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Celebrate Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May
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Bestiary: A Novel
by Kristin Chang
What is it about: Tracing one family's history from Mainland China to Taiwan, from Arkansas to California, Bestiary is a novel of migration, queer lineages, and womanhood.
Crackling with electricity: Transforming into a manifestation of a tiger character from her Taiwanese heritage, Daughter falls in love with an equally remarkable girl while translating mysterious letters from female relatives who embody mythical archetypes.
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Well-Behaved Indian Women
by Saumya Dave
What is it about? Three generations of women from the same Indian-American family struggle with disparate ambitions and beliefs about sacrifice that are brought into question by a non-traditional relationship, a colleague’s life-changing offer and a personal secret.
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Burnt Sugar : A Novel
by Avni Doshi
What is it? Shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, a literary debut novel set in India is about mothers and daughters, obsession and betrayal.
This is a love story and a story, but not between lovers - between mother and daughter. In her youth, Tara was wild. She abandoned her loveless marriage to join an ashram, endured a brief stint as a beggar, and spent years chasing after a dishevelled, homeless 'artist' - all with her young child in tow. Now she is forgetting things, and her grown-up daughter is faced with the task of caring for a woman who never cared for her.
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Whereabouts
by Jhumpa Lahiri
Buzz: *A Most Anticipated Novel of 2021 from Buzzfeed; O, The Oprah Magazine; TIME; Vulture; Vogue; LitHub; and Harper's Bazaar*
What is it about? An English translation of a first Italian-language novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Lowland follows the routines of a misfit city dweller who experiences a year of remarkable transformation in the aftermath of a parent’s death.
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My Year Abroad
by Chang-rae Lee
What is it about? A brilliant, exuberant and entertaining story of an everyday American college student finds his life transformed by a Chinese-American businessman who unexpectedly takes him under his wing on a series of whimsical, heartbreaking and darkly shocking adventures throughout Asia.
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Must I Go: A Novel
by Yiyun Li
Starring: Lilia Liska has shrewdly outlived three husbands, raised five children, and seen the arrival of seventeen grandchildren
What is it about? Lilia Liska begins annotating the diary of a long-ago former lover, recounting long-held secrets and memories about her daughter and her resolve to live life on her own terms.
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Things We Lost to the Water: A Novel
by Eric Nguyen
A stunning debut novel: An immigrant Vietnamese family settles in New Orleans and struggles to remain connected to one another as their lives are inextricably reshaped.
Starring: Huong and her two sons adapt to life in New Orleans in different ways as they search for identity as individuals and as a family until disaster strikes the city, forcing them to find a new way to come together.
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Gold Diggers
by Sanjena Sathian
Starring: Neil Narayan is authentic, funny, and smart. He just doesn't share the same drive as everyone around him.
What is it about? A satirical coming-of-age story follows the experiences of an Indian-American teen, Neil Narayan, in the Bush-era Atlanta suburbs, who joins his crush’s plot to use an ancient alchemical potion to meet high parental expectations, triggering devastating consequences. A first novel.
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Dial A for Aunties
by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Question: What happens when you mix 1 (accidental) murder with 2 thousand wedding guests, and then toss in a possible curse on 3 generations of an immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family?
What is it about? Accidentally causing the death of a blind date, Meddy is persuaded by her meddlesome Chinese-Indonesian mother and aunts to dispose of the body, which upends a billionaire’s wedding and Meddy’s reunion with a former flame.
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Interior Chinatown
by Charles Yu
Starring: Willis Wu, a stereotyped character actor who longs to break out of the role prescribed to him (Generic Asian Man) and play the hero for once...as Kung Fu Guy.
Interior Chinatown: Ostensibly playing out on the set of a cop show called Black and White, this inventive tale merges Wu's life with the script of the show, sharply indicting Hollywood clichés and racial stereotyping.
Reviewers say: "One of the funniest books of the year" (The Washington Post).
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| What's Mine and Yours by Naima CosterWhat it is: a multi-generational family drama set in the Piedmont area of North Carolina between 1992 and 2018.
Read it for: a racially diverse cast of well-developed characters whose lives intersect over 30 years; a sweeping tale of two families grappling with race and racism.
For fans of: Mary Beth Keane's Ask Again, Yes, Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half, and Therese Fowler's A Good Neighborhood. |
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| Raft of Stars by Andrew J. GraffWhat it is: an atmospheric and suspenseful coming-of-age story with shades of the film Stand By Me.
What happens: Thinking that they've killed a man, ten-year-old Fish and his best friend Bread flee into the deep Wisconsin forest and are tracked by four adults desperate to save them and each seeking answers of their own.
Reviewers say: debut author Andrew Graff "depicts the harsh Northwoods setting and his misfit characters’ inner lives with equal skill" (Publishers Weekly). |
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| How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo MbueThe situation: Since the 1980s, the fictional African village of Kosawa has been poisoned by an American oil company's leaking pipelines. After many requests for help are ignored, a small act of rebellion leads to decades of revolution.
What happens: Nothing much changes in Kosawa, as both the nation's despotic regime and the oil company ignore the villagers' pleas. Then Thula, who grew up in Kosawa in the '80s, returns from the U.S. determined to fight back.
Read it for: the links between environmental degradation and human rights. |
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| Are We There Yet? by Kathleen WestWhat it is: a funny, often-relatable tale of motherhood and adolescent angst narrated by a handful of mothers, children, and grandparents.
The crux of the matter: Alice's life is not going well at home or at work, and the combination of 7th-grade drama and poor decision-making on social media throws her friendships with other mothers into a tailspin.
For fans of: the comedic takes on suburban angst in Laurie Gelman's Class Mom. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Dakota County Library
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