Dear Awaeke Emezi, I’ve been meaning to try one of your books for years, ever since I read Ana Grilo’s review of Pet for Kirkus. The book sounded really good and really different, but somehow, I never got around to reading it. However, when
Dear Tashie Bhuiyan, Last year I enjoyed your debut, Counting Down with You, a YA contemporary about a Bangladeshi-American high school student’s struggle with anxiety, demanding and controlling parents, and falling in love with a white boy. I liked it enough to request an ARC of your second book, A ... more >
The aunties are back, fiercer than ever and ready to handle any catastrophe—even the mafia—in this delightful and hilarious sequel by Jesse Q. Sutanto, author of Dial A for Aunties. Meddy Chan has been to countless weddings, but she never imagined how her own would turn out. Now the day ... more >
Content warnings: Jennie: When Janine suggested we review this book together, I hadn’t heard of it. But the blurb told me it was dystopian, and I have a weakness for dystopian novels even though they don’t always end up working for me. Though it’s billed as a novel, How High ... more >
Meet Yinka: a thirty-something, Oxford-educated, British Nigerian woman with a well-paid job, good friends, and a mother whose constant refrain is “Yinka, where is your huzband?” Yinka’s Nigerian aunties frequently pray for her delivery from singledom, her work friends think she’s too traditional (she’s saving herself for marriage!), her girlfriends ... more >
It’s a cliché to comment on how quickly a year has passed and in the Covid era the months sometimes pass slowly. 2021 wasn’t an easy year so I’m glad I found some great books to make it feel a little lighter. There weren’t an entire ten but I’ve had ... more >