Book reviews archive

by Alden Mudge

Korean author Han Kang, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, returns with We Do Not Part, her poetic, starkly beautiful fifth novel to be translated into English. Kyungha, the book’s narrator, wanders through a bewildering internal dreamscape, haunted by a recurring nightmare of graves inundated by rising water. She has lost or cut off most relationships, and spends her time alone, shedding her belongings and rewriting her will and final instructions. Then a texted summons brings her to the hospital bedside of her friend Inseon.

Kyungha has known Inseon for more than 20 years as a work colleague, friend and, now, artistic collaborator. Though their current joint project, inspired by Kyungha’s nightmare, has begun to lose Kyungha’s interest, Inseon had persevered, until she severed her fingers with a power saw while preparing sculptures for their installation. She asks Kyungha to travel from the hospital in Seoul to her home to save the life of her bird, Ama, left without food or water after her accident.

It is a near-impossible task. Inseon lives to the south, on Jeju island, where she had moved to care for her mother until her recent passing. Kyungha arrives on the island in blizzard conditions. She struggles to reach Inseon’s remote and isolated house, slipping and falling unconscious in the snow more than once, then somehow arriving in the cold, dark building to find both Ama and Inseon inside.

We Do Not Part moves to its own disorienting rhythms, and at this point in the narrative, a reader will likely be both spellbound and unsettled. We feel the chill and isolation of the snowbound island. We see the shadows of birds projected on the walls by candlelight. We read the dry, crumbling documents gathered by Inseon’s mother detailing horrors perpetrated not so long ago by the Korean government on Jeju’s people. We sense the love between Kyungha and Inseon, along with their deepening understanding of the steely perseverance of that older woman, who was, in life, seemingly quiet and subdued.

For readers unfamiliar with the history, at least 30,000 people—10% of the island’s population—were massacred on Jeju between 1948 and 1949 by the U.S. Military Government in Korea and then by the South Korean Army under Syngman Rhee. Google Jeju and this fact is not among the top hits. Han, however, considers this history with fierce humanity. She writes beautifully, with profound moral authority. Of course she should have a Nobel Prize.

In Nobel Laureate Han Kang’s We Do Not Part, narrator Kyungha has known Inseon for more than 20 years as a friend and artistic collaborator before Inseon asks her to travel to her remote house on snowbound Jeju Island to save the life of her bird.

Coming of Age, Fiction, Popular Fiction

Fiction Popular Fiction Coming of Age

We Could Be Rats

Review by Maya Fleischmann

by Maya Fleischmann

When Sigrid, a 20-year-old working at an unsatisfying job, is left in a coma following a suicide attempt, her older sister, Margit, finds Sigrid’s drafts of a suicide note, along with Sigrid’s emotionally fraught request that Margit write the final version. As Margit takes on this task, she delves into Sigrid’s journals and belongings, both to accurately capture her sister’s voice and to uncover the reasons behind her actions. What Margit discovers leads to a profound reckoning with their shared past and a renewal of the bond forged during their tumultuous childhood.

Emily Austin’s third novel, We Could Be Rats, is a poignant, layered exploration of how lack of belonging can erode the human spirit and drive one to the brink of despair. Through the perspective of each sister, Austin examines how they have diverged from their shared troubled upbringing, responding to their lives in vastly different ways. Sigrid struggles as a high school dropout stuck in a stifling small town, and dreams of the carefree existence of a fat rat eating hot dogs at a fair. Her pain is amplified by the loss of her best friend, Greta. Meanwhile, Margit has achieved her goal of leaving town to attend college, but she hasn’t escaped without some emotional scars of her own.

While both Sigrid and Margit are deeply sympathetic characters, their narratives occasionally falter under the weight of too much repetition and overly didactic moments that make the novel’s themes feel oversimplified. However, Austin successfully delivers some dramatic revelations that illuminate the complexity of the characters and add tension to the plot. The depiction of Sigrid’s growing inability to cope with the small-town environment, and with the things she finds out about Greta’s past, effectively conveys her increasing sense of alienation.

We Could Be Rats is a heartfelt and stirring read for those interested in fiction that tackles themes of mental health, family relationships and reconnection.

Emily Austin’s third novel, We Could Be Rats, is a heartfelt and stirring read for those interested in fiction that tackles themes of mental health, family relationships and reconnection.

Debut Fiction, Family Drama, Fiction, Literary Fiction

Fiction Literary Fiction Family Drama Debut Fiction

Too Soon

Review by Chika Gujarathi

by Chika Gujarathi

Hope and laughter animate Betty Shamieh’s debut, Too Soon, which revolves around three generations impacted by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For a subject so weighty, the novel feels surprisingly effervescent thanks to the witty and resolute women who make up the three main characters—Zoya, Naya and the central protagonist, Arabella.

Stretching from 1948 to 2012, the story takes us from Jaffa to New York. We follow Zoya, a mother of nine, who is forced to abandon her seaside villa to start again as a refugee in Michigan; Naya, Zoya’s youngest daughter, who grows up in the changing Detroit of the ’60s and ’70s; and Arabella, Naya’s outspoken daughter, a Yale graduate who, at 35, has achieved a version of the American dream as a theater director in New York City. These three women, each shaped by their times, have more in common than they would like to admit.

Too Soon begins in New York in 2012 with Arabella, who has just been invited by the Royal Court Theatre of England to direct Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the West Bank. Arabella is lukewarm about the opportunity, but she decides to go for it after her grandmother Zoya sets her up with a boy named Aziz, who is volunteering as a medic on the Gaza border.

In her great-grandfather’s one-room house in Ramallah, Arabella confronts her family’s history and her place in it, while dating Aziz and directing her radical gender-swapped production of Hamlet. Dispersed among Arabella’s angsty chapters are chapters telling Zoya’s and Naya’s stories, recounting their memories of girlhood, lost love, marriage and motherhood. Together, they spin a resonating tale of hope’s potential to survive through terrible atrocity.

Shamieh is a Palestinian American writer and playwright who has written 15 plays, and is a founder of The Semitic Root, an Arab and Jewish American theater collective. In her first novel, she has crafted a page-turner that is not only funny and of its time, but also steeped in history, questioning the age-old adage that time heals all wounds.

In her first novel, playwright Betty Shamieh has crafted a page turner that is not only funny and of its time, but also steeped in history, questioning the age-old adage that time heals all wounds.

Memoir, Nonfiction

Nonfiction Memoir

Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth)

Review by Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

by Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

No matter how much chaos they wreak or how catastrophic the destruction they leave in their wake, dogs can wriggle their way out of a scolding simply by casting an innocent glance or woeful expression at their owners. The truth, as Markus Zusak (The Book Thief) reveals in his playful and poignant memoir, Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth), is that owners love their canine companions no matter how incorrigible they are.

With affection and some exasperation, Zusak recalls the highlights and lowlights of life with Reuben, Archer and Frosty—the three boisterous rescue dogs who, one by one, swagger into his family’s life. The bulk of the book chronicles the misadventures of Reuben and Archer, “essentially a two-dog mafia” who terrorize the dog park with a playfulness under which lurks the animal instinct to kill. In the most harrowing moment, Reuben knocks Zusak down, breaking his knee. Reuben and Archer corner a possum in a local park and kill it; they kill the family cat; they bite the piano teacher. At the same time, the dogs are often perfect companions: They lavish affection on the Zusak children, Kitty and Noah, and slow their pace when the children are walking them. The family is overcome with misery and pain when the two dogs fall ill and die—Reuben in 2019, Archer in 2021. “There are terrible and poetic things in our lives,” writes Zusak, “and so often they’re one and the same.” Following the “dogless drought of 2021,” the family adopts another rescue dog, Frosty. Though sometimes “ADHD on legs,” Frosty slept at Zusak’s feet as he wrote this book.

Despite the many challenges Zusak and his family faced with their burdensome beasts, Zusak tenderly recalls that “on account of our many animals, we’ve lived a beautiful, brutal, awful, hilarious, escapadical life.” Telling these stories gives Zusak reason to meditate on his own nature. He reflects that Reuben and Archer, especially, “were dogs who somehow made me. . . . They were a mirror, I suspect, to my own hidden turmoils—my wilderness within.”

Though it sometimes overreaches for humor, Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth) will be enjoyed by readers of the best dog tales, such as The Art of Racing in the Rain, for its ability to evoke both the aggravation and deep love that dogs foster in those who build their lives around these creatures.

In Markus Zusak’s playful, poignant memoir, the Book Thief author recounts the misadventures of his canine companions.

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery

The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

by Lauren Emily Whalen

Everyone loves a housewife; housewife here meaning not the barefoot and pregnant archetype, but a girlboss with hair extensions, implants and a whole lot of attitude who’s always willing to tussle with her “friends” for an audience of millions. But what happens when a reluctant housewife ends up dead—and she’s only the first casualty of the new season? Astrid Dahl’s The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey effectively straddles the line between dark humor and suspense, following multiple characters in front of and behind the camera as they reckon with a murderer in their spray-tanned, Botoxed midst.

Garden State Goddesses is Huzzah Network’s third most popular reality show, but, as always, the real drama is behind the scenes. Showrunner Eden has her sights on greener pastures so she can finally move out of Hoboken, New Jersey: It only takes a little finagling to bring her naive cousin Hope out of a fundamentalist California commune and into the on-camera fold to boost ratings. Meanwhile, newlywed (and newly wealthy) Hope is a fish out of water among her over-the-top costars: bisexual single mom Renee, nail salon maven and self-proclaimed “Italian supremacist” Carmela, and Carmela’s bonehead of a best friend Valerie, who’s also Hope’s sister-in-law. But when a lethal cocktail leaves one of the housewives dead—and the bodies keep dropping—Eden and the Goddesses cast and crew must crack the case, or risk cancellation of the show . . . and their lives.

Astrid Dahl is the creation of author Anna Dorn: According to Dahl’s cheeky bio, she’s the “star” of Dorn’s Perfume and Pain, a novel that’s also dark, hilarious and campy. Dahl/Dorn has crafted an exceedingly colorful cast of characters, especially Goddesses regular Birdie, a dowager of indeterminate age and bottomless wealth who just can’t seem to stay sober (much to viewers’ delight), and Birdie’s adult son and assistant, Pierre, who loves horses as much as he loathes housewives. The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey shines bright in its love for soap opera-style reality TV, where manicured nails are sharp and verbal barbs over Prosecco-fueled lunch dates even sharper. Pour a healthy glass of white wine—who cares if it’s only 2 p.m.?—don your finest faux fur and get ready for a bumpy but fabulous ride through New Jersey’s toniest, deadliest suburb.

Astrid Dahl’s The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey, a murder mystery set on a Housewives-style reality show, effectively straddles the line between dark humor and genuine suspense.

Children's & YA, YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction YA

The Queen’s Spade

Review by Tami Orendain

by Tami Orendain

Sarah, nicknamed Sally, is everything British society expects her to be: a polite, respectable, beautiful lady. An Egbado princess whom Queen Victoria claimed as a goddaughter, at 19 years old, Sally has learned to play the game of propriety and appearances. But it’s all in an effort to achieve her real goal: revenge against everyone who was involved with her violent removal from her homeland.

The Queen’s Spade blends fact and fiction to expand upon the heart-pounding history of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, a real historical figure. In 1862 England, amidst fraught discussions between the aristocracy about colonialism and abolition, Sally carefully makes her moves against a society that both adores and others her—one that traps everyone in webs of lies and betrayal, even those at the very top.

Intelligent and intuitive, Sally knows how to use status to her advantage. Other characters admire or envy her privileges, which include favor from the Queen, familiarity with the royal family, and financial and social support. But readers are granted a glimpse into Sally’s mind, where she feels the trauma and terror of having been ripped from her home and forced to adopt an entirely different culture, while her history as a member of the Yoruba tribe is belittled and erased.

As Sally navigates a cultural, social and economic landscape full of contradictions and double standards, The Queen’s Spade becomes an intense battle of wits. How can Sally use her environment to her advantage? What role will others play in her plan? From Rui, the mysterious leader of an underground network, to Harriet, a high-born courtier who anxiously lives in the shadow of her heritage, to Bertie, the cheeky and foolish prince, Sally is surrounded by people around whom she must maneuver to achieve her revenge. What are everyone’s motives, and who can she really trust? And, perhaps, most importantly: What is she willing to pay to achieve her revenge?

The Queen’s Spade introduces readers to an incredible true story and broadens it into a powerful tale that readers seeking historical fiction and high-stakes mystery are sure to enjoy.

The Queen’s Spade introduces readers to the incredible story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta and broadens it into a powerful tale that readers seeking historical fiction and high-stakes mystery are sure to enjoy.

European History, History, Nonfiction

Nonfiction History European History

The Many Lives of Anne Frank

Review by Roger Bishop

by Roger Bishop

Anne Frank’s account of the 761 days she and her family and others spent in hiding during World War II is one of the bestselling nonfiction works ever and the best-known work of Holocaust literature. In her richly rewarding and meticulously researched The Many Lives of Anne Frank, Ruth Franklin thoughtfully probes not only the life and writings of the young author but also details the complex history of publication and dramatization of Frank’s seminal work, The Diary of a Young Girl, and its global influence (it’s available in 70 languages). “Anne Frank,” writes Franklin, “has become not just a person . . . but a symbol: a secret door that opens into a kaleidoscope of meanings, most of which her legions of fans understand incompletely, if at all.”

The author of A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction and a biography of Shirley Jackson, for which she received the National Book Critics Circle Award, Franklin is well suited to excavate Frank’s life and legacy. “The most important misconception about Anne, with the longest lasting repercussions, has to do with the diary itself,” writes Franklin. It was not discovered after Frank’s death. In fact, it existed in three versions: The first is Anne’s rough draft; the second, the draft she hoped to publish (in response to a request from the Netherlands government); and the third, the first published version that is now taught in schools across the world. Franklin examines in detail how the three differ from one another. Anne’s father, the only one of the family who survived the concentration camps, edited that third draft after Frank’s miserable death from typhus at Bergen-Belsen. He insisted that any editing he did was what Anne would have wanted.

Some critics claim that The Diary of a Young Girl—and its adaptations to stage (in 1955) and screen (in 1959, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture)—does not emphasize Anne’s Jewishness enough, and instead creates a more humanist portrait, thus negating the unique and catastrophic experiences of Jews during the Holocaust. Still others attempt to ban the book from school and public libraries, deny the legitimacy of the diary and question whether the Holocaust happened altogether. Novelist Cynthia Ozick has written that Anne’s story has been “Americanized, homogenized, sentimentalized” and “falsified.” Some blame Otto Frank’s editing for softening the text and failing to confront the “brutal reality” of the Holocaust. For his part, Franklin writes, Otto “believed in the Diary as a beacon to promote international tolerance and peace.”

“It is precisely this chameleon-like quality that has made Anne’s story uniquely enduring,” writes Franklin. Indeed, The Many Lives of Anne Frank explores how Frank has been “understood and misunderstood, both as a person and as an idea.” This assiduously researched yet accessible text is an excellent companion to the work of Anne Frank that illuminates the young girl and her undeniable impact on the world’s understanding of this tragic time in history.

Ruth Franklin’s thoughtfully probing The Many Lives of Anne Frank illuminates the “kaleidoscope of meanings” ascribed to the titular author and her foundational work.

Children's, Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book Children's

The Interpreter

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

by Linda M. Castellitto

Although she’s just a kid, Cecilia has two full-time jobs: elementary school student, and interpreter for her Spanish-speaking parents.

In her picture book debut, The Interpreter, Olivia Abtahi (Twin Flames) has crafted an empathetic, gently humorous look at what it’s like to be a go-to translator in immigrant and/or multilingual families. Fittingly, The Interpreter is itself a multilingual book: cleverly conceived watercolor and pencil-crayon artwork by Monica Arnaldo (The Museum of Very Bad Smells) separates out languages by color. Orange word bubbles are for Spanish, blue for English and pink for Farsi when Cecilia’s family encounters another kid-interpreter.

Cecilia’s life has become overwhelmingly blue and orange, to her and her friends’ consternation. She’s a plucky, considerate child who beams when her mom says, “What would I do without you?” But while it’s rewarding to explain her sibling’s medical treatments, ensure the hairdresser doesn’t cut mom’s hair too short, and assist dad with his driver’s license photo (“No smiling. / Sin sonrisa.”), it’s also exhausting.

Not surprisingly, when a perceptive teacher inquires how she—just her, not her family—is doing, Cecilia loses her cool and releases her bottled-up frustration in a gloriously explosive double-page-spread: “I don’t want to run errands every day and wait at the DMV! I want to be outside, I want to play soccer . . . I want, I want, I want.” Her parents are shocked at her outburst, and then shocked at how Cecilia’s calendar has been overtaken by interpreting without their realizing. “I want to help,” Cecilia says,. “just not all the time.”

Abtahi does a stellar job of introducing the concepts of boundaries, self-advocacy and work-life balance while cautioning readers that being super-accommodating might result in being taken advantage of or overburdened, even by those who care about us. But asking for and accepting help can make things better for all involved: By the book’s happy end, Cecilia’s aunt and brother are pitching in with interpreting, she’s back to playing with friends and everybody is smiling—especially Cecilia.

Olivia Abtahi does a stellar job of introducing the concept of boundaries, while cautioning readers that being super-accommodating might result in being overburdened, even by those who care about us.

Black History, History, Nonfiction

Nonfiction History Black History

The Containment

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

by Deborah Hopkinson

For civil rights attorney and legal scholar Michelle Adams, the story of the fight to desegregate schools in metropolitan Detroit in the 1960s and early 1970s is personal. Born and raised in the city, she was introduced to the law early: Her father was one of only two Black graduates from the Detroit College of Law in 1957. She is now the Henry M. Butzel Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and has been an expert law commentator for documentaries about the Constitution and the Supreme Court.

As readers of The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North will discover, Adams is also a consummate storyteller with an in-depth understanding of her subject. She deftly illuminates the complex history and significance of the 1974 Supreme Court case Milliken v. Bradley, in which the court overturned a lower court ruling that had approved the desegregation of schools not only in urban Detroit, but in 53 districts throughout the wider metropolitan area. The higher court determined that the segregation that existed in suburban neighborhoods did not warrant the redrawing of school district lines to achieve integration because no intentional discriminatory acts by the districts could be proven. Adams effectively demonstrates that this decision put a stop to a visionary, holistic approach to integration—an approach that might have served as a model throughout the North.

The prologue opens in 2006, when Adams attended oral arguments at the Supreme Court, having filed an amicus curiae brief to support a Seattle school desegregation case (which ultimately failed). Some of the issues raised in that case, especially the question of how discriminative policies in housing and neighborhoods impact schools, made her think again of Milliken v. Bradley, a case she had often taught. She reflects on the many ways in which the promise of Brown v. Board of Education, which asserted that separate facilities cannot be equal, has largely been unfulfilled. Instead, policies and practices keep Black families contained in neighborhoods served by failing schools.

Adams’ riveting narrative sweeps readers into the effort to challenge Detroit’s separate and unequal school system in the 1960s and early 1970s. She digs deep to tell the story about a creative, hard-fought attempt at metropolitan desegregation, recounting how the court’s decision impacted the city, the activists and even the district judge who presided over Milliken v. Bradley in Michigan.

While The Containment reads at times like a legal thriller, Adams never loses sight of providing readers with broader historical context and what the failure of Milliken v. Bradley means for Americans today. Nevertheless, Adams is not without hope for the future. She concludes, “In 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court took us down the wrong path. But we can still choose another.”

Reading at times like a legal thriller, Michelle Adams’ The Containment sweeps readers into the effort to challenge Detroit’s separate and unequal school system.

Coming of Age, Debut Fiction, Fiction, Historical Fiction

Fiction Historical Fiction Debut Fiction Coming of Age

The English Problem

Review by Ember V. Tharpe

by Ember V. Tharpe

“This is how England claimed you—through its rain,” remarks Shiv Advani when he arrives in the country at London’s Victoria Station and finds “thin, fine icicles” pricking his skin. From these opening lines, Beena Kamlani introduces the primary conflict of her debut novel, The English Problem: the tension between the home we are from and the home we have chosen.

This detailed and informative work of historical fiction follows Shiv starting from his childhood in northern India in the 1920s. The doting son of political elites and later a semi-protege of Mahatma Gandhi himself, Shiv is staunchly dedicated to carrying out the wishes of his superiors. But once he arrives in England to study law and support Indian independence, he finds himself in settings where his ambition and his values clash. There lies the crux of Shiv’s journey. Through experiences in shame, violence, love and friendship, Shiv discovers his own moral compass. The direction it takes him in, however, is a departure from his intended path. From the halls of libraries to the quarters of lovers, readers see Shiv confront expectations, disappointment and new personal lessons against a backdrop of actual historical events.

Kamlani’s writing vividly brings us into Shiv’s experience through his senses. That said, the book may appeal more to readers who enjoy history and philosophy, due to its emphasis on both. In particular, conversations with historical figures, including the likes of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, E.M. Forster and Gandhi, give readers the opportunity to be immersed in some of the era’s ruling ideas.

The English Problem is a true bildungsroman, as Shiv feels out the lines between desire and obligation, and learns what it means to be at home. Readers will certainly enjoy its language and the subtle complexity of its themes.

Beena Kamlani’s detailed historical debut, The English Problem, follows an Indian man who journeys to England in the 1930s to study law and support Indian independence, but finds himself caught between his ambition, his heart and his values.

Contemporary Romance, Romance

Romance Contemporary Romance

The Broposal

Review by Katie Garaby

by Katie Garaby

The sweetest sparks fly when childhood friends agree to a marriage of convenience for the sake of a green card in The Broposal, the charming adult debut from Sonora Reyes, author of acclaimed YA novels The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School and The Luis Ortega Survival Club.

Alejandro (Han) and Kenny met in second grade during a contentious game of dodgeball, and they’ve been inseparable ever since. No one is surprised when they announce their engagement. In fact, most of their friends and family think it’s about time they made it official. The thing is, Han and Kenny are faking the whole thing so that Han can get a green card and become a U.S. citizen. If Han is going to fake marry anyone, it might as well be his lifelong bestie, who knows him better than anyone else. Sweet, sensitive Kenny would do anything to help his friend, and if it helps Han get over his toxic ex, Jackie, then all the better. But soon their fake relationship begins to feel all too real. With all their friends and family rooting for them, can these two bros dodge threats from the vengeful Jackie and immigration officers and make it down the altar for real?

Reyes doesn’t shy away from infusing this rom-com with very real and terrifying stakes. (Sensitive readers should consider reading the list of triggers in the Author’s Note.) On one hand, it is a complete delight to watch Han and Kenny dance around each other, completely oblivious to their true feelings and fooling no one but themselves. They adopt a cactus together, co-parent an adorable dog and support each other at every turn. Despite all of this, there is an almost constant hum of unease in the background, as their happiness is on shaky ground thanks to forces outside their control. While this worked for most of the narrative, at times it overwhelmed the story, since the odds against Han and Kenny are almost insurmountable. With Jackie as an almost cartoonish villain threatening their happiness at every turn (“Jackie” may replace “Karen” as a generic placeholder for horrible white women committed to being the worst), the additional threat that ICE presents to Han every time he leaves his house and a few other obstacles I won’t spoil, Han and Kenny do not have an easy road to happiness. But Reyes understands that queer joy is important: Even if we have to wait till the very last pages, their characters are going to get that hard-won HEA. Throughout The Broposal, Reyes effectively conveys the deep love that their characters have shared since they were young. So despite moments when everything feels bleak, that love is still palpable, and it’s clear that these two sweethearts are going to make it.

Fans of Reyes’ previous work will be excited for their adult debut and the chance for more from this talented author.

In their adult debut, Sonora Reyes infuses a rom-com with real and terrifying stakes.

Essays, Memoir, Nonfiction

Nonfiction Memoir Essays

Take My Name but Say It Slow

Review by Kelly Blewett

by Kelly Blewett

In his wide-ranging collection of essays, Take My Name but Say It Slow, debut author Thomas Dai reflects on the role of place and movement in forming his identity. Dai’s Chinese parents came to Tennessee to pursue academic advancement and work, and he grew up in a McMansion outside of Knoxville. His Chinese first name is Nuocheng, a portmanteau of Knoxville (Nuokeshiweier, in Chinese) and Chengdu (his mother’s hometown in China). This name, which was tucked behind the Americanized Thomas for his public life in the U.S., set the stage for a lifetime of traveling.

Dai’s essay collection tells various stories of this life in motion: a yearlong trip to China following his undergraduate education in New England, the attainment of a Master in the Fine Arts degree in Arizona, a road trip around the United States following the path of Vladimir Nabokov. Dai’s fundamental question is one of identity. What does it mean to grow up queer and Chinese American in Tennessee? How was his Asianness interpreted by those around him, and how does he interpret it himself? Though he travels to China often and for expanding lengths of time, Dai has no easy answers. Instead, he offers glimpses of what it feels like to see his Asian identity refracted in spaces that don’t seem to have room for it—“a yellow tinted image on a white, white sheet,” as he puts it when describing Mark Twain’s depiction of Asian characters.

Nonetheless, he does find echoes of himself: in his grandparents’ apartment in Chengdu, where he obsessively records everything, including the sound of his grandmother’s midnight prayers; and in Arizona, where he reflects on Chinese immigrants who made their way to the U.S. through the southern border; and, finally, in the beautiful essay “Southings,” which reflects on how it felt to be Asian in 1990s Tennessee. Through writing, Dai has sought to make his private thoughts public, to focus on ever-shifting interiors. He achieves an intimate travelogue that spans time, distance and desire. The reader begins to see Dai become himself. They can, as Dai puts it in his title, say his name, but say it slowly, and see the multiplicity of Dai’s origins and his possible destinations.

Thomas Dai’s intimate essay collection and travelogue, Take My Name but Say It Slow, reflects on his life growing up queer and Chinese American in Tennessee.

Children's, Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book Children's

No Purchase Necessary

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

by Linda M. Castellitto

Throughout Ajay Anthonipillai’s life thus far, he’s dutifully adhered to his Sri Lankan parents’ rules. Their 16-item list, displayed at the end of Maria Marianayagam’s winning and inventive No Purchase Necessary, includes things like “Straight As only,” “No friendships with the opposite sex” and “No working while you’re in school.”

Alas, ever since Ajay started eighth grade at Bridge Creek Middle School, he’s been struggling. At his previous school, kids called him “Obnoxious Ajay” because of his relentless academic competitiveness. Now that he’s grown up a bit, he’s more interested in making friends than viewing classmates as rivals, but he’s unsure how to go about it. So, when popular bully Jacob Underson hints they’ll become buddies if Ajay steals a Mercury bar from Al’s convenience store, Ajay shocks himself by actually doing it . . . only for Jacob to laughingly reject his offering, leaving him defeated and guilty. “How was this my life? What made me so unlikable? This year was supposed to be a fresh start.”

Adding to Ajay’s misery, he gets a 79% in language arts class and lies to his parents about it, drawing his sister Aarthi’s disapproval. A classmate, Mandy, seems friendly, but he’s nervous around her, and she gets better language arts grades (old habits die hard). And that chocolate bar, sold during a 25th anniversary promotion? It’s the winner of Mercury’s million-dollar grand prize. But how can he—legally, morally—claim a prize from stolen candy?

Ajay secretly gets a job at Al’s so he can destroy evidence of his crime. But as he gets to know Al while contending with a cascade of ethical dilemmas, his guilt intensifies, not least because his family could really use that money. Is there any way to cash in without betraying everything they’ve worked for?

No Purchase Necessary is an entertaining, thought-provoking read rife with suspenseful twists and turns and well-drawn characters, and enlivened by the witty, appealing voice of its protagonist. Marianayagam perfectly captures the emotional, social and moral minefields of middle school, and will have readers rooting for Ajay to find happiness as he figures out which rules serve him—and which are meant to be broken.

No Purchase Necessary is an entertaining, thought-provoking read rife with suspenseful twists and turns and well-drawn characters, and enlivened by the witty, appealing voice of its protagonist.

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We Do Not Part