A great collection of linked short stories (linked in the sense that the characters of each story have tangential relationships to each other) about life as FOB Chinese immigrants. Jenny Zhang doesn't pull any punches with the stories she tells of the struggles of immigrant family life, all of which are told from the perspective of girl children. She weaves a powerful narrative about family, language, culture, poverty without making her characters seem pathetic or overly idealistic, giving us graphic descriptions at times and subtle hints at others to make a full set of interrelated but also strikingly distinct narratives.

I don't even have words to describe this. It was just so so SO good. How is this a debut novel?! Ayobami Adebayo pulls you in from the very first page with her artful storytelling. She makes you want the best for Yejide and Akin even while making them complex, not-very-likable characters.

This is the story of a marriage complicated by infertility, family drama, cultural beliefs & practices, and of course, insufficient communication. We begin at the end, where Yejide is traveling to Akin's father's funeral. We do not know why she and Akin have separated, we do not know what has gone wrong, we only know that this is the first time that they will see each other in more than a decade. We get snippets of this funeral journey while Adebayo tells us their story from the beginning. She makes us desperately want things to go well for them, without promising them a happy ending, or a happy middle, for that matter.

Here's a quote:
I would hear the saying many times from other people over the years and will never quite know what they meant each time. So love is like a test, but in what sense? To what end? Who was carrying out the test? But I think I did believe that love had immense power to unearth all that was good in us, refine us and reveal to us the better versions of ourselves.

This novel is told both in alternating viewpoints between Yejide and Akin, each with their own unique voice (so unique in fact, that we do not need the chapters to be labeled to know who is telling the story). It is also divided into sections, each of which tells a bit of the end of the story (the "end" being 2008) and then switching back to the past (starting in 1985). Time slowly moves forward until we are all in 2008, at the funeral for the end of this story. Through this time we see how the expectations, ideals, beliefs and actions of others have made the already trying time that Yejide and Akin are having even more trying.

What a debut! Zinzi Clemmons uses her stark writing style to tell of grief and loss and longing and how they change and shape our lives. She tells us the story of Thandi: a young woman who loses her mother and struggles through her grief; a biracial woman whose identity feels so tenuous, as does her place in the world; a young adult trying to figure out life and relationships and big important decisions on her own.

I don't even know where to start. Rivers Solomon is effing brilliant. They bring rich, diverse, and generally atypical characters to the page and set these characters in an equally rich world that makes you examine the ways that society functions, and the extremes that we can end up at when we take some things to their logical conclusion. If you've ever wondered what the next chapter of humanity might look like after we destroy our own planet, here's one rendering of it.

I LOVED the characters in this books in all their complexities and quirks. Solomon managed to make them recognizable but not predictable in the same way they have done in writing this story. I got to the last chapter, the last few pages, the last paragraph, without being able to even conceive of what might be coming next in the story.

So good.

I'm still not sure how I feel about this book. I couldn't really figure out if I liked it or not. I thought the plot was kind of predictable but not in a way that made me feel like this story should not have been written. Luiza Sauma's writing is simple and beautiful and vibrant, and definitely the reason why I kept reading. She doesn't shy away from tackling complicated, complex relationships, which I really appreciated, and she drops some gems about social classes and how they shape our lives. I may come back and change the number of stars I gave this book.

A story about cricket, but not about cricket. Selection Day is a coming of age story about two brothers whose father has reared them to be professional cricketers. We see their challenges and identity crises as they face virtually impossible odds to be chosen for the Under-19 cricket team by the selectors. Will the elder brother Radha be chosen since his father made a deal with Lord Subramanya (cricket god) to bestow his son with the title of best cricketer? Will the younger Manju overshadow his brother's talent and be chosen? Will the selectors pick both or them? Neither? Does either brother even really want to play cricket or is this their father's ambition that's being thrust upon them?

But in this novel Aravind Adiga asks more important questions: when you spend your life pursuing one goal, what happens if you don't get it? What happens if you do? Who are you when you spend your entire life preparing for something that you're not sure that you want?

The third book in the Broken Earth trilogy did not disappoint! I've was torn between devouring it as quickly as possible and drawing out the experience because this book is the last one. Effing amazing.
Why is NK Jemisin such a genuis?! Who knows, but I'm grateful. The only downside to this book is that it's the last book in the series and there's no more to look forward to.

Sandra Cisneros uses short vignettes to build the literary mosaic that is The House on Mango Street. Each tiny story combines into a picture of a neighborhood and its people and the complexities of their lives as seen by the limited perspective of Esperanza, the young protagonist. It succinctly captures themes of poverty and abuse and childhood joys and triumphs, and what it's like to come of age as a young Latina and so much more.

I did something big, bigger than anyone will understand for a long time. I was just so angry.

Why aren't more people raving about Victor LaValle? This was excellent. 149 pages and not a word wasted. An elegantly crafted horror novella set in Jazz Age New York about Charles Thomas Tester, and the circumstances that befall him, in part due to his being a black man in the early 20th century. I'm not even sure how to describe what this is...just go read it.