It’s an interesting time to read a romance novel about a grad student in public health who investigates a potential plague of unknown origins while coping with governmental slashing of science budgets, which means that I maybe cried a little more than usual while reading the first book in Alyssa Cole’s Reluctant Royals series, A Princess in Theory. Cole does an incredible job of playing … Continue reading Reluctant Royals: A Princess in Theory
On the second day of Black History Month, School Library Journal posted a photo and a headline article highlighting white people, and edging into blackface territory. I archived the tweet, because to be honest, I’m not sure if they’ll continue to leave it up. It’s a bad take, but it’s so much more: a whole spiral into the ways in which white supremacy pervades the … Continue reading that SLJ cover
Looking for novellas in which hope springs eternal, and the endings are happy, and family and neighbors are an essential part of one’s life, and also student loans are unethical and medical debt sucks? The Uptown Collection has got you covered. Continue reading Ruby Lang’s Uptown Collection
Content Note I think it goes without saying that the works listed here are all #OwnVoices, either written or illustrated (or both) by members of the Asian American community. I’m going wide, in this community: by “American,” I mean of the Americas, the continents, not the country. I’m going to throw in some movies here, as long as they fit under that #OwnVoices representation. Also … Continue reading Asian American Voices: Fiction & Poetry
The dystopia of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s bleak Prime Meridian is eerily close to the world we inhabit, from its cataclysmic wealth gaps1 and grinding, hopeless poverty to its environment toppling over the edge of complete disaster. It’s short, bleak, and rich, and it feels almost more like a trip through the world I inhabit than a fleeting visit to a science-fiction dystopia. Our heroine—or maybe main … Continue reading Prime Meridian
I’m a voracious romance reader. I’m also not a particularly romantic person (nothing quite like instalove to make me hysterical!), and when I tried to put together a list of books for today, figuring I could (I mean, I read romance, for crying out loud!), I realized it just wasn’t going to happen. Last year’s booklist was for Galentine‘s; today, the day after Valentine’s, I’m … Continue reading after valentine’s 2020
Talia Hibbert‘s Get a Life, Chloe Brown was the last book I finished in 2019, though I started it in November. I did not, you see, want the book to end: it is something very special, and I had a similar reaction, reading it, as I had when I read Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows, or Connie Brockway’s As You Desire, or Tessa Dare’s Say … Continue reading Get a Life, Chloe Brown
When our countries go marching to war, our propaganda machines start spinning, and it is all too easy to forget that the people Over There are just people, not so different from you and I. I’d like, if possible, to counteract those propaganda machines—the war pigs, if you will—even if just a little. Continue reading empire, war, & people: a booklist in response to current events
Historical fiction can, at its best, give us not only a grand adventure (or a deep dive into character and self and soul), but also a tour of the time and the space in which it takes place—a printed (or read) way to, as it were, be in the room where it happens. Stacey Lee’s The Downstairs Girl, set in postwar Atlanta, is very much … Continue reading The Downstairs Girl
I grew up on stories of Hua Mulan—my best friend’s dad translated an early picture book about her, the Disneyfied version of her story came out in ’98 when I was eleven (and a half!), and I saw it when it finally hit, in those good old days, VHS. I’m anxiously watching chatter about Disney’s live-action version—I’d prefer it stuck closer to the Ballad of … Continue reading The Magnolia Sword
Essentially a Nerd 