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On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Ocean Vuong
In On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, the protagonist, Little Dog, pens a heartfelt letter to his mother that delves deep into the Vietnamese-American immigrant experience. Through poignant symbolism and personal anecdotes, Little Dog navigates themes of identity, sexuality, and the complexities of his family's past. This book eloquently captures the journey of immigrant children in America, offering a rich array of emotions and reflections on what it truly means to belong. Vuong's prose is both lyrical and evocative, making this novel a beautiful exploration of the immigrant narrative.
Please note that this selection includes some sexual content, domestic violence and offensive language (used to highlight the hate shown towards the LGBTQ+ community).
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
Cathy Park Hong
In Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, Cathy Park Hong masterfully weaves together a series of insightful essays that delve into the complexities of her identity as an Asian American. Through evocative storytelling, Hong illustrates her struggle with the "model minority" stereotype and the relentless pressure to prove her worth. Each narrative not only reflects her personal experiences of feeling inadequate and of cultural dislocation but also resonates with the broader challenges faced by those navigating dual identities. As she confronts societal expectations and internal conflicts, Hong offers a profound exploration of self-discovery, resilience, and the nuanced emotions that accompany being an outsider in one’s own country. Minor Feelings is a brilliant fusion of memoir and cultural critique, inviting readers to reflect on their own perceptions of race, success, and belonging.
Brown Girls
Daphne Palasi Andreades
Within one of New York City’s most vibrant and eclectic boroughs, young women of color like Nadira, Gabby, Naz, Trish, Angelique, and countless others, attempt to reconcile their immigrant backgrounds with the American culture in which they come of age. Here, they become friends for life—or so they vow. But as they age, their paths diverge and rifts form between them, as some choose to remain on familiar streets, while others find themselves ascending in the world, beckoned by existences foreign and seemingly at odds with their humble roots. Told by a chorus of unforgettable voices, Brown Girls illustrates a collective portrait of childhood, adulthood, and beyond, and is a striking exploration of female friendship, a powerful depiction of women of color attempting to forge their place in the world today.
Crying in H Mart
Michelle Zauner
With humor and heart, Zauner tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she progressed into adulthood, her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner's voice is radiantly alive on the page, rich with intimate anecdotes and family photos.
Marriage of a Thousand Lies
SJ Sindu
Lucky and her husband, Krishna, are gay. They present an illusion of marital bliss to their conservative Sri Lankan–American families, while each dates on the side. But when Lucky’s grandmother has a nasty fall, Lucky returns to her childhood home and unexpectedly reconnects with her former best friend and first lover, Nisha, who is preparing for her own arranged wedding with a man she’s never met. As the connection between the two women is rekindled, Lucky tries to save Nisha from entering a marriage based on a lie. As Lucky—an outsider no matter what choices she makes—is pushed to the breaking point, Marriage of a Thousand Lies offers a vivid exploration of a life lived at a complex intersection of race, sexuality, and nationality. A profoundly American debut novel shot through with humor and loss, a story of love, family, and the truths that define us all.
If They Come For US
Fatimah Asghar
An imaginative, soulful poetry collection captures the experiences of being a young Pakistani Muslim woman in contemporary America. Orphaned as a child, Fatimah Asghar grapples with coming of age and navigating questions of sexuality and race without the guidance of a mother or father. These poems bear anguish, joy, vulnerability, and compassion, while also exploring the many facets of violence: how it persists within us, how it is inherited across generations, and how it manifests itself in our relationships. In experimental forms and language both lyrical and raw, Asghar seamlessly braids together marginalized people’s histories with her own understanding of identity, place, and belonging.
The Joy Luck Club
Amy Tan
Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Forty years later the stories and history continue. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties.
The Namesake
Jhumpa Lahiri
The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name. Lahiri brings great empathy to Gogol as he stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. With penetrating insight, she reveals not only the defining power of the names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents, but also the means by which we slowly, sometimes painfully, come to define ourselves. In The Namesake, Lahiri enriches the themes that made her collection an international bestseller: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations.