AAPI Heritage Month Rec List
Or, an excuse to recommend a bunch of my favorite books, which happen to be by Asian American authors
Yes, I know the month is almost over, but I’m only just kicking the newsletter back into high gear, and honestly, this is just a great excuse to gush about some huge faves, including a book you’ll see again when I do my year-end list of favorite romances of 2024. Anyway, some great books!
*Note: I am sorely lacking in personal recs of books by Pacific Islander authors, but perhaps at some point we check out Makiia Lucier, T Kira Madden, and Sascha Stronach together? I do very much want to read them, and have owned Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls for years, so!
But OK, back to some personal faves!
Stacey Lee - For my money, Stacey is The Best Historical YA author. My personal favorite is Outrun the Moon, because it just gave me that same vibe as reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as a kid, and that was my fave for years, but truly, I have never read a bad one by her; there is no going wrong here.
Kelly Loy Gilbert - I know, I know, it’s supposed to be books, not authors, and fine, if I can only tell you one, I’m going to say Conviction, which I’ve talked about before and is one of my favorite YA books of all time. But truly, for brilliantly aching YA contemporary, Kelly’s your girl.
Misa Sugiura - My big big fave is This Time Will Be Different, which not only has a sweet romance with a bi boy but heavily centers on Japanese internment, something I haven’t seen a lot of in YA. I also adored Love & Other Natural Disasters, which was weirder than I expected in the best way.
Adib Khorram - I mean, come on. You’ve read Darius the Great is Not Okay, right? Glorious mental health rep? Set in Iran? Incredibly sweet and a must-read IMO for younger teens? I’m jazzed to read his recent YA, The Breakup Lists, but perhaps even more so to read his first dip into adult, I’ll Have What He’s Having. (Note: Adib also writes picture books, and his Seven Special Somethings, illustrated by Zainab Faidhi, was a big fave of my son’s for a while.)
Alyson Derrick - Whether it’s cowriting She Gets the Girl with wife Rachael Lippincott or releasing her own absolutely gorgeous and gutting Forget Me Not, she has not missed for me yet!
Riley Redgate - I think Riley is absolutely one of the more interesting authors of YA, but my fave skill of hers is that she can make me laugh out loud, swoon, and cry all with a single book. Final Draft in particular destroyed me in all these ways, and IMO is brutally underrated.
Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min - Such a massive all-time favorite, and what kills me is that I feel like Alice Oseman’s fandom should be flocking to this book (especially if your fave is Radio Silence, as it is mine). If you loved that book, or Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia (another major favorite of mine), I am begging you to give this one a shot. It just came out in a paperback! (Fun fact: I am the author of the NYT blurb on the cover, as I recommended it in an article.)
I just realized how much longer this list of my faves is than I had accounted for, and I have work to do, so I’m just gonna throw out there that these are some of my absolute favorite contemporary YA romances:
When You Wish Upon a Lantern by Gloria Chao
A Pho Love Story by Loan Le
I’ll Be the One by Lyla Lee
This Time It’s Real by Ann Liang
One of my all-time favorite YA Sci-fi series has gotta be the Sidekick Squad by CB Lee,. In YA Horror, The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco has always been in my top 3. And in Graphic Novels, two of my all-time favorites are Mooncakes by Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker and Flamer by Mike Curato (which, incidentally, won the Lammy the year I judged).
Before I move on to adult, I must give a shoutout to someone who has a book coming out next week that I haven’t read, but who’s been a huge part of my career as my very beloved audio narrator for Cool for the Summer and Home Field Advantage (which is on sale now for $2.99! Sorry, I had to.) and is self-pubbing her first YA. Check out Gay the Pray Away by Natalie Naudus, coming June 4th!
And now, in Adult, not to be wildly predictable, but if you love Romance and haven’t read The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang, go make your world a better place and snatch it up immediately!
I will also always be a huge fan of Courtney Milan’s New Adult series, starting with Trade Me, and though it’s been a while, I feel like she’s an author who definitely holds up.
Moving over to West Asia, a shoutout to Taleen Voskuni for her lovely Armenian romances, kicking off with Sorry, Bro!
As for the aforementioned contender for fave Romance of 2024, have you guessed yet? If you said How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang, you are correct! It’s emotional and witty and sexy and compelling and Alllll the Things.
Do I read a lot of Adult Fantasy? I do not. Did I buy She Who Became the Sun and know I should read it but also still have not yet? Sure did. Do I also have The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri but haven’t started it yet even though I know it’s guaranteed to be great? Absolutely. Same for Five Broken Blades by Mai Cortland? Yep, though in my defense, I loaned it to my sister, who loved it and read it in approximately a single weekend. (Also, I have read her YA, so behold my recommendation for the totally adorable The Jasmine Project by Meredith Ireland.) But I read exactly one Adult Fantasy novel in 2023 that I recall and it was The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean and I thought it was excellent.
Which is all to say, happy AAPI Heritage Month, and Happy Reading!