Category: In Reading Color

Okay, so can we be real for a moment and acknowledge how, if those in power had believed Anita Hill in the ’90s about Clarence Thomas, we might not be in this mess today? Okay, cool. Here, Hill recounts her testifying against Thomas’ sexual deviancy as she gets into the origins and pervasiveness of gender-based violence in the U.S. She makes the case of how it not only affects its victims, but everyone. I have to say, her speaking out against a man of power concerning sexual misconduct in 1991 as a Black woman is fearless af and she needs every last one of her flowers.

This book shows how the women of the Hoopa Valley Tribe started to revitalize the traditional coming-of-age dance for women called the  Flower Dance. It’s a dance that, like many other aspects of Indigenous culture, hadn’t been practiced in decades. To recover the dance, the women consult their elders, medicine women, oral histories, and even museum archives. Baldy discusses the revitalization of the dance within the context of colonization and the gender inequality— and therefore gender violence— that came with it. There are many parallels between Indigenous women’s experiences with being controlled through reproduction and Black women’s. With both groups, the U.S. government has flip-flopped between forced birth and forced sterilization, with a dose of separating children from families thrown in between.

I wanted to include a novel since I feel like seeing something through the eyes of the characters helps to make it more real and current for some. Also, this one takes place in the summer before Roe v Wade. It’s about four teenage girls from different backgrounds who are all dealing with unplanned pregnancies. Ola is a teen in rural Georgie who is pregnant, the responsibility of which falls on her younger sister Izella. Then there’s Missippi, who hasn’t fully realized the gravity of her situation. Missippi’s father sends her to Chicago to give birth and it’s there that she meets Susan, who is white and whose father is an anti-choice politician.

I’ve written in another newsletter about how Miaojin was Taiwan’s first openly lesbian writer who was active in the late ’80s/early 90s. And Notes of a Crocodile seems autobiographical. In it, the alienation college student Lazi feels because of her attraction to women leads to severe depression. The novel is structured as eight notebooks, which detail Lazi’s romantic struggles, as well as the lives of her complicated friends. This is a queer coming-of-age novel that is more character than plot based and really captures the essence of feeling alienated from others. Miaojin wasn’t able to see her novel achieve cult classic status, sadly, as she passed away in ’95.

This won the 2019 Lambda award for bisexual fiction and is both a family saga and story of Iranian history. Kimiâ Sadr serves as narrator and is the youngest daughter in a family of intellectuals who speak out against the government. She jumps back and forth through time, telling a story that juxtaposes her current experience with her family’s past, effectively telling Iran’s past in the process. While waiting in a fertility clinic in France, where she and her family fled to when she was ten, she recounts her childhood as a person descended from a harem. The story’s many characters, changing timelines, and historical events are tragic at times, but can also be funny, with Sadr occasionally breaking the fourth wall.

San is a young woman in South Korea in 1970s who first faces rejection from her parents, and the stigma of her father having left, and later rejection from the one person who made her feel less alone. Now 22 and working in a florist’s shop, San continues to struggle with relationships, partially because how things ended with her childhood friend still haunts her.

Listen, Lucie is done waiting around to find the right guy to be in a relationship and co-parent with. So, after a nasty breakup leaves her childless, she decides to just find someone to raise a kid with and call it a day. The co-parenting website she goes on helps her come into contact with Collin Read, who shares a culture with her, and, most importantly, is ready to be a dad. Once she becomes pregnant, the two go back to Singapore and to her disapproving parents. They’re not the only ones to contend with, though, there’s also the way her body’s changing, work pressures, and an ex-fiance who pops up. Messy.

Here, Yong, who won a Pulitzer for his reporting on COVID-19, has us take a step out of our own experiences. He details ways the world is perceived by living things other than humans, including the, um, interesting organs that do the sensing (apparently there are animals with eyes on their genitals, which sounds… inconvenient). There are turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that send out electrical messages into rivers, and squids that can see sparkling whales. I love books like this that make us question everything we know about life. So much of what we know to be true is actually just based on our senses — and even what we know we can’t perceive. This book shows how our senses aren’t to be trusted, which means that so much of what we know to be true may actually just be… what? Constructs, I guess?

Another interesting point the author makes: that each organism is capable of sensing only a small fraction of what is able to be perceived in the world. It reminds me of how humans are connected to other living things, and how we’re all needed in order to perceive the world.

Hopefully J. Patterson will pick up a copy of this one for himself. In it, Kendi continues to spread the word of anti-racism and its importance. With this book, he uses his wife’s experience with negligent maternal care and his daughter’s preschool years as starting points for talking about the importance of anti-racist work for children. Racism’s effects may start with children, but can impact us throughout our entire lives. By fighting against it — which would mean overhauling the education and health systems, according to Kendi — we can ensure a better quality of life for everyone. I like how he includes a lot of personal stories and shows how he’s made mistakes and had to reconsider how he did things.

The Silence that Binds Us by Joanna Ho

Echoes of Grace by Guadalupe Garcia McCall

The Loophole by Naz Kutub

Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe

The Sizzle Paradox by Lily Menon

The Self-Made Widow by Fabian Nicieza

This book is a natural place to start, especially since it came out about a month before Juneteenth became a federal holiday. In it, Reed details the history of Juneteenth— what led up to it and what came after. I love it when historical topics get a more personal treatment, and here, Reed includes her personal ties to the holiday as a native Texan. She reckons with the white male identity that a lot of Texas projects to the rest of the country, showing instead how diverse Texas is and how much non white men have contributed to its— and the rest of America’s— history.

A part from both being key moments in American history, the Tulsa Massacre and Juneteenth have a few things in common. For one, they both took place in June. Secondly, and maybe most importantly, they were two moments in U.S. history concerning the treatment of Black people that have largely been ignored until recent years.

Angel of Greenwood is a historical YA novel that follows two characters that kind of represent two of the major schools of thought regarding Black progress. Sixteen-year-old Angel is a quiet church girl who thinks that Booker T. Washington’s idea of tolerance and slow growth without conflict is best for Black people. This is contrasted against Seventeen-year-old Isaiah’s belief that Black people should rise up and take their place alongside white people, which originated with W.E.B. Du Bois. The two kids are thrown together once their teacher recruits them to work in her mobile library, but their entire lives are irrevocably changed once a violent white mob descends on their town on May 31, 1921.

This is one those historical novels that we need more of. While it takes place in New York City during the Reconstruction Era— which is right after Juneteenth— its portrayal of Black life isn’t mired in slavery and ill treatment. While these things are of course understandably present in stories about Black people during this time, it gets tiring when that’s the only narrative offered. Here, Libertie Sampson was born free in Brooklyn and lives with her mother, one of the only Black women practicing as a doctor. Her mother has a plan for Liberty to follow in her footsteps by becoming a doctor and practicing alongside her. Libertie has her own ideas, though, preferring the arts to science. She accepts a proposal by a young Haitian doctor, who promises she’ll be his equal in Haiti, but tests determine that was a lie. I would have been beyond tight after traveling all that way to Haiti to discover everything was a sham.

Libertie is in a constant quest to discover what freedom means for her as she navigates the gender discrimination and racism of the world at large, as well as the classism and colorism present in her own community. Plus, Roxane Gay gave this five stars on Goodreads, so there’s that.

This one isn’t out for a couple more weeks, but I’m super excited for it! It’s the first in a fantasy trilogy based in African and Arabian mythology. In it, three women take on an empire that bases social standing on blood. Blue bloods, like Sylah, are poor workers who lead the resistance, while red blooded people like Anoor wield magic that has allowed them to secure control and an elite status. Finally, clear-blooded people, like Hassa, are enslaved. Despite coming from different social classes, the women provide the spark that brings about revolution.

Jacob’s parents are hoping to boost their Delicatessen’s profile when the unthinkable happens: Jacob is caught on video trying to cross the Korean demilitarized zone that lies between North and South Korea. Jacob is arrested and the video goes viral, plunging his family into a well of suspicion. The gag? Jacob is being possessed by his grandfather, who’s desperate to cross back into North Korea and reunite with the family he left behind. As his parents worry about their livelihood and whether their son will be released, his sister copes by smoking weed more and more. Meanwhile, none of them know of the possession. This is funny at times and has what I think is a pretty original premise that allows for new ways to look at family history and dysfunction.

Ifeakandu’s debut collection has nine stories about gay men in Nigeria. Each one adds a nuanced and compassionate perspective to queer, African narratives. In the first story, Auwal tries to get help with money troubles from his lover, Chief Emeka, even though he’s not sure he can fully trust the man. In the title story, two boys in college hang on to their romance, even as the pressures of societal expectations threatens it. Throughout, characters experience joy and passion, even as they very carefully navigate danger, and Ifeakandu is good at putting readers in the minds of his queer characters in a modern-day Nigeria.

If you’ve ever wondered about wuxia fantasy, this novella is wuxia lite. In it, a nun from the Pure Moon Order joins a group of thieves *clutches pearls*. With this new ragtag team of criminals, she hopes to protect a sacred object. While the characters live in a time of war, they still manage to find happiness through found family, humor, and queer joy. Cho writing is lyrical and the magic in her world subversive.

I haven’t been recommending too many graphic novels in this newsletter, so let me start remedying that by recommending this slice-of-life manga! For those of you unfamiliar, slice-of-life is essentially just as it sounds: you’re following characters who are doing everyday things. As someone who has always gravitated towards the fantastical as far as books are concerned, I’ve only just began to get more into this quiet genre and realized how much I like it. It’s low-key, low-stakes, and very relaxing for me. And, in the case of The Way of the Househusband, it’s also pretty funny.

Main character Tatsu provides a good portion of the comic relief as a former member of the yakuza who now spends his days as a loving househusband to his wife Miku. Turns out you can take the husband out of the yakuza, but you can’t take the yakuza out of the husband. Tatsu’s natural aesthetic and demeanor are just a little too gangster-adjacent and still reflect his time as the much-feared “Immortal Dragon.” And, his facial expressions still make people sweat. They’re also just a little out of place in the clearance section of the grocery store. Tatsu brings a hilarious intensity to the most mundane and everyday househusband chores, and it’s fun to watch him interact with his neighbors.

“Get you a man who can do both! “—Miku, probably

*Bonus*: here’s an ode to the hilariously scary ex-gangster boss.

This is a contemporary and Muslim Pride and Prejudice retelling that tells the story of Ayesha Shamsi. Ayesha dreams of being a poet, but has to sideline that path so she can work as a teacher to pay back money she owes to her uncle. She also has to contend with constant reminders that her causing Hafsa is getting all the marriage proposals. Sheesh.

When she comes to meet the ultra traditional (but handsome) Khalid, the two are turned off from each other, and, well, you know how the rest goes if you’re familiar with Pride and Prejudice. While this is a retelling of a story that’s commonly retold, it breathes new life into it. Ayesha’s poetry-writing, bold character is likable, and her family members entertaining. Plus, Talia Hibbert, author of Get a Life, Chloe Brown, said it’s super romantic, which makes its romantic-ness a scientific fact.

This is a fun romp through a gothic and Vietnamese-inspired fantastical world. When someone is found dead nearby, dragon Prince Thuan grudgingly finds himself once again in the thick of it, politically speaking. While Thuan is salty, his messy fallen angel husband Asmodeus is actually enjoying the investigation. With Thuan’s wit and Asmodeus’ fighting skills, the two try to solve the murder… but their relationship also needs “solving.”

Feyi Adekola’s best friend Joy, who she shares a brownstone with, has convinced her that it’s time to start dating again. The last time Feyi was with anyone was five years ago when an accident killed her husband. Now, Feyi is having a steamy lil something-something at a rooftop party with a man she just met. Probably not what her friend had in mind, but anyway… Since the encounter, Feyi has become open to other men and starts to explore new love interests, even as she is still contending with grief.

After the Korean War, Dr. Yungman Kwak left everything he knew behind in Korea when he immigrated to the U.S. For the last few decades, he’s done his best to achieve the American DreamTM in a small Minnesotan town as a doctor delivering babies. That is, until drama arrives in the form of a letter that threatens to expose the truth about who he is. Now he’s questioning all his life choices, and even if what America promised him is even real amidst all the ways the U.S. fails its citizens. This books travels back and forth in time and has a dark sense of humor.

Loulie al-Nazari finds and sells illegal magic with the help of her jinn bodyguard. One day she saves the life of a prince and attracts the attention of his sultan father, who blackmails her into finding a priceless item lest she be executed. The item in question is an ancient lamp that has the power to restore barren land, but that comes at the cost of all jinn. So, she sets out with the sultan’s oldest son to find the lamp, encountering ghouls, a jinn queen, and her and her bodyguard’s pasts along the way.

I love a good fantasy adventure, and am super excited to read one that has One Thousand and One Nights teas!

This is from almost twenty years ago and still wholly relevant. I largely credit the realization about capitalism and this book with my thoughts around how our current state is directly tied to slavery. Here, Roberts explains how the fight for— and oppression of— reproductive rights in the United States started with enslaved Black women. She talks about how the regulation of Black women’s reproduction has “been a central aspect of racial oppression in America.” Case in point, one of the United States’ first laws concerned the social status of the child of enslaved women and white men. She goes on to talk about other aspects of reproductive health, like contraception, abortion, and sterilization, in the modern day and how all of these things have been used at some point to control Black women’s reproduction as a way to control Black people overall.

The U.S. was, of course, started with taking control of the land, which meant displacing entire populations of Indigenous people. Then, further control was exerted by breaking up families and sending children to residential schools, and eventually forcing BIPOC into certain areas that were disproportionately affected by environmental issues. Gilio-Whitaker talks about how Indigenous people, especially women, have been fighting against white supremacy— and the food and water insecurity, loss of sacred sites, and treaty violations it has brought— since the colonizers first came ashore.

There is a lot packed into this 152-page nod to James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. Coates describes the feeling of disembodiment that Black Americans have felt for so long. He writes a letter to his son explaining the feeling and how it’s tied to police brutality, racist narratives, poverty and other aspects of systemic racism. He also tells his son to expand past the narrative and reclaim/claim himself.