Everything Sad is Untrue: (a true story). Audiobook

 

Rating: 4 out of 5 | a coming of age story that we have not yet heard

My Thoughts:

Plot/Theme--

This coming of age story, read by the author, is an interesting look into what it is like to grow up as an Iranian immigrant in middle America, specifically in Oklahoma. Khosrou, called Daniel by the white people, is a middle schooler in Oklahoma. His stories, long winded and tumbling like the tornadoes of Oklahoma, are likened to the kinds of stories Sheherazade must have told in One Thousand and One Nights. In other words, these stories  sound fantastically horrible and fictional, and yet I think they are told by 12-year old Daniel, as a way to live another day in this hostile classroom.

He uses the middle school strategy of talking about gross things like poop and blood, but in a way that is poetic and heartbreaking. . . because yes, we know that this is true. When Khosrou continues to emphasize why his mother is unstoppable, as well as how his father is immovable, it is heartbreaking. 

Recommendation --

As this child's culture is not familiar to me, and probably to most middle schoolers in Hawai'i, the audiobook, either as a read along or standalone, is the best introduction to this "window" memoir. Readers need to hear the patois of the author and how he pronounces those names and words that are not foreign to him, but foreign to our eyes and ears. That is the best way to respect his story. 

From the Publisher:

At the front of a middle school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls "Daniel") stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much. But Khosrou's stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the
moment his family fled Iran in the middle of the night with the secret police moments behind them, back to the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy...and further back to the fieldsnear the river Aras, where rain-soaked flowers
bled red like the yolk of the sunset had burst over everything, and further back still to the jasmine-scented city of Isfahan. Like Scheherazade in a hostile classroom, Daniel weaves a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. And it is (a true story).

Publication Information:

• Author/Narrator: Daniel Nayeri
• Publisher: Listening Library
• Release Date: August 25, 2020

The Emperor of Gladness

Rating: 4 out of 5 This is an adult novel - complex, poetic. It languishes in a continuous cycle of tragedy and hope.

My Thoughts:

With a name like Ocean Vuong, I expected the writing to be poetic -- and it really is. Sentences and phrases stopped me; I had to catch my breath. The author is a word caster.  It begins with Hai, the protagonist, set to commit suicide; but across the river is Grazina, a widow who convinces him to come and talk to her.  He never leaves. 

The journey of Grazina and Hai, who she calls Labas, is a journey through dementia, loneliness, despair, and hope. He is hiding out after lying to his immigrant mother about going to medical school, while also acting as a caretaker to another man's mother. 

 This is about mundane lives. This is about living outside the liminal edges of the American dream, not just as immigrants,  but also as the uneducated, the poor, and the marginalized. 

I was curious about the title, expecting a "big win" that never quite happens. However, I did some research into reviews and scholarly articles, and it seems like the title could be a nod to the Wallace Stevens poem "The Emperor of Ice-Cream."  As Austin Allen notes in the Poetry Foundation, the connection provides a haunting perspective on reality and appearance.

Finally, some of the quotes I had to write down:

“Words cast spells. You should know this as a writer. That's why it's called spelling, Labas.”

 “How strange to feel something so close to mercy, whatever that was, and stranger still that it should be found here of all places, at the end of a road of ruined house by a toxic river. That among a pile of salvaged trash, he would come closest to all he ever wanted to be: a consciousness sitting under a lightbulb reading his days away, warm and alone, alone and yet, somehow, still somebody's son.”

From the Publisher:

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.

Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing – formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness – are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.

Publication Information:

• Author: Ocean Vuong
• Narrator: James Aaron Oh
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: May 13, 2025
• Listening length: 14 hours and 5 minutes

How to Build a Fashion Icon: Notes on Confidence

Rating: 3 for a memoir that teaches some powerful rules on self efficacy and confidence

My Thoughts:

If you are into fashion, you will of course know Law Roach and Zendaya. However, the best way to read the book is to listen to the audiobook and have Law Roach read his words. I started reading it because he was one of the new judges on Project Runway (when Heidi Klum also came back to host). Law is brutal but speaks slowly and clearly. He knows what he likes and what he does not like. His taste level and eye for fashion that suits a certain body type is trusted by many women of different sizes.  

Learn about his travel up into the fashion world, going from faking it till he makes it, to being able to retire early.

From the Publisher:

Law Roach is the mastermind behind looks that have broken the Internet time and again—from Zendaya at the Met Gala to Anya Taylor-Joy at the Golden Globes, from Lewis Hamilton’s iconic streetwear to Céline Dion’s style renaissance. Nobody knows better than Law how to turn an outfit into a moment of fashion history.

In a little over a decade, he’s gone from industry outsider to the most celebrated name in style, having been honored two consecutive years with the Hollywood Reporter’s prestigious Stylist of the Year award and receiving the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s inaugural Stylist Award in 2022.

Now, for the first time ever, Law shares the secrets of his approach. With How to Build a Fashion Icon, he takes readers behind the scenes of his process and journey, revealing his tips, tricks, and most memorable styling moments to show readers how to live their most iconic and fashionable lives.

Part self-help guide, part manifesto, this book guides readers step-by-step through that process, and along the way, Law weaves in personal anecdotes—from his childhood in the Southside of Chicago to the first time he styled Zendaya—with practical exercises to help readers cultivate the most essential feature of iconic style: confidence.

Publication Information:

Author: Law Roach

Narrator: Law Roach

Publisher: Recorded Books (Oct 01, 2024)

Listening length: 5 hours 15 minutes

 

Lies and Weddings: Audiobook

 

Rating: 3 stars for a fun summer romp. Not much thinking, lots of spilling the tea and overdramatic Chinese mothers

My Thoughts:

Think Crazy Rich Asians, (also by Kevin Kwan) but the next generation of Eurasian (hapa) cousins in Europe, Hawaiʻi, Los Angeles. . . with the hovering parents trying to make matches to shore up their crumbling old money finances, parental overspending, and tom foolery. 

There is a  Jack London quote about the fact that Hawaiʻi is only a paradise for the very rich. True. The rest of us just labor here without access to the parts of our stolen lands that actually are the real "Eden." I am glad that the real Eden Tong is so lovely and unabashedly humble. Good for her! 

From the Publisher:

Rufus Leung Gresham, future Earl of Greshambury and son of a former Hong Kong supermodel has a problem: the legendary Gresham Trust has been depleted by decades of profligate spending, and behind all the magazine covers and Instagram stories manors and yachts lies nothing more than a gargantuan mountain of debt. The only solution, put forth by Rufus’s scheming mother, is for Rufus to attend his sister’s wedding at a luxury eco-resort, a veritable who’s-who of sultans, barons, and oligarchs, and seduce a woman with money.

Should he marry Solène de Courcy, a French hotel heiress with honey blond tresses and a royal bloodline? Should he pursue Martha Dung, the tattooed venture capital genius who passes out billions like lollipops? Or should he follow his heart, betray his family, squander his legacy, and finally confess his love to the literal girl next door, the humble daughter of a doctor, Eden Tong? When a volcanic eruption burns through the nuptials and a hot mic exposes a secret tryst, the Gresham family plans—and their reputation—go up in flames.

Can the once-great dukedom rise from the ashes? Or will a secret tragedy, hidden for two decades, reveal a shocking twist?

In a globetrotting tale that takes us from the black sand beaches of Hawaii to the skies of Marrakech, from the glitzy bachelor pads of Los Angeles to the inner sanctums of England’s oldest family estates, Kevin Kwan unfurls a juicy, hilarious, sophisticated and thrillingly plotted story of love, money, murder, sex, and the lies we tell about them all.

Publication Information:

Author: Kevin Kwan

Narrator: Jing Lusi

Publisher: Audible Books (May 21, 2024)

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter (Audiobook)

 

Stars: 5 for the potential to use this in a high school class

From the Publisher:

Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents’ house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family.

But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga’s role.

Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed.

But it’s not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister’s story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal?

My Thoughts:

Julia (Wholeeah) has American parent expectations from her Mexican immigrant parents. Think the mother from Like Water for Chocolate, but with a YA second daughter and in America. Her parents are immigrant parents, with first generation difficulties and struggles. They also have certain expectations that were brought over from their own country. Julia struggles with these non-American expectations because she wants to live like any American teen. She wants to not have everything figured out. She wants her parents to be ok with that, and as long Julia has her older sister Olga continued to be the good Mexican daughter, then Julia was ok. But when Olga gets killed in a pedestrian accident, Julia is full of anger. She finds something in Olga's room, and she just cannot let it go. This is where the text gets a little heavy handed. Julia is irritating in her immaturity, in the same way that I found Laura Jean Song irritating in To All the Boys I've Loved Before. Still, many young readers enjoyed it and I think they will like this one too.

In the classroom:

There are many standards that will fit this book:

• Determine a text's theme or central idea
• Analyze complex characters
• Analyze a case in which another culture is being portrayed
• For literature circles - if you want similar books try:
• The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
• Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
• Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan

 Publication Information:

Author: Erika L. Sanchez

Narrator: Kyla Garcia

Publisher: Listening Library October 17, 2017

Dragonfruit (audiobook)

 Stars: 5 for must have lit in the classroom. 

My Thoughts:

I am excited about this Pasi fika, girl-power fantasy. Finally, a "Moana" for the YA crowd. It is so difficult to find the right fit for middle level and high school students in Pasifika literature, but this is it. Buy this. Read this. Create curriculum around this. Add this to dystopian literature circles. This reminded me of The Golden Compass His Dark Materials in the use of a daemon. This reminded me of Moana in the appearance of a tattoo. There are just too many things that I loved about this book. I cannot give away too much. Suffice it to say, this is a must buy. 

In addition, if you get the audiobook, read by Mapuana Makia, the Hawaiian/Polynesian names, even some of the creole is spot on, which is why I am highlighting the audiobook rather than the written book. 

From the Publisher:

In the old tales, it is written that the egg of a seadragon, dragonfruit, holds within it the power to undo a person’s greatest sorrow. But as with all things that offer hope when hope had gone, the tale came with a warning.

Every wish demands a price.

Hanalei of Tamarind is the cherished daughter of an old island family. But when her father steals a seadragon egg meant for an ailing princess, she is forced into a life of exile. In the years that follow, Hanalei finds solace in studying the majestic seadragons that roam the Nominomi Sea. Until, one day, an encounter with a female dragon offers her what she desires most. A chance to return home, and to right a terrible wrong.

Samahtitamahenele, Sam, is the last remaining prince of Tamarind. But he can never inherit the throne, for Tamarind is a matriarchal society. With his mother ill and his grandmother nearing the end of her reign. Sam is left with two choices: to marry, or to find a cure for the sickness that has plagued his mother for ten long years. When a childhood companion returns from exile, she brings with her something he has not felt in a very long time—hope.

But Hanalei and Sam are not the only ones searching for the dragonfruit. And as they battle enemies both near and far, there is another danger they cannot escape…that of the dragonfruit itself.

Publication Information:

Author: Makiia Lucier

Narrator: Mapuana Makia

Publisher: Audible.com (April 9, 2024)

Listening length: 8 hours 12 minutes

Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me

 

Stars: 3 a good author-read memoir. She sounds like she is having a conversation with you. Her personality comes through

From the Publisher:

If it weren’t for Emma Johnson, Caryn Johnson would have never become Whoopi Goldberg. Emma gave her children the loving care and wisdom they needed to succeed in life, always encouraging them to be true to themselves. When Whoopi lost her mother in 2010—and then her older brother, Clyde, five years later—she felt deeply alone; the only people who truly knew her were gone.

Emma raised her children not just to survive, but to thrive. In this intimate and heartfelt memoir, Whoopi shares many of the deeply personal stories of their lives together for the first time. Growing up in the projects in New York City, there were trips to Coney Island, the Ice Capades, and museums, and every Christmas was a magical experience. To this day, she doesn’t know how her mother was able to give them such an enriching childhood, despite the struggles they faced—and it wasn’t until she was well into adulthood that Whoopi learned just how traumatic some of those struggles were.

Fans of personal memoirs such as Finding Me by Viola Davis and In Pieces by Sally Field will be touched by Bits and Pieces: a moving tribute from a daughter to her mother, and a beautiful portrait of three people who loved each other deeply. Whoopi writes, “Not everybody gets to walk this earth with folks who let you be exactly who you are and who give you the confidence to become exactly who you want to be. So, I thought I’d share mine with you.”

My Thoughts:

It is not as powerful as Michelle Obamaʻs Becoming, or Viola Davisʻ Finding Me: A Memoir, however, this is a  posthumous love letter to her mother and her brother, full of gratitude and humor. What is comforting is that the reader is left with the feeling that nothing has been left unsaid when these two important figures in Whoopi's life were alive. 

Publication Information:

Author: Whoopi Goldberg

Narrator: Whoopi Goldberg

Narration length: 6 hours, 43 minutes

Publisher: Audible.com (May 7, 2024)

Raybearer: Audiobook

 

4 stars: Good if you like fantasy, magic, a different kind of world building, afrofuturism.

My Thoughts:

“You don’t have to help me change the world. But you mark my words; when I get going, this world will change. And you can be a part of that...or you can stand back and watch.”

16 year old Tarisai wants a family, wants to love and be loved. But the Lady, her mother, who for some reason I thought was a figment of her imagination, has other ideas for Tarisai. When Tarisai tries to kill the crown prince who she actually loves, she has to do what she needs to do to actually stop being a pawn and remove herself from all hope of family, love and goodness. Readers will feel for her as she fights for love. It is more than a 16 year old should bear.

The storytelling is lush and diverse for YA readers who are used to reading western centered novels. I think that is why I say it is a kind of world building. As our own country is in turmoil and unrecognizable as a civilization and nation of dreamers, it is good to be in a different culture and world to escape. This is a good escape. 

As far as the narrator, this was an easy listen, even at 13  plus hours. 

From the Publisher:

Nothing is more important than loyalty. But what if you’ve sworn to protect the one you were born to destroy?

Tarisai has always longed for the warmth of a family. She was raised in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as the Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the crown prince’s Council of Eleven. If she’s picked, she’ll be joined with the other council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere. But the Lady has other ideas, including a magical wish that Tarisai is compelled to obey: kill the crown prince once she gains his trust. Tarisai won’t stand by and become someone’s pawn - but is she strong enough to choose a different path for herself?

With extraordinary world-building and breathtaking prose, Raybearer is the story of loyalty, fate, and the lengths we’re willing to go for the ones we love.

Publication Information:

Author: Jordan Ifueko

Narrator: Joniece Abbott-Pratt

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing (August 18, 2020)

Listening Length: 13 hours, 48 minutes

Funeral Girl: Audiobook

 

My Thoughts:

The premise of this book is intriguing if you were captured by the premise of the television show Pushing Daisies, a comedy-drama show (2007-2009) where a pastry chef with the power to bring dead people back to life solves murder mysteries with his resurrected childhood sweetheart. 

In Funeral Girl, Georgia Richter is able to awaken the spirit of the departed, find out what they want help with, then retouch them so that they go to some unknown place in the afterlife. 

Her parents run the Richter Funeral Home and she and her twin, in high school, help the family run the home, which is how she has access to the dead bodies. When her classmate Miloʻs body comes to the funeral home, he asks her not to send him anywhere, so Milo and Georgia spend the novel on a ethical, moral and spiritual journey to cope with grief, mortality, suffering, betrayal and forgiveness. Georgia learns that everyone is coping the best way they know how, and grief must be faced and felt.  

From the Publisher:

With one touch of any body that passes through Richter Funeral Home, Georgia Richter can awaken the spirit of the departed. With one more touch, she makes the spirit disappear to a fate that remains mysterious to her. To cope with her deep anxiety about death, she does her best to fulfill the final wishes of the deceased whose ghosts she briefly revives. 

Then her classmate Milo's body arrives at Richter—and his spirit wants help with unfinished business, forcing her to reckon with her relationship to grief and mortality.

Publication Information:

Author: Emma K. Ohland

Narrator: Jess Nahikian

Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC (September 06, 2022)

Apple: Skin to the Core (audiobook)

 

My Thoughts:

This audiobook, read by the author, Eric Gansworth, is a memoir of radical honesty. The author writes about his growing all the stereotypes and trauma of the indigenous people as a whole, but told from within his own story and coming of age within this environment.

His stories are heartbreaking and honest, but when he starts reciting his rhyming poetry, it diminished the power of his prose. I was all in until then. Three stars for the audiobook and an extra star for being an indigenous author telling an indigenous story.

From the Publisher:

The term Apple is a slur in Native communities across the country. It's for someone supposedly red on the outside, white on the inside.

Eric Gansworth is telling his story in Apple (Skin to the Core). The story of his family, of Onondaga among Tuscaroras, of Native folks everywhere. From the horrible legacy of the government boarding schools, to a boy watching his siblings leave and return and leave again, to a young man fighting to be an artist who balances multiple worlds.

Eric shatters that slur and reclaims it in verse and prose and imagery that truly lives up to the word heartbreaking.

Publication Information:

Author/Narrator: Eric Gansworth

Audio Publisher: Dreamscape Media LLC (Oct 6 2020)

Anger is a Gift Audiobook

 

My Thoughts:

Similar to urban contemporary books like The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, I Rise by Marie Arnold, This is My America Kim Johnson, and Dear Martin by Nic Stone. What makes this different, though is that Mark Oshiro is not black, nor a female like the authors I mentioned. Mark Oshiro (they/them) is a LatinX, Japanese, queer YA author.  Here is what stands out about this book as well as why I have it with these other diversify your bookshelf, social justice books. He is with these other authors because although the protagonist, Moss or Morris Jefferies Jr. is black and queer, it is not about being black in America, or even being queer in America. It is about continuing to survive through racism, social injustice, marginalization, trauma. Surviving is not enough though. Not wanting to jump off a building is not enough. This book, like the others is about YA characters fighting for a human experience and wanting to be seen as heard as individuals. 

The frustration was so sharp that I had to stop but Moss is a character that readers want to love and protect. It is a frustratingly brutal read. Read it (or listen to it) any way.

From the Publisher:

Six years ago, Moss Jefferies' father was murdered by an Oakland police officer. Along with losing a parent, the media's vilification of his father and lack of accountability has left Moss with near crippling panic attacks. Now, in his sophomore year of high school, Moss and his fellow classmates find themselves increasingly treated like criminals in their own school. New rules. Random locker searches. Constant intimidation and the Oakland Police Department stationed in their halls. Despite their youth, the students decide to organize and push back against the administration. 

When tensions hit a fever pitch and tragedy strikes, Moss must face a difficult choice: give in to fear and hate or realize that anger can actually be a gift.

Publication Information:

Author/Narrator: Mark Oshiro 

Publisher: MacMillan Audio (May 22, 2018)

Finding Me: a memoir

 

My Thoughts:

I do not have to have read this book to know that this is a fabulous book. I feel privileged to hear Viola Davis narrate her own story of abject poverty and hunger, struggle, anxiety, heart break and shame. This is a powerful, powerful memoir. I feel like I see her now, not as an actress, but as a real person. Why? Because I found myself sobbing as I was driving home. I found myself listening to her tell her story rather than call my husband as I navigated through after work traffic. 

I borrowed this audiobook from my local library and there was no waiting list. I feel blessed. Maybe other patrons have already heard it. Maybe I just got lucky, because when I went to return it early, there was already someone waiting.

This is the memoir of the year for me. There is no doubt. 

Honey don't try to label or define me, cuz I'm not w ho I was ten years ago or ten minutes ago. I'm all of that and then some. And whereas I can't live inside yesterday's pain, I can't live without it.

From the Publisher:

In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever.

This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.

As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.

Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you. 

Publication Information:

Author: Viola Davis

Narrated by: Viola Davis

Audiobook Publisher: Harper Audio (April 26, 2022)

Mexican White Boy Audiobook

 

My Thoughts:

Matt de la Peña has a way with Mexican American male characters who are searching for themselves, searching for their identity and where they belong. His books are easy to put in the hands of my males because he usually writes about sports. In this case, Danny is a baseball player and has the potential to be a great pitcher except for his self imposed walls that get in his way. In addition, de la Peña is a great author for males because he knows how to cut the heaviness with boy humor. 

As an audiobook, Henry Leyva, the narrator, understands the rhythm of de la Peña's characters. My husband and I started listening to this audiobook as we were doing a long drive and several times, the language was so good and the narrator was so authentic that we would repeat the line out loud together, as if we were just giving the punchline to an inside joke.  

Get this on Sora for your students.

From the Publisher:

Danny's tall and skinny. Even though he's not "built", his arms are long enough to give his pitch a power so fierce that any college scout would sign him on the spot. Ninety-five-mile-an-hour fastball, but the boy's not even on a team. Every time he gets up on the mound, he loses it. Ball ends up so far out of the strike zone it's laughable.

But at his private school, they don't expect much else from him. Danny's brown. Half-Mexican brown. And growing up in San Diego, that close to the border, means everyone knows exactly who he is before he even opens his mouth. Before they find out he can't speak Spanish, and before they realize his mom has blond hair and blue eyes, they've got him pegged. But it works the other way too. And Danny's convinced it's his whiteness that sent his father back to Mexico.

That's why he's spending the summer with his dad's family. Only, to find himself, he may just have to face the demons he refuses to see - the demons that are right in front of his face. And open up to a friendship he never saw coming.

Set in the alleys and on the ball fields of San Diego County, Mexican WhiteBoy is a story of friendship, acceptance, and the struggle to find your identity in a world of definitions.

Publication Information:

Author: Matt de la Peña

Narrator: Henry Leyva

Release date: September 10, 2013

Listening Length: 7 hours 20 minutes

The Family Chao: Audiobook

My Thoughts:

This audiobook kept me company as I cleaned out my apartment and made the drives back and forth from work to the two different houses.  I did not know prior to listening that this was inspired by The Brothers Karamazov, but the pacing, and the way the characters seem stuck to the environment does seem more like Russian literature. 

I enjoyed the seven plus hours of going through this mystery even though the mystery still remains a mystery to me. However, the three stars is more because this is not really for my audience. It just so happened that I had time to immerse myself in this and was not really concerned about getting to some kind of conclusion. In addition, the youngest son, James was a bit immature and underwhelming of the three brothers. 

What I appreciate about this book is the ability of the author to take a story, like the Brothers Karamazov and filter it through a time, place and culture that is wholly different. I would like to see this as a movie. It will stand up against other "remakes" like Kurosawa's Ran a medieval Japanese revisioning of Shakespeare's King Lear. 

From the Publisher:

The residents of Haven, Wisconsin, have dined on the Fine Chao restaurant’s delicious Americanized Chinese food for thirty-five years, content to ignore any unsavory whispers about the family owners. Whether or not Big Leo Chao is honest, or his wife, Winnie, is happy, their food tastes good and their three sons earned scholarships to respectable colleges. But when the brothers reunite in Haven, the Chao family’s secrets and simmering resentments erupt at last.

Before long, brash, charismatic, and tyrannical patriarch Leo is found dead—presumed murdered—and his sons find they’ve drawn the exacting gaze of the entire town. The ensuing trial brings to light potential motives for all three brothers: Dagou, the restaurant’s reckless head chef; Ming, financially successful but personally tortured; and the youngest, gentle but lost college student James. As the spotlight on the brothers tightens—and the family dog meets an unexpected fate—Dagou, Ming, and James must reckon with the legacy of their father’s outsized appetites and their own future survival.

Brimming with heartbreak, comedy, and suspense, The Family Chao offers a kaleidoscopic, highly entertaining portrait of a Chinese American family grappling with the dark undercurrents of a seemingly pleasant small town.

Publication information:

Author: Lan Samantha Chang

Narrator: Brian Nishii

Recorded Books, Inc. February 1, 2022

 

Fence: Striking Distance (audiobook)

 My Thoughts:

Where is this magical school where young men are so in tune with their emotional truth and where friendships and same sex couplings amongst teammates are celebrated and honored? How lovely.

This is an audiobook from NSYNC this summer. If you are not a listener of this free summer service, be sure to join next summer. 

From the Publisher:

Sixteen-year-old Nicholas Cox is the illegitimate son of a retired fencing champion who dreams of getting the proper training he could never afford. After earning a place on the elite Kings Row fencing team, Nicholas must prove himself to his rival, Seiji Katayma, and navigate the clashes, friendships, and relationships between his teammates on the road to state championships -- where Nicholas might finally have the chance to spar with his golden-boy half-brother. Coach Williams decides to take advantage of the boys' morale after a recent victory and assigns them a course of team building exercises to further deepen their bonds. It takes a shoplifting scandal, a couple of moonlit forest strolls, several hilariously bad dates, and a whole lot of introspection for the team to realize they are stronger together than they could ever be apart. The first installment of this enticing original YA novel series by Sarah Rees Brennan, rich with casual diversity and queer self-discovery, explores never-before-seen drama inspired by C.S. Pacat's critically acclaimed Fence comic series and boasts original cover and interior art by Johanna The Mad. 

Poet X (audiobook)

 

My Thoughts:

This novel in verse audiobook is read by the poet herself. I have been honest about not enjoying audiobooks, but audiobooks read by the poet, or audiobooks with poetic language paired with a powerful narrator are the exception. In fact, this audiobook is BETTER than reading the novel with my own voice in my head. Centripetal novels in verse that can follow or precede this one: House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros; Home is Not a Country, Safia Elhillo; The Girl in the Moon Circle Sia Figiel; When We Make It Elisabet Velasquez.

The character, having to face her growing sexuality and objectification rises before our eyes as priestess, warrior goddess, destructive poetess. The relationship with her brother/twin is so honest and lovely. He is the whisper, she is the hurricane. 

The language is beautiful and haunting. I found myself pushing the narrative back 15 seconds so I can hear an image again. Definitely a sign of fabulous writing spoken into existence. Because I have the audiobook and not the words, I don't know where the line breaks are, but this image haunts me:

Sometimes it seems like writing is the only way I keep from hurting - Xiomara Batista

From the Publisher:

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.

But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about.

With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out. But she still can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.

Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.

Author, Narrator: Elizabeth Acevedo

Publisher: Quill Books

Audiobook release: March 6, 2018

This Is My America (audiobook)

 

Author: Kim Johnson

Narrator: Bahni Turpin

Audible release date: July 28, 2020

My Thoughts:

I got this book in the mail, but I want to give it to one of my English teacher alum so I didn't want to read the hard copy so I got access to this audiobook. This book is a realistic fiction look at one teenʻs social justice advocacy for her family. Tracy, 17,  does workshops for the Innocence X organization in order to try and get her father off of death row. When this book opens, she is running out of time to save her father. If this were the only issue, it would make a novel. 

But this is only one problem. Jamal, her older brother is on the run after he is accused of killing Angela. As a family, they are victims of racist terrorism including a cross burning in their front yard. Any of these issues could make a novel. The fact that everything is in this novel, including an interracial love triangle makes this a hefty 9 hour commitment to justice, equity and hope. 

This could be part of a literature circle option alongside The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and Dear Martin by Nic Stone, I'm Not Dying with You Tonight by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal and Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

From the Publisher:

Every week, 17-year-old Tracy Beaumont writes letters to Innocence X, asking the organization to help her father, an innocent Black man on death row. After seven years, Tracy is running out of time - her dad has only 267 days left. Then the unthinkable happens. The police arrive in the night, and Tracy's older brother, Jamal, goes from being a bright, promising track star to a "thug" on the run, accused of killing a white girl. Determined to save her brother, Tracy investigates what really happened between Jamal and Angela down at the Pike. But will Tracy and her family survive the uncovering of the skeletons of their Texas town's racist history that still haunt the present? 

Fans of Nic Stone, Tiffany D. Jackson, and Jason Reynolds won't want to miss this provocative and gripping debut.