I read this book for the Read Harder 2019 Challenge. I needed an #ownvoices book set in Oceania: the #ownvoices part means by an indigenous author, and Oceania is Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific islands. The Things She’s Seen is by brother and sister Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina, from the Palyku people of…
This month is Nonfiction November, a celebration of all things nonfiction. I’ve read some fantastic nonfiction this year and I’m proud of myself for reading more nonfiction than I used to. I enjoy this event because I get so many good nonfiction recommendations for next year. Each week will be a topic hosted by a different blog. This…
I absolutely loved this children’s book about a girl from a Cuban-Jewish family living in New York who is seriously injured in a car accident and ends up in a full body cast. It’s a perfect book for children in about 3rd-4th grade who have ever felt left out – and what kid hasn’t? I…
Last week my book club had the opportunity to meet with Angie Kim, author of Miracle Creek, a courtroom drama about a Korean-American family. Kim was fantastic and spent a lot of time with our group. She shared a lot of interesting details about how her life experiences influenced the book, and the kinds of things she…
I really enjoyed this debut novel that combines courtroom drama with a moving story about a Korean-American family. Even better, the author is local and writes about a small town in Virginia that doesn’t exist but felt very real. The Yoo family runs a a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, a submarine-like contraption that people sit in to…
July was a pretty heavy reading month, but this book was pure fun and I enjoyed every bit of it. Moreno-Garcia’s novel is set in 1920’s Mexico, where Casiopea, a young woman in Yucatan, is struggling in her oppressive grandfather’s home. It begins as a Cinderella story — Casiopea and her mother are poor relations,…
For those interested in reading memoirs about events in other countries, I recommend this book by a young woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sandra is from a Congolese tribe called the Banyamulenge that has been a frequent target of ethnic violence. In August 2004, ten-year-old Sandra sees her mother and sister gunned down…
I really appreciated this memoir by Nicole Chung about her adoption and the search for her birth family. It was particularly interesting to read about her personal struggles as a child being of Korean descent in a white family and a mostly white town. It made me think about the complexity of identity, and the…
These books share a lot of similarities and both were fantastic, so I’m reviewing them together. Both are about teenagers dealing with racial identity, religion, friendship, and family. Both are gifted poets struggling to express themselves. Both love their families but find themselves hiding more and more of themselves. On the Come Up is Angie…
I really liked this slow-burner of a novel about a program for the wealthy who want surrogate parents. Ramos creates what I found to be a very believable scenario and raises a lot of really interesting issues regarding parenthood, wealth, immigration, race and class. A corporation creates a home for young women to bear the children…
I had to force myself to finish this book, and that’s never a good thing. At times this book was nicely written and I found myself see-sawing between frustrated and absorbed. I knew from reviews that there were major changes in the plot and I wanted to see what happened. Trust Exercise is about Sarah…
This year I want to post at least a quarterly update on the challenges I’m working on. Each quarter I’ll focus on a different challenge. I’m trying to keep these low-pressure but I’m finding myself a little bit obsessed with the Read Harder challenge this year. The categories are tough! I like to go on…
The literary journeys of a 20-something, bilingual, elementary school teacher.
a book blog
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I read, breathe, and live in bookish worlds.
Book Reviews
"Books are a uniquely portable magic" - Stephen King
*somewhere to collect my (mostly) bookish thoughts*
"She had read novels while other people perused the Sunday papers" - Mary Elizabeth Braddon
A Reader's Miscellany of Classic Literature
