Kinda Korean: Stories from an American Life by Joan Sung
Publisher: She Writes Press
Publication Date: February 25, 2025
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
In this courageous memoir of parental love, intergenerational trauma, and perseverance, Joan Sung breaks the generational silence that curses her family. By intentionally overcoming the stereotype that all Asians are quiet, Sung tells her stories of coming-of-age with a Tiger Mom who did not understand American society.
Torn between her two identities as a Korean woman and a first generation American, Sung bares her struggles in an honest and bare confessional. Sifting through her experiences with microaggressions to the over fetishization of Asian women, Sung connects the COVID pandemic with the decades of violence and racism experienced by Asian American communities.
Kinda Korean is Joan Sung’s memoir of growing up the daughter of Korean immigrants and navigating her identity as both Korean and American. Her mom was a domineering Tiger Mom who held on to the ways of Korea and did not want to assimilate into American culture. She didn’t learn to speak English very well and Sung didn’t speak Korean very well, adding to their disconnect. Sung is unflinchingly honest about her traumatic childhood, both inside and outside of her home.
She’s faced microaggressions throughout her life. After she joined the Air Force, the intersectionality of being Asian and a woman made her time in the service especially hard. Throughout the book, she dispels the myth of the model minority and how it not helpful and actually hurts Asian Americans. Asian women are also fetishized by white men because of they believe Asian women are exotic and submissive. Asian hate has grown exponentially since the COVID-19 pandemic. She writes about the presumption of many people that Asians aren’t doing anything to fight against this when in actuality they are.
I enjoyed Sung’s memoir and how she weaved what is going on in society as a whole into her own personal experience as a first generation Korean American. Her bravery in telling her story was amazing. Highly recommended.
(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)
The Sable Cloak by Gail Milissa Grant
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication Date: February 4, 2025)
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Jordan Sable, a prosperous undertaker turned political boss, has controlled the Black vote in St. Louis for decades. Sara, his equally formidable wife, runs the renowned funeral establishment that put the Sable name on the map. Together they have pushed through obstacles in order to create a legacy for their children. When tragedy bursts their carefully constructed empire of dignity and safety, the family rallies around an unconventional solution. But at what cost?
Set in the Midwest in the 1940s, The Sable Cloak is a rarely seen portrait of an upper middle class, African American family in the pre-Civil Rights era. This deeply personal novel inspired by the author’s own family history delves into legacy and the stories we tell ourselves, and celebrates a largely self-sustaining, culturally rich Missouri community that most Americans may not be aware of.
The Sable Cloak is an autobiographical novel based closely on the author’s family history. It follows two upper-middle class Black families. Jordan Sable runs a well-known funeral home in St. Louis. Jordan is also a powerful political boss, controlling the Black vote in St. Louis. The Franklin family are landowners in South Carolina. The also a successful store called Madame Sarah’s Emporium.
When Jordan comes to South Carolina looking for a safe haven to escape his enemies, he meets and marries, Sarah, the youngest of the Franklin daughters. When they move back to St. Louis, Jordan is even more powerful with his wife by his side. When a horrible tragedy happens, the families must join together to find a solution.
I enjoyed The Sable Cloak. It’s not often that I come across historical fiction centering around upper middle class Black people and their community. One of the characters goes off to college at Northwestern and faces discrimination of the kind she never has before because the Black community she grew up kept her insulated. She had hardly ever even been around white people. The author spends quite a bit of time on the background of the two families and what their communities were like before the tragic event happened, which I appreciated.
Grant has a memoir that was published in 2008 called At the Elbows of My Elders that I’d like to read. She writes in the author’s note that The Sable Cloak was born from that book. Unfortunately, she passed away before the publication of The Sable Cloak.
Recommended.
(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)
February 27th, 2025 in
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Narrator: Elijah Woods
First published in 1885
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
I think most everyone knows generally what The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is about even if they haven’t read it. Huck runs away to get away from his abusive, alcoholic father. He encounters Jim, a slave who escapes when he overhears his owner talking about possibly selling him. They team up and have many adventures trying to get to freedom. I wanted to read Huck Finn first before I read James by Percival Everett, which is a retelling of the story from Jim’s side.
I can’t decide if this book is racist or not. From what I read about the book after I finished it, I’m not the only one. As the book goes on, Huck starts to rethink the morality of slavery, but he doesn’t go as far to outright condemn it. Jim is portrayed as not very smart and the way Twain writes his speech is almost incomprehensible. That’s one of the reasons I switched to the audio book – I couldn’t understand most of Jim’s dialogue. I have a hard time believing slaves really spoke that way but of course, I didn’t live way back then. I can see that Huck’s views on slavery were probably progressive for that time period, but they aren’t by today’s standards.
I’m glad I read Huck Finn because I think it enhanced my experience reading James. (Review to come soon.) I would recommend reading it if you plan to read James, although it’s not strictly necessary. If you plan on reading it, I highly recommend the audiobook version that’s narrated by Elijah Woods.
February 17th, 2025 in
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You Never Know: A Memoir by Tom Selleck
Publisher: Harper Audio
Release Date: November 19, 2024
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Frank, funny and open-hearted, You Never Know is an intimate memoir from one of the most beloved actors of our time, the highly personal story of a remarkable life and thoroughly accidental career. In his own voice and uniquely unpretentious style, the famed actor brings readers on his uncharted but serendipitous journey to the top in Hollywood, his temptations and distractions, his misfires and mistakes and, over time, his well-earned success. Along the way, he clears up an armload of misconceptions and shares dozens of never-told stories from all corners of his personal and professional life. His rambunctious California childhood. His clueless arrival as a good-looking college jock in Hollywood (from the Dating Game to the Fox New Talent Program to co-starring with Mae West and escorting her to black-tie social functions). What it was like to emerge as a mega-star in his mid-thirties and remain so for decades to come, an actor whose authenticity and ease in front of the camera connected with audiences worldwide while embodying and also redefining the clichés of onscreen manhood.
In You Never Know, Selleck recounts his personal friendships with a vivid army of A-listers, everyone from Frank Sinatra to Carol Burnett to Sam Elliott, paying special tribute to his mentor James Garner of The Rockford Files, who believed, like Selleck, that TV protagonists are far more interesting when they have rough edges. He also more than tips his hat to the American western and the scruffy band of actors, directors and other ruffians who helped define that classic genre, where Selleck has repeatedly found a happy home. Magnum fans will be fascinated to learn how Selleck put his career on the line to make Thomas Magnum a more imperfect hero and explains why he walked away from a show that could easily have gone on for years longer.
Hollywood is never easy, even for stars who make it look that way. In You Never Know, Selleck explains how he’s struggled to balance his personal and professional lives, frequently adjusting his career to protect his family’s privacy and normalcy. His journey offers a truly fresh perspective on a changing industry and a changing world. Beneath all the charm and talent and self-deprecating humor, Selleck’s memoir reveals an American icon who has reached remarkable heights by always insisting on being himself.
I think most everyone is familiar with Tom Selleck’s work. He’s most known for playing Magnum on Magnum PI. His memoir starts with a brief overview of his early years. He played basketball for USC, which I didn’t know. Then he was in a couple of Westerns and a lot of failed pilots before he was finally offered Magnum PI, which he calls Magnum because he thinks the PI part is dumb and fought against it being part of the title.
He then goes into agonizing detail about what seemed like every episode of Magnum PI. I slogged through that, eager to get to the part where he discusses playing Monica’s boyfriend on Friends. It never came! There is a little bit about Three Men and a Baby, which he filmed during his time on Magnum and then it jumps ahead to the epilogue, which is about him working on his ranch and briefly mentions Blue Bloods, his current show, which has been on for 14 seasons. Thank God he didn’t go into an episode-by-episode recap of that.
He’s a very private person and there is almost nothing about his personal life in the book, which is okay. I love tell-alls but I’m happy to read about the entertainment industry and how it works. Which is why I wanted know what it was like when he was on Friends!
I would only recommend this book to a die-hard Magnum PI fan. If you’re not, this book is a little tedious and boring. Sorry Tom!
February 11th, 2025 in
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After Life by Gayle Forman
Publisher: Quill Tree Books
Publication Date: January 7, 2025
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
One spring afternoon after school, Amber arrives home on her bike. It’s just another perfectly normal day. But when Amber’s mom sees her, she screams.
Because Amber died seven years ago, hit by a car while on the very same bicycle she’s inexplicably riding now.
This return doesn’t only impact Amber. Her sister, Melissa, now seven years older, must be a new kind of sibling to Amber. Amber’s estranged parents are battling over her. And the changes ripple farther and farther out: Amber’s friends, boyfriend, and even people she met only once have been deeply affected by her life and death. In the midst of everyone’s turmoil, Amber is struggling with herself. What kind of person was she? How and why was she given this second chance?
This magnificent tour de force by acclaimed author Gayle Forman brilliantly explores the porous veil between life and death, examines the impact that one person can have on the world, and celebrates life in all its beautiful complexity.
Amber rides her bike home from school everyday but today when she arrives home, her mother sees her and screams. Why? Seven years ago, Amber died in a hit and run accident while riding the very bike she rode home today.
Amber doesn’t know how or why she has returned from the dead and neither does anyone else. In coming back, Amber is able to see how both her life and her death impacted her loved ones. Even people she’s never met are affected. Everyone is grieving her death in their own way. Some are managing better than others.
After Life is about grief, regrets, family and sisterhood. It jumps around in time from the events leading up to Amber’s return, going back as far as when her parents met. The central relationship is Amber and her younger sister Missy. I love books where the story unravels in such a way that seemly unconnected people and events actually do connect, and this is one of those books.
After Life is a YA novel intended for high schoolers, but adults will enjoy it as well. It’s a quick read with good pacing and can easily be read in day. Recommended.
(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)
I’ve also reviewed Gayle Forman’s book If I Stay.
February 5th, 2025 in
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The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Publication Date: September 6, 2022
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
When Springville residents—at least the ones still alive—are questioned about what happened on prom night, they all have the same explanation . . . Maddy did it.
An outcast at her small-town Georgia high school, Madison Washington has always been a teasing target for bullies. And she’s dealt with it because she has more pressing problems to manage. Until the morning a surprise rainstorm reveals her most closely kept secret: Maddy is biracial. She has been passing as white her entire life at the behest of her fanatical white father, Thomas Washington.
After a viral bullying video pulls back the curtain on Springville High’s racist roots, student leaders come up with a plan to change their image: host the school’s first integrated prom as a show of unity. The popular white class president convinces her Black superstar quarterback boyfriend to ask Maddy to be his date, leaving Maddy wondering if it’s possible to have a normal life.
But some of her classmates aren’t done with her just yet. And what they don’t know is that Maddy still has another secret . . . one that will cost them all their lives.
The Weight of Blood is Tiffany D. Jackson’s homage to Stephen King’s Carrie. As such, I thought it was masterfully written. Our main character is Maddy, a biracial girl whose father is forcing her to pass as white. He diligently straightens her hair with a hot comb to keep up the ruse. Maddy is careful to avoid water, because getting her hair wet would expose her. One day, she is outside during PE class and it suddenly starts raining. Her secret is out.
Maddy has always been the weird girl, and this just adds fuel to the fire. Her classmates immediately start bullying her. A video of the bullying goes viral online. Maddy’s classmate Wendy, a popular white girl, convinces her friends to help her organize an integrated prom to make the school look better. Yes, this school, in 2014 has separate prom’s for Black and white students. Wendy convinces her Black football star boyfriend to invite Maddy to the “everyone prom” in an attempt to atone for her part in how Maddy has been treated. Not everyone is happy to have an integrated prom, and this is where the trouble really starts.
I was impressed with how Jackson was able to tell an insightful story about racism, both overt and systemic, while still keeping the fundamental essence of Carrie. Her creativity is amazing. Halfway through reading this book, I learned that it’s a YA novel. I never would have guessed although it is a book that teenagers absolutely should read. It’s highly entertaining while also making important points.
Highly, highly recommended.
January 26th, 2025 in
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Jaws by Peter Benchley
Narrator: Erik Steele
Publication Date: February 1974
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
A great white shark terrorizes the beautiful summer getaway of Amity Island, and a motley group of men take to the water to do battle with the beast. A heart-pounding novel of suspense and a brilliant meditation on the nature of humanity, Jaws is one of the most iconic thrillers ever written.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Jaws. Almost everyone has seen or at least heard of the movie but most of the people I told that I was reading Jaws didn’t know that the movie is an adaptation of the novel.
2024 marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of Jaws. Almost everyone has seen or at least heard of the movie but most of the people I told that I was reading Jaws didn’t know that the movie is an adaptation of the novel.
After reading the book, I watched the movie for the first time. I was surprised at how different the movie is from the book. The premise is the same – a great white shark terrorizes Amity’s beach and kills people. The police chief wants to close the beach, but the town leadership is afraid that will affect Amity’s economy, which is almost entirely based on the summer vacationers, and a group of men go out to sea to try and kill it. Almost none of the details are the same within this premise.
The movie is considered to be the first blockbuster action film and is entirely plot driven. Most characters in the book are developed and have back stories. The police chief’s wife has a detailed subplot in the book and is just a stock concerned wife and mother in the movie. Also, in the book the town leaders had a more complicated motive for wanting the beaches to stay open,
I liked both the book and the movie – but of course thought the book was better! I would consider the movie to be more “inspired by” the book rather than based on it. Keep that in mind before you read the book, and you’ll like it. Recommended.
January 14th, 2025 in
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The Wedding Game by Meghan Quinn
Publisher: Montlake
Publication Date: March 1, 2021
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Luna Rossi is a veritable crafting genius―she can bedazzle and bead so hard her Etsy site is one of the hottest in the world. So it’s only natural that Luna would convince her brother and his husband-to-be to compete on The Wedding Game, a “do-it-yourself” TV show, for the title of Top DIY Wedding Expert.
As a jaded divorce lawyer, Alec Baxter scoffs at weddings and romance. But when his recently engaged brother begs him to participate in The Wedding Game, Alec grudgingly picks up a glue gun and prepares for some family bonding.
Both fierce competitors, Luna and Alec clash on national TV as harsh words and glitter fly with abandon. But as they bicker over color swatches and mood boards, they find themselves fighting something else: their growing mutual attraction. While Luna is torn between family loyalty and her own feelings, Alec wonders if he might have been wrong about love and marriage all along…
The Wedding Game is a reality TV show where a couple, along with a family member, compete to see who can plan the best DIY wedding. The winner gets a penthouse in NYC.
Luna Rossi is a crafting expert, with her own YouTube channel and everything. She convinces her brother and his future husband to compete in the contest with her by their side.
Alec Baxter is a bitter divorce attorney who’s grown apart from his younger brother Thad. When Thad asks him to compete with him and his fiancé as a way of becoming close again, Alec begrudgingly agrees.
Luna and Alec get off to a rocky start when he mistakes her for a PA on the show and rudely demands she get him coffee. After that, it’s game on. Luna was already competitive and now she takes it to the next level. But…of course they can’t help their growing attraction in spite of their first interaction. Should they tell their families? What if they question their loyalty? It’s a tough decision for both of them.
The premise of The Wedding Game is very similar to How My Neighbor Stole Christmas– an enemies to lovers romance involving a competition. The Wedding Game came first but How My Neighbor Stole Christmas is better. I still liked The Wedding Game but it didn’t have the same sharp, witty banter as How My Neighbor Stole Christmas, which is what I was hoping for. However, The Wedding Game did have some moments that had me laughing out loud. Most of them involved Farrah, Luna’s best friend. I loved her.
Overall, The Wedding Game was cute, and I do plan on reading more of the over 70 (!) books Meghan Quinn has written. Recommended.
January 10th, 2025 in
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Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Publication Date: June 2, 2020
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
In Beyond the Gender Binary, poet, artist, and LGBTQIA+ rights advocate Alok Vaid-Menon deconstructs, demystifies, and reimagines the gender binary.
Pocket Change Collective is a series of small books with big ideas from today’s leading activists and artists. In this installment, Beyond the Gender Binary, Alok Vaid-Menon challenges the world to see gender not in black and white, but in full color. Taking from their own experiences as a gender-nonconforming artist, they show us that gender is a malleable and creative form of expression. The only limit is your imagination.
Beyond the Gender Binary is a pocket-sized book that seeks to educate people about gender and the fact that gender is not black and white. There are other ways of identifying other than strictly male or female, like non-binary or gender nonconforming. This book speaks generally to the issues all of these people face and the author also recounts some of their personal experiences related to the issue. They clear up a lot misconceptions and lies about people in their community.
Beyond the Gender Binary is the perfect beginners guide to the complex world of gender identity. Highly recommended.
January 2nd, 2025 in
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The Deal of a Lifetime by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
A father and a son are seeing each other for the first time in years. The father has a story to share before it’s too late. He tells his son about a courageous little girl lying in a hospital bed a few miles away. She’s a smart kid—smart enough to know that she won’t beat cancer by drawing with crayons all day, but it seems to make the adults happy, so she keeps doing it.
As he talks about this plucky little girl, the father also reveals more about himself: his triumphs in business, his failures as a parent, his past regrets, his hopes for the future.
Now, on a cold winter’s night, the father has been given an unexpected chance to do something remarkable that could change the destiny of a little girl he hardly knows. But before he can make the deal of a lifetime, he must find out what his own life has actually been worth, and only his son can reveal that answer.
With humor and compassion, Fredrik Backman’s The Deal of a Lifetime reminds us that life is a fleeting gift, and our legacy rests in how we share that gift with others.
The Deal of a Lifetime is a short story written by Fredrik Backman. A man who’s always been rich, selfish and a terrible father finds himself in the hospital in a room next to a five-year old girl who has cancer and is wise beyond her years. A mysterious woman visits the man in the hospital and gives him the chance to make the deal of a lifetime.
A Deal of a Lifetime was both heartbreaking and heartwarming. It was the perfect little winter story to end 2024.
January 1st, 2025 in
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