I’ve
read everything by R.F. Kuang, and you should, too. I was especially excited
about Yellowface for the brutal look inside the publishing world and
how it treats writers of color (spoiler—not great).
As always, Kuang deals with
complicated topics of race and identity while also telling a compelling and
suspenseful story. June Heyward is a white author who passes the novel of her
deceased friend, Athena Liu, off as her own. Wondering whether she’ll get caught
will keep you turning the pages.
Along the way, Kuang raises interesting
questions about art and ownership and the nature of success.
The No. 1 Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller from literary sensation R.F. Kuang
*A Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick*
'Propulsive' SUNDAY TIMES
'Razor-sharp' TIME
'A wild ride' STYLIST
'Darkly comic' GQ
'A riot' PANDORA SYKES
'Hard to put down, harder to forget' STEPHEN KING
Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody.
White lies When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song.
Dark humour But as evidence threatens June's stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she…
One
of the ways writers of color are restricted by the world of publishing is
through the pressure to create only narratives of suffering and trauma. There’s
little room for the idea that you can tell a story about people who are poor or
marginalized or outcast, and it can still be, you know, funny.
That’s what I
loved about The Bandit Queens. The main character, Geeta, may be poor
and relatively powerless as a woman in rural India. But in this hilarious tale, the rest of the women in her village decide Geeta’s the one to go to if you’d
like to get rid of your husband.
Turns out quite a few women are interested in
Geeta’s services. I loved the combination of humor with genuinely warm-hearted
moments in this novel.
'Not since Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger has the rotten core of modern India been exposed in quite such blackly antic fashion as Parini Shroff manages here in this intermittently absurd, feminist revenge caper about a group of snarky, much-abused, predominantly Hindu wives...sheer gutsy verve.' The Times
'A darkly funny revenge drama rooted in the reality of rural India . . . [A] vivid, unsentimental story that succeeds in being both satirical and moving.' Guardian
'A radically feel-good story about the murder of no-good…
There’s
so much to love in Daughters of the New Year. I was captivated by the
way the mythology of the Vietnamese zodiac provides a frame for this story of
family and immigration and the generational legacy of trauma.
In the present
generation of Vietnamese women, one of the daughters is on a reality TV show, and I’m always a sucker for books about reality TV. But what really stuck out
to me is the book’s structure, moving backward in time through the
generations of women, the narrative becoming fuzzier and fuzzier in the distant
past.
It shouldn’t work, but it does and creates a perfect picture of
assimilation and resistance.
A Recommended Read from: Salon * Good Morning America * People Magazine * Electric Lit * Goodreads * Buzzfeed * The Seattle Times * Deep South Magazine * Book Culture * Debutiful
A lively, spellbinding tale about the extraordinary women within a Vietnamese immigrant family—and the ancient zodiac legend that binds them together
What does the future hold for those born in the years of the Dragon, Tiger, and Goat?
In present day New Orleans, Xuan Trung, former beauty queen turned refugee after the Fall of…
Amanda Harkins is fed up. She's put up with
the boys' basketball team getting all the attention, money, and crowds for way
too long. When the boys trick Amanda and her friends into giving up the good
gym yet again, Amanda challenges the boys to a game, putting their season,
their friendships, and their futures on the line.
One Game. Boys against girls.
The losers agree to quit the team and give up their whole season.
Amanda and her friends will leave it all on
the court to settle the question—what does it really take to be equal? Fair Game is a tale of sports triumph for lovers of Ted Lasso and She's The Man.
