Chuna, now Robin, Ha, was moved from Seoul, Korea to America, Huntsville, Alabama, no less, when she was 14, without her knowledge or consent. Her mom says they're going to visit her "friend" Mr. Kim, and before she knew it, Chuna was Robin starting a high school with no ESL program and little help from the kids in her step-family. Disappointingly she knows nothing about K-Dramas and K-Pop, so she can't connect with people through either of those popular media. Instead, the graphic memoir tells Robin's story of finding friends through her love of comics, manga, and anime.

I read it in a day and recommend it.

This review is a spoiler-ish. It doesn't reveal any plot surprises, but if you prefer a really pristine outlook on a story before reading it, please just take my work for it that What Girls Are Made of is smart without being annoying clever, the mother-daughter relationship is hella weird, but not fraught, and there are interstitial stories that could blow your mind. Scroll down to read the review.


















We learn early on that Nina has done a Bad Thing, and because it makes me uncomfortable when protags are bad, I almost put What Girls down. I'm so glad I didn't because, in addition to being a feel-good abortion story, Nina's narrative is complex (in an accessible way) with lots of weird art history and saint tidbits that just about always end in a woman dying miserably to live happily ever after.

But that abortion was the kindest, best thing I have done for myself in as long as I can remember.

When I first started reading, I wondered if What Girls is an MFA novel (thank A.j. Michel for that term) because the writing is so full of resonant images like

The room smelled gross in a way I kind of liked

about a boy's room, obviously. I remember feeling that exact way as a teen about things that I knew weren't good for me, but wanted anyway.
And then there are some just wacky images like

Jesus came to her in a vision and placed a wedding ring--made of his own circumsized foreskin.

That's not Nina, it's one of her interstitial saints.

In her journey, Nina becomes less close to one of her friends and finds a better one in fellow dog shelter volunteer, Bekah, who is the kind of person who says stuff like

"Being of service. With love, you're waiting around for someone to give it to you, you know? But services...that's something you give."

Or maybe I just like that because it's how I feel about COVID-19 and mutual aid. There are a lot of people feeling sorry for themselves, for many legitimate reasons. But maybe if they did something for someone else, their own grievances might get put in perspective.

Although just a year apart in age, Happi and Kezi Smith aren't close. Kezi is an activist YouTuber with a hundred thousand or so subscribers, and Happi mostly wants to be left alone. And then she is. Kezi dies in police custody, and Happi, their family, and Kezi's closest friends have to figure out what to do with their grief. Happi and Kezi's oldest sister, Genny, proposes the surviving sibs and friends follow a route Kezi had planned to take over the summer, one that utilizes an old copy of The Green Book. They have a physical copy but also give props to the Schomburg Center's digitized Green Book collection.

There is a lot going on in One of the Good Ones, which as much as anything takes on the idea that some Black people deserve to die less than others. Kezi is a star student, a YouTube star, and a preacher's kid. She has a secret or two, but generally, to the public, she is "one of the good ones." The Moulite sisters want readers to understand that, all Black lives matter.

They deemed her One of the Good Ones. Sometimes the phrasing was different--A Nice Kid, A Child with Promise--but the intent was always the same: this little girl was worth listening to because look how composed she was! If we read her report card, we would see all As. If we spoke to any of her teachers, they'd call her a star student. Her father, Jamal Coleman, immortalized on the internet, if not in the history books, took her to church every Sunday. The cognitive dissonance of it all was something I couldn't take. If I had been the one to die that day in the hands of police instead of my sister--what would they have said about me? I skipped school like I was allergic to desks? I got messy drunk at parties? I could have been a better sibling and daughter? And though that was all true, should those facts have any bearing on whether the world was livid at the injustice of my death or mourned for me? For Jamal Coleman? For Kezi? All the rest?

The story is told in more than one voice, and it may take a minute to really get who's who and what's going on, but even so, OotGO is an accessible and compelling read. It's about police violence and white silence, but it's also about one family working through their problems, and occasionally joys, even when processing a tragedy. And it's surprising, too!

This 2019 novel is about a pandemic that takes out a college town. Some people die, but mostly people sleep--if they have medical support and didn't fall asleep somewhere dangerous. It's an omniscient voice story, with little glimpses into what the sleepers experience, but mostly the story is told by those who are awake. I assume there's some big statement about the state of awakeness that I haven't picked up on. I'll think about it some more. I think Karen Thompson Walker began the novel before Trump took office, but surely her work must have been influenced. I don't see how directly, though. I think a lot of us would prefer to sleep through the rest of his presidency, which is perhaps not the most proactive approach to fighting fascism. There is one protagonist who is explicitly a person of color, with lots of talk of pale skin, which strikes me as unlikely in a California college town.

There are evocative descriptions, like

Everything around her, the dim lights and the rusted railings and teh faraway sound of something dripping--all of it seems suffused with meaning, as if the whole night has been transformed already into memory.

I remember in high school and college, pausing sometimes, to realize that what I was experiencing was in a way, already over and something I might or might not hold in my thoughts in the future. I remember doing that, but I wonder if I've forgotten every instance!
And on the next page,

Already, she can hear her older self telling this story one day, years into the future, the terrible thing that happened when she was young, that girl Kara in her dorm, the second month of freshman year, her first glancing disaster. The whole event is racing away toward the past.

I wonder how self-documentation via social media will impact memory when today's young people are old?

Oh, and this deadly accurate observation about the sleep getting spread at a wedding,

This is how sickness travels best: through all the same channels as do fondness and friendship and love.

Maybe this one is even more haunting,

A few people have collected on their porches now, watching, but they stay where they are: the unkindness of fear.

There's a character to thinks love is unethical, that caring about one person will cause you to prioritize that person's well-being, even over that of two others, or ten, or a hundred, etc. Is he wrong?

I'd probably have given the book five stars if the cast of characters hadn't been so white...unless that's important somehow...?

Protagonist Enchanted Jones, whose name is doing a lot of work, is a 17-year-old would-be singer who gets discovered by 28-year-old star Korey Fields, but this is no A Star Is Born. It's more like burned. Chant falls for all the tricks of emotional manipulation and abuse, starting with accepting and participating in being isolated from her loved ones. The powers that be don't understand why she allowed herself to stay in such a painful and dangerous situation, but I feel like every nonpower that be can relate. Luckily/unluckily, Ms. Jones isn't the first to report difficulties with Korey Fields, and luckily her family sticks by her. Some less lucky things happen, too, and then the end will mess you up!

Rose and Fern remember their childhood differently, perhaps because Fern is on the spectrum. Despite their diverging memories--to Rose, their mother was an ogre and to Fern, she was just their mom. Rose's journal details the horrors she experienced while an oblivious Fern depended on Rose for everything. Now, they're grown up, and Fern is a public librarian. Rose works, too, and is married to Owen. Fern hasn't dated much. She's a practical person and often single-focused. When she meets a guy she calls Wally (in the US that would be "Waldo," as in Where's) because of his hat and striped shirt, she has an ulterior motive for asking him out.

I can't say much more because I don't want to spoil the plausibly twisty plot. Let's just say there's an interdependence between Rose and Fern.

"...my sister holds the key to my sanity (even though I never gave it to her.)"

Favorite librarian Easter egg,

"...is at my bedside again, this time reading a John Grisham novel."

SOLID writing. I might become a Sally Hepworth head after this.

Rarely to graphic novels (or memoirs) work as well as ebooks as That Can Be Arranged does. The art is broad, sort of a rounded version of stick figures, but not in an amateur sense. On one page, where 15-year-old Huda is contemplating arranged marriage to a stranger, there's a drawing of a hijabi woman in a blue abaya and a leather jacket standing on a hill. There are few clouds in the white sky and a flag on the hill that read, "The Hill I Die On." Huda's thought bubble is "I bet I'll get great signal up here." Lol, but also whoa.

There are some other handwritten thought and dialog bubbles throughout, but the majority of the text is typeface, thus easy to read in ebook form, which is important to some of us.

Fahmy's memoir takes us through her childhood to her spinsterhood (25, if you're in some Muslim communities) with generosity (an explanation at the beginning about why she draws herself wearing hijab in circumstances where she wouldn't have it on and a glossary) and gentle good humor. I say "gentle" because I'm often frustrated by "too clever by a half" humor. Fahmy teases her loved ones, but not to the point of aggressive self-deprecation. Further, the humor is universal--or maybe just Jewish, as well as Muslim because this one rings true for the secular Jewish culture I grew up in (à la [a:Erma Bombeck|11882|Erma Bombeck|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1208791191p2/11882.jpg]).



Then there's this moment, in the My First Proposal chapter


The next page begins, "It was a very freeing thought." AND YET, this statement of agency and independence is rendered in a dull pastel with NO FACIAL FEATURES. I am so intrigued maybe even haunted by what that means.

I hope to read more Huda Fahmy. For now I'll just follow her on Instagram.

This is a sweet tale of three teen girls going through things--grief, addiction, dating the wrong person. Teen mom Dia, 400someodd days sober Hanna, and Jules, who tried to make it work for too long with the wrong girl used to have a band together. Dia and Jules have remained close, but Hanna has been mostly on her own since hitting bottom and struggling back up.

Feels Like is an enjoyable read, if a little pat in its box-ticking. It's Teen Hallmark with Diversity.

It's been a minute since I absolutely loved a book so thank a deity or the Seven Grandfathers for Firekeeper's Daughter. The titular character, Daunis, whose father was the Firekeeper and whose mother is white woman from a wealthy background, grows up half-in and half-out of the reservation community. She is unable to enroll in the tribe because her father's name wasn't on her birth certificate, due to her grandparents' racism. Her mom was a minor when Daunis was born, so she didn't get to say. She might have also been a little pissed at Daunis's dad, whom she found in bed with another woman. Even so, Daunis is close to people on both sides of her family, including Levi, her three-months young half-brother.

Daunis spends a lot of time with family, including her elders. She even decides to stay local to Michigan's UP for college, to be near everyone, instead of attending the University of Michigan, which is what she had planned. There's also the fact that an injury keeps her from playing D1 hockey. She had played varsity on her school's male hockey team. There's also a traveling hockey team, the Supes (for Superiors) and meth deaths that may or may not be connected. Then a hot new guy, Jamie Johnson, joins the team and immediately begins to play for Daunis, as well as the team.

Having been burned before. Daunis isn't the most trusting person, but she finds herself deep into something unexpected. FK is a mystery or thriller--I'm not sure what the difference is--which is not normally a genre I'm that into, but I loved Daunis's story, and that of her clan. Her Native practices are central to her being. The characters and their stories felt genuine. Everyone is flawed, and many, but not all, are lovable.

It may take you a minute to get into What Looks Like Crazy, but stick with it. Ava is returning to her home town to spend the summer with her widowed sister Joyce after Ava's HIV+ status getting leaked ruins her haircutting business in Atlanta. Joyce is a tender heart, who takes care of the young women in the town. She's busy helping a young mom deliver a baby and sends Eddie to the airport to pick up Ava in her stead. Formerly Wild Eddie, just Eddie has long dreads. He is a tai-chi practicing vegetarian, but he's not the typical perfect love interest. Eddie has his shit together after serving in Vietnam and doing some bad things at war and after, but he's not unscathed.

You know I love Brother Buddha, but until he reincarnates as a black man in America, I think we better go with what we know.

Published by Avon, WLLC may be classed as a romance, but like many romances it has serious depth. In this case, clergy, social work regulations, and racial injustice are called out.

I don't want to quote some of the trenchant passages about how systemic oppression as impacted Black people out of context, but trust that the September chapter makes its point.