based on 19th-20th century china. it’s hilariously written with some of my favorite characters of all time, and deals with some really heavy topics like colonialism, the effects of warfare, and classism in a brutally honest fashion. i have so much to say about it but that’s for a much longer post-

babel: an arcane history by rf kuang - at this point i will read this woman’s grocery list, she is such a skilled writer and genius storyteller. babel is set in an alternate 1800s oxford university, in a world which the british empire’s power is built upon magic silver. babel unpacks the intrinsic ties between academia and empire from the perspective of someone on the inside and the concept of resistance. it also really hits home to the feeling of disconnect from your native language as a bilingual/third culture kid- overall just brilliant book imo. the magic system is also really interesting (as is that of rf kuang’s other work)- she builds upon the real world to create a fantasy that is engaging, but also very representative of the motifs of her work?? idk how to explain it but 🙏rebecca🙏

you’re the only one i’ve told: the stories behind abortion by meera shah - you’re the only one i’ve told is a collection of stories about abortion entrusted to shah, a medical practitioner who works as an abortion provider. the book humanizes these people and their experiences from a variety of different backgrounds and circumstances, and is a really compelling read. 

we have always been here: a queer muslim memoir by samra habib - we have always been here is a memoir about  habib’s experience growing up as an ahmadi muslim in pakistan, coming to canada as refugees in their teenage years, and grappling with queer identity within an environment where their body and personhood was thought to have been needed to be controlled. habib discusses faith, sexuality, and love through a lens of self discovery and finding community that you didn’t know existed. 

the henna wars by adiba jaigirdar - this book is set in dublin, and follows a young bangladeshi girl named nishat. nishat has fallen for an estranged childhood friend, flávia, who just so happens to be her rival in an upcoming school business competition. and by some luck, they both have chosen to create the same business; henna tattoos. i’m a sucker for fluff so this book got me, but it also deals with appropriation and queer romance (particularly from a 3rd culture experience) quite delicately. nishat’s relationship with her sister was also so well written, and i think was one of the most compelling bonds in this book!

this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar - okay i’m still in the process of finishing this book, but it has been so good so far! this is a story about two rival agents moving through a war that stretches across time, fighting tooth and nail for their own victory in a vaguely apocalyptic world. they begin a correspondence that spills into something that could change the course of time extremely literally. the writing style and descriptions are gorgeous, and the fragmented format of letters jumping across thousands of years is a really interesting reading experience. very cool book!

on earth we’re briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong - god this man is such a talent- everything good you’ve heard about his work is true and you should go read it rn. on earth we’re briefly gorgeous is written in the form of a letter from a son to his illiterate mother, and tells a story that crosses over 3 generations with it’s epicenter rooted in vietnam. the narrator unpacks how the effects of warfare, immigration and generational trauma have shaped his relationship with his mother and his own life. i’m not doing it justice (not for any of these rlly i cannot elevator pitch books), but vuong’s writing is so beautiful and intimate yet quiet? 💃💃🙏🫶👍🙏👌💃

that’s all i have for now, if you have any recs pls do tell!! to my fellow asian/pacific islander americans, your voices and stories deserve to be uplifted and celebrated without being fetishized, appropriated or pigeonholed. have a great may! 

[bookaddict24-7]

AUTHOR FEATURE:

﹒R.F. Kuang﹒

Three Books Written By this Author:

The Poppy War

Babel

Yellowface

___

Happy reading!

[elliepassmore]

Dragonfruit review

4/5 stars Recommended if you like: fantasy, dragons, Polynesian characters, quests

This book has an interesting premise: dragons in fantasy Polynesia. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and the magic system of the book and found myself interested in the plot. However, this does feel like a younger YA or MG book rather than a typical YA. Even when bad stuff happened to the characters, I didn't really feel the teeth of the novel and knew everything would be okay. The stakes just weren't there.

That being said, I did enjoy learning about the dragons. I found them to be interesting and Hanalei knows a bit about them as a result of her job. They're mostly aquatic creatures, but at times will venture onto land and change their morphology slightly to accommodate land living. The parts of a dragon are also a hot commodity, particularly the eggs, which can grant wishes. Through her studies, Hanalei has a deeper understanding of the creatures than most people do, though even among everyday people there seems to be a wide range in how people perceive the dragons. The dragoneers hunt them for their parts, but the people of Tamarind don't want to hurt them unless they themselves are being threatened.

Hanalei was exiled prior to the start of the story as a result of her father stealing a dragon egg meant for the crown princess in order to save her instead. But through a string of bad luck, she ends up back on Tamarind. It's clear from the get-go that Hanalei feels a lot of guilt over what her father did, and when given the chance she's willing to do almost anything to make it up to the royal family, people she once called friends. As the journey progresses, Hanalei begins to learn even more about the dragons than she already knew, and we see her developing a better grasp of how their magic works as well as a deep empathy for the creatures. She's very practical about things, even when emotions are running high, and I liked seeing how she worked to solve conflicting problems.

Sam understands his responsibilities, but he chafes at the choice before him. When Hanalei and a nesting dragon come to Tamarind, he's excited both to be reunited with his long-lost best friend but also to have another chance to save his mother. Despite being a warrior and prince, Sam is a warm and compassionate person, and he knows his people well. It's clear he's a great leader, even if he'll never have the title 'king.'

The side characters in this book were definitely side characters, though I liked most of them. Rosalie (I think her name is Rosalie, I can't quite remember) was catty to begin with, but she grew on me. I thought she and Hanalei were going to have a jealousy problem, but it ended up being a different conflict and it chilled out pretty quickly. Rosalie ended up being one of Hanalei's close confidantes and co-trouble-maker! I also liked William and thought his eagerness to learn was charming. I was hoping to see more from him and Sam's cousin, but oh well.

There is a minor (major?) character death that I was kind of surprised stuck. It didn't really make sense in my opinion, I feel like there's a level of magic that should've been at work there. But my biggest problem with this death is that I.....didn't really feel anything. Like, obviously it's supposed to be sad, and the characters are sad, but the death didn't pack a punch the way I think it was supposed to. It didn't really raise the stakes.

One thing I particularly liked about this book is the sense of family and community, as well as an underlying thread of forgiveness. Hanalei is welcomed back by (almost) all with open arms. The royal family understands that it was her father who stole the egg meant for the princess and that while it went to Hanalei, that she had nothing to do with it. Likewise, over the course of the story it becomes clear how much community means to the characters, particularly those who grew up on Tamarind like Hanalei and Sam. Even characters who mess up in the story (and some of them in a very big way) are eventually met with forgiveness and a second chance.

Overall I enjoyed this book and found it to be interesting. I really liked getting to see Polynesian culture(s) in a fantasy setting. Dragonfruit is a pretty unique story. That being said, the characters felt younger than they actually were and I felt like the book lacked tension, even in moments where it's clear there should've been high stakes.

[chanelslibrary]

🌙𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰🌙

Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

A smog has spread throughout the world depriving the planet of crops and slowly destroying wildlife. A young chef manages to escape the hellscape by getting a job on a luscious Italian mountaintop working for the global elite. Although food is abundant and decadent, and the air is fresh and clean, working for her mysterious employer and his high maintenance daughter comes with its own set of problems.

This book was fantastic! I loved the dystopian background, which felt so real like it could happen today (pollution creating a smog that wipes out plants and eventually animals). And it makes you think how it will affect careers such as chefs, farmers, scientists, meteorologists, etc. Zhang illustrates the chef’s thoughts and these characters so well with excellent prose, metaphors, and details! The research to get the ingredients and names for all of the recipes is so well done and meticulous to show the stark contrast between the wonderful life on the mountain and pollution in the rest of the world. Another great theme Zhang subtly weaved was the subjugation and interchangeably of Asian women. How they are seen as objects and not a whole person. I definitely recommend this book, especially the audiobook!!

Read if you love:

🏔️ Dystopian

👩🏻‍🍳 Culinary commentary

🌈 LGBTQ rep

✊🏼 AAPI rep

[wttnblog]

6 Incredible Books to Read This AAPI Heritage Month

It’s Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage month, and that means it’s a great time to make sure you’re reading and uplifting AAPI authors! I compiled a list of six great books that have been published over the past two years (and that I read in this past one) written by AAPI authors. These books span genre, time period, age range, and setting but each centers their Asian protagonist. She…

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

From the author's site:

In June 2001, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto went to Hiroshima in search of a deeper understanding of her war-torn heritage. She planned to spend six months there, interviewing the few remaining survivors of the atomic bomb. A mother of two young boys, she was encouraged to go by her husband, who quickly became disenchanted by her absence.

It is her first solo life adventure, immediately exhilarating for her, but her research starts off badly. Interviews with the hibakusha feel rehearsed, and the survivors reveal little beyond published accounts. Then the attacks on September 11 change everything. The survivors’ carefully constructed memories are shattered, causing them to relive their agonizing experiences and to open up to Rizzuto in astonishing ways.

Separated from family and country while the world seems to fall apart, Rizzuto’s marriage begins to crumble as she wrestles with her ambivalence about being a wife and mother. Woven into the story of her own awakening are the stories of Hiroshima in the survivors’ own words. The parallel narratives explore the role of memory in our lives, and show how memory is not history but a story we tell ourselves to explain who we are.

___

For anyone interested in a perspective on the Hiroshima bombings from Literally Anyone Besides The People Who Did It, I'd definitely recommend this book at least as a starting point. It does a really good job of balancing personal narrative with careful testimonies from the Hiroshima bombings from a wide array of perspectives, all while balanced with an exploration of post-Hiroshima Japan in the early aughts.

There's some truly beautiful language that dances across the line between poetry and prose, showing a dedication to the craft of writing, creating, feeling, and knowing that I really admire and respect. There's also a lot of fascinating stuff about the way different people come to terms with trauma and change, and the messy work that comes with believing in peace when the war never seems to fucking stop, all shit that feels as relevant now as it ever has

(tw include graphic descriptions of death and suffering, discussions of racism and xenophobia, brief segments involving victim blaming and mentions of sexual assault, discussions of pregnancy)

[bookishtck]

So I’ve begun plotting my first serious novel draft and I’m so excited because I realized my stories can be about whatever I want it to. I have the power to take characters on a journey and let them live unique and interesting lives. I can write in as many seals as I want because they’re my favorite animal. I can base the cultural foods of my world off of my knowledge of different dishes around the world and no one will know where I got my ideas from! Fellow writers, don’t forget that your creative powers are the magic that brings your book to life! Don’t give up on whatever weird, crazy or silly ideas you have!

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🦇 We shouldn't wait until May every year to delve into the beauty of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voices. In May, I shared a list of the NEWEST AAPI books out this year. To keep promoting AAPI authors, characters, and stories, here are a few Young Adult AAPI books you can add to your TBR for the remainder of the year!

🏮 The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han 🏮 My Summer of Love and Misfortune by Lindsay Wong 🏮 Permanent Record by Mary H.K. Choi 🏮 When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert 🏮 To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han 🏮 I Will Find You Again by Sarah Lyu 🏮 Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi 🏮 American Panda by Gloria Chao 🏮 When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon 🏮 Starfish by Akemi Dawn Bowman 🏮 Our Wayward Fate by Gloria Chao 🏮 Rent a Boyfriend by Gloria Chao 🏮 Want by Cindy Pon 🏮 The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf 🏮 A Place to Belong by Cynthia Kadohata 🏮 Of Curses and Kisses by Sandhya Menon 🏮 Everyone Wants to Know by Kelly Loy Gilbert 🏮 A Pho Love Story by Loan Le 🏮 The Wild Ones by Nafiza Azad 🏮 Prepped by Bethany Mangle 🏮 The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn 🏮 Yolk by Mary H.K. Choi 🏮 Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim by Patricia Park 🏮 This is Not a Personal Statement by Tracy Badua 🏮 The Cartographers by Amy Zhang 🏮 The Love Match by Priyanka Taslim 🏮 This Place is Still Beautiful by Xixi Tian 🏮 Chasing Pacquiao by Rod Pulido 🏮 I'm Not Here to Make Friends by Andrew Yang 🏮 The Queens of New York by E. L. Shen 🏮 Hungry Ghost by Victoria Ying 🏮 These Infinite Threads by Tahereh Mafi 🏮 Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim 🏮 The Marvelous Mirza Girls by Sheba Karim 🏮 A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin

[mszyreads]

In honor of AAPI Heritage Month, here is one of my absolute favorite hist fic novels, written by Korean-American author Min Jin Lee.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

[rockislandadultreads]

Fiction Recommendations: Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha 

Kyuri is an achingly beautiful woman with a hard-won job at a Seoul "room salon," an exclusive underground bar where she entertains businessmen while they drink. Though she prides herself on her cold, clear-eyed approach to life, an impulsive mistake threatens her livelihood.

Kyuri's roommate, Miho, is a talented artist who grew up in an orphanage but won a scholarship to study art in New York. Returning to Korea after college, she finds herself in a precarious relationship with the heir to one of the country's biggest conglomerates.

Down the hall in their building lives Ara, a hairstylist whose two preoccupations sustain her: an obsession with a boy-band pop star, and a best friend who is saving up for the extreme plastic surgery that she hopes will change her life.

And Wonna, one floor below, is a newlywed trying to have a baby that she and her husband have no idea how they can afford to raise in Korea's brutal economy.

Together, their stories tell a gripping tale at once unfamiliar and unmistakably universal, in which their tentative friendships may turn out to be the thing that ultimately saves them.

Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho

Best friends since second grade, Fiona Lin and Jane Shen explore the lonely freeways and seedy bars of Los Angeles together through their teenage years, surviving unfulfilling romantic encounters, and carrying with them the scars of their families' tumultuous pasts. Fiona was always destined to leave, her effortless beauty burnished by fierce ambition—qualities that Jane admired and feared in equal measure. When Fiona moves to New York and cares for a sick friend through a breakup with an opportunistic boyfriend, Jane remains in California and grieves her estranged father's sudden death, in the process alienating an overzealous girlfriend. Strained by distance and unintended betrayals, the women float in and out of each other's lives, their friendship both a beacon of home and a reminder of all they've lost.

In stories told in alternating voices, Jean Chen Ho's debut collection peels back the layers of female friendship—the intensity, resentment, and boundless love—to probe the beating hearts of young women coming to terms with themselves, and each other, in light of the insecurities and shame that holds them back.

Things We Lost to the Water by Eric Nguyen

When Huong arrives in New Orleans with her two young sons, she is jobless, homeless, and worried about her husband, Cong, who remains in Vietnam. As she and her boys begin to settle in to life in America, she continues to send letters and tapes back to Cong, hopeful that they will be reunited and her children will grow up with a father.

But with time, Huong realizes she will never see her husband again. While she attempts to come to terms with this loss, her sons, Tuan and Binh, grow up in their absent father's shadow, haunted by a man and a country trapped in their memories and imaginations. As they push forward, the three adapt to life in America in different ways: Huong gets involved with a Vietnamese car salesman who is also new in town; Tuan tries to connect with his heritage by joining a local Vietnamese gang; and Binh, now going by Ben, embraces his adopted homeland and his burgeoning sexuality. Their search for identity--as individuals and as a family--threatens to tear them apart, un­til disaster strikes the city they now call home and they are suddenly forced to find a new way to come together and honor the ties that bind them.

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

Our narrator produces a sound from the piano no one else at the Conservatory can. She employs a technique she learned from her parents—also talented musicians—who fled China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. But when an accident leaves her parents debilitated, she abandons her future for a job at a high-end beauty and wellness store in New York City.

Holistik is known for its remarkable products and procedures—from remoras that suck out cheap Botox to eyelash extensions made of spider silk—and her new job affords her entry into a world of privilege and gives her a long-awaited sense of belonging. She becomes transfixed by Helen, the niece of Holistik’s charismatic owner, and the two strike up a friendship that hazily veers into more. All the while, our narrator is plied with products that slim her thighs, smooth her skin, and lighten her hair. But beneath these creams and tinctures lies something sinister.

[beareadsbookz]

Review: Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao

Summary

Once, Lan had a different name. Now she goes by the one the Elantian colonizers gave her when they invaded her kingdom, killed her mother, and outlawed her people’s magic. She spends her nights as a songgirl in Haak’gong, a city transformed by the conquerors, and her days scavenging for what she can find of the past. Anything to understand the strange mark burned into her arm by her mother in her last act before she died.

The mark is mysterious—an untranslatable Hin character—and no one but Lan can see it. Until the night a boy appears at her teahouse and saves her life.

Zen is a practitioner—one of the fabled magicians of the Last Kingdom. Their magic was rumored to have been drawn from the demons they communed with. Magic believed to be long lost. Now it must be hidden from the Elantians at all costs.

When Zen comes across Lan, he recognizes what she is: a practitioner with a powerful ability hidden in the mark on her arm. He’s never seen anything like it—but he knows that if there are answers, they lie deep in the pine forests and misty mountains of the Last Kingdom, with an order of practitioning masters planning to overthrow the Elantian regime.

Both Lan and Zen have secrets buried deep within—secrets they must hide from others, and secrets that they themselves have yet to discover. Fate has connected them, but their destiny remains unwritten. Both hold the power to liberate their land. And both hold the power to destroy the world.

Now the battle for the Last Kingdom begins.

Thoughts

Okay I have a lot of thoughts, mostly positive but let’s start with the negative.

This book has a lot of things that I’m realizing are common with “romantasy”, which I am learning is not my thing, so take my opinions with a grain of salt. If you love fantasy romance, these things probably won’t bother you.

First, structurally this book felt rushed. There were typos and weird run-on sentences (not a ton, but definitely enough that I noticed). There were times where the wrong word was used (i.e. “Dredges” when the author meant “Dregs”).

Second - and this is something I really disliked about the From Blood and Ash series - there is a lot of infodumping that is often, for some reason, repeated? Like we get a lot of the same information two or three times over, which made the book longer than I felt like it needed to be.

Third, it was kind of insta-love-y. I mean, the book takes place over a long enough period of time that it isn’t necessarily insta-love, but I personally felt like there were odd leaps between romantic moments, so it felt like we really rushed through the main characters bonding, which made the stronger emotions seem a little unfounded.

Fourth, and this is a very specific to myself complaint, I didn’t like Lan’s characterization very much. I’m getting really tired of every female main character being essentially a cardboard cutout of each other. She’s snarky and sassy, but has to be taught everything, but is also somehow a prodigy at everything she does, all while seeing herself as able to handle a lot, yet she’s constantly crying over something. (This isn’t to say that strength = emotionless, it’s just that her character feels set up to be more withdrawn and to keep her emotions inside, but then she’s falling over a lounge chair like a Disney Princess to sob uncontrollably.) I feel like you could replace Lan with Poppy or Seraphina or Feyre and the story wouldn’t change much, if at all.

Lastly, I disliked the fact that Lan has no positive female relationships. Her mother is dead before the book starts; her supposed best friend is murdered like two seconds after we meet her (and Lan almost never thinks about her afterwards); her boss is a horrible person; and the only two female characters she meets for the rest of the book have instantaneous conflict with her that never gets resolved. I'm tired of reading about women and girls who only ever get along with men. Jenifer L Armentrout does this as well: Poppy and Seraphina both have exactly one positive female relationship who they are supposedly close with, but we don't see these women for practically their entire series. Every other female character is a villain or competition for her love interest, or else hates her for no apparent reason.

ON TO THE POSITIVES

I’ve been comparing this book to From Blood and Ash because they share a genre and I had some overlapping complaints, but all of the positives of this book are where we differ from that comparison. For instance, this book had a much more present and coherent plot, one that didn’t make me feel lost and confused every two chapters. I felt like the story was actually going somewhere. It also had a really cool magic system, which I did not feel like we got in FBaA.

Additionally, this book has actual themes about things that matter, and I thought they were handled in a much better and more responsible way. There is a recurring theme in Jenifer L Armentrout’s books of the “big bad” being a sexual predator. It happens because the love interest is just as murder-y and selfish as the bad guy, so she needed a way to differentiate so that we the readers would know why it’s okay for Sexy Lover Boy to be a heartless killer and not Evil Nasty Guy. It felt so lazy and frankly, just rancid overall, especially when it continued happening over and over again in each book of hers that I read.

On the flip side, in Song of Silver, Flame Like Night, we do see threats of sexual violence, but in the context of colonizers and invaders wielding their power over their victims, who have no leverage to say no. We also see villains who are actually just bad (greed, violence, lust for power, etc) without needing to make them rapists to show who we’re supposed to root for.

I thought the overarching points of this book were very important and relevant, especially in the context of current world events. The fact that horrific atrocities have been committed upon your people does not give you the right to turn around and do it to another people. Just because your people have hurt each other does not mean that violence against you is justified or “not that bad”.

The last thing I’ll say is that I really loved the setting and magic. It was so vibrant and I felt like I could really see and hear the places and events I was reading about. I know I’ve mentioned it at least twice now, but seriously this magic system might be one of the coolest and most unique I’ve read about recently (probably tied for first place with the magic system in Faebound).

Overall, it’s a good book, but this genre just isn’t my style. I plan to read the sequel because I’m very curious about where the story goes from here, but I don’t think I’ll be picking up more of this author’s books after that.

Rating: 3.5⭐️

AAPI Heritage Month Hopefuls

(books I want to read if I can get them)

Rise of the Manō by Leialoha Humpherys

Poūkahangatus by Tayi Tibble

Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo

Hula by Jasmin ‘Iolani Hakes

Vā: Stories of the Women of the Moana edited by Sisilia Eteuati and Lani Wendt Young

The Wild Ones by Nafiza Azad

Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao

The Last Bloodcarver by Vanessa Le

The Do’s and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar

Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao

Weird Fishes by Rae Mariz

The Marvelous Mirza Girls by Sheba Karim

One Boy, No Water by Lehua Parker

The Bone People by Keri Hulme

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh

The Wonders We Seek by Saadia Faruqi & Aneesa Mumtaz

Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier

The Dragon Prince: Stories and Legends From Vietnam edited by Thich Nhat Hanh

The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang

Muslim Girls Rise by Saira Amir

Fish Swimming In Dappled Sunlight by Alison Watts & Riku Onda

Red, White, and Whole by Rajani LaRocco

Banyan Moon by Thao Thai

Force Of Fire by Sayantani DasGupta

Rangikura by Tayi Tibble

Writing In Color by multiple authors (including but not limited to Nafiza Azad, Axie Oh, Joan He, Chloe Gong, and Darcie Little Badger)

I will be reblogging with reviews as I finish these!