ambershelf's reviews
1295 reviews

DIFFERENT follows Sneha, an Indian immigrant graduating during a recession who is "fortunate" enough to find a contractor position and moves to Milwaukee. As she navigates her first job and adulting, Sneha dates women, finds friends in a new city, and deals with a toxic property manager who lives downstairs while battling a looming recession that might cause Sneha her job and her family's past that threatens to swallow her whole.

DIFFERENT is a beautifully written and deeply profound coming-of-age story of a young queer woman. I resonated with so many themes. I remember working as a contractor without health insurance and a safety net to the point of having nightmares of getting fired all the time

SPRING FRAGRANCE is a collection of short stories by the first published Asian North American fiction writer, Sui Sin Far, that offers a glimpse into the lives of Chinese Americans in the early 20th century living in San Francisco and Seattle. The introduction by C Pam Zhang helps orient the readers to the fact that this book was written for White people to educate them about the Chinese American experience.

Far explores themes of cultural clashes, such as the patriarchal traditions of Chinese men toward Chinese women and cutting off vs. keeping one's queue. Other topics, like expecting immigrants to take up English and American culture while forever siloing them as an "immigrant/alien," are still relevant today.

Because SPRING FRAGRANCE is written for a White audience, the stories center on well-educated Chinese men & virtuous Chinese women and how they are "beneficial" to whiteness. After more than 100 years, I'm glad to see modern novels that tell inclusive stories of all immigrants and paint a much more diverse picture of all walks of life. Of course, there is still a lot of work to do, but I'm glad I could see the progress from SPRING FRAGRANCE to immigrant stories published recently.

After giving up her career as a concert pianist, Song Yan has been teaching piano in the bustling city of Beijing for the past three years. As tensions grow between Song Yan and her husband on having children, she finds herself trapped in a doorless room with a talking mushroom in her dreams. Coincidentally, deliveries of mushrooms and their sudden halt lead Song Yan to discover a seemingly ageless house and a once-famous pianist who disappeared a decade ago.

GHOST MUSIC is a novel best described as “all vibe and no plots.” Through the lenses of three different women, GHOST MUSIC investigates how unprocessed trauma and suppressed grief manifest with an eerie undertone. The story also explores the idea of being in love with people we don’t actually know with the juxtaposition of the husband and the missing pianist and their relationships with Song Yan.

There are also various themes throughout the book open to each reader’s interpretation. For those that enjoy books about classical music or beautiful writing with loose plots, GHOST MUSIC will take you on a quirky journey!

Thank you to Libro.fm for the gifted ALC!

WHITE TEARS/BROWN SCARS is a powerful book that delves into the complex history of race relations in America and Australia. Hamad does a phenomenal job of analyzing and categorizing how racism is used to create constructs for women of color, and how white women don't just benefit from but continue to support white supremacy to uphold the status quo.

Hamad's examination of the different stereotypes of BIPOC women and how they continue to shape our culture today is eye-opening. The creation of submissive women like the "China Doll" and "Princess Pocahontas" always choosing white men helps perpetuate the racial hierarchy. In contrast, "angry Black/Brown women" is used to gaslight women of color and police how they talk about racism. Furthermore, depending on the usefulness to whiteness, BIPOC women can either be hypersexualized to negate any concerns of sexual assault, as seen during slavery, or desexualized to justify their relegation to manual labor, as demonstrated through the subjugation of Native Americans.

WHITE TEARS/BROWN SCARS also delves into the history of forced separation of Indigenous children from their families in America and Australia, and the role of white women's involvement during slavery, in the KKK, and other forms of racial oppression.

Overall, WHITE TEARS/BROWN SCARS is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of race and gender. Hamad explores difficult and often uncomfortable topics with sensitivity and nuance, and I loved the book so much that I bought a physical copy to reread!

TENANTS DOWNSTAIRS follows eight interconnected characters living in a Harlem high-rise and their personal challenges while gentrification threatens to upend their lives. We follow a hair stylist hustling to make rent, a man trying to lead an honest life but being pulled towards the opposite direction, a building liaison hoping for a different career, and young boys navigating tragedies with their love for dancing. Through witty writing, Fofana weaves stories of joy, hope, and pain that have me laughing and gasping, and rooting for these characters.

Through interconnected characters that span generations in Taiwan and Canada, MIAH examines each character's "miah," Taiwanese for fate, and how their agonizing pasts of Japanese colonization followed by the White Terror under Kuomintang rule affect their future. Jumping in time and space, MIAH might be confusing for readers unfamiliar with Taiwanese history, and I find the stories to be more telling than showing. Regardless, MIAH powerfully portrays the oppression and violence Native Taiwanese* experienced for almost a century. My heart aches as I read this book and reflect on the lost lives of my ancestors and many others. MIAH is a painful yet essential read for those interested in learning about Taiwanese history.

*Native Taiwanese, also known as Benshengren (本省人), are ethnic Hoklo or Hakka Taiwanese nationals who settled on the island prior to or during the Japanese colonization of Taiwan. Native Taiwanese should not be confused with the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, who come from various recognized or unrecognized Austronesian tribes. [Wikipedia]

Katrina Kim is a broke college dropout estranged from her parents for three years. While stuck in a dead-end job, Katrina adopts some questionable coping mechanisms—obsessing over shapes, numbers, and her colleague Kurt. But when Kurt accuses her of messing everything up, followed by his suicide one night, Katrina must comb through all the clues she's collected about Kurt to solve the mystery and come to a reckoning of her state of mind.

LIAR, DREAMER, THIEF is a suspenseful page-turner that follows an unreliable narrator and a story that had me wondering about the lines between reality and fantasy. I appreciate Dong's beautiful exploration of mental health and family alienation, as well as the references to classical music. While the ending caught me by surprise, and I'm still trying to decide if I like its execution, I enjoyed LIAR, DREAMER, THIEF and thought it an unputdownable story!

After the end of slavery, Rachel finds herself an "apprentice" of her former plantation master—she has to work for him for another six years. Contemplating what this new "freedom" means, she decides to find her children. Rachel travels from Barbados to British Guiana and Trinidad and embarks on a grueling journey to reunite with her five children sold to different plantations over the years.

A raw and powerful debut, RIVER explores loss and hope through a mother's quest to find her children. What moved me the most was the kindness Rachel received and reciprocated, especially the compassion and quiet strength Black & indigenous people showed towards each other. Another standout of RIVER is Shearer's profoundly moving and nuanced examination of the meaning of freedom and how it takes on different forms for various formerly enslaved people.

While the grief and loss in RIVER are palpable, the story also emphasizes hope and its healing & redemptive power. I'm a bit embarrassed to say, but I cried so much reading this book I was dehydrated and developed a mild headache