Svetlana's Reads and Views

General Information: Name of Book: My Chinese-America ISBN: 9781939650221 Publisher: SfWP Year it was published: 2015 Summary: Eloquently written essays about aspects of Asian American life comprise this collection that looks at how Asian-Americans view themselves in light of America’s insensitivities, stereotypes, and expectations. My Chinese-America speaks on masculinity, identity, and topics ranging from Jeremy Lin and immigration to profiling and Asian silences. This essays have an intimacy that transcends cultural boundaries, and casts light on a vital part of American culture that surrounds and influences all of us. Author:  Allen Gee About the Author: (From the inside of the book) Allen Gee is a graduate of The University of New Hampshire, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and The University of Houston. He is currently an associate professor of English at Georgia College, where he teaches in the M.F.A. program 1. Profile One Sentence Summary: The aut...

Name of Book: Diamond Head Author: Cecily Wong ISBN: 978-0-06-234543-1 Publisher: Harper Type of book: Hawaii, red string of fate, 1900s-1964, funeral, China, WWII, relationships, family, father/son, husband/wife, mother/daughter, Guandong, mistakes, wealth, soul mates, destiny Year it was published: 2015 Summary: A sweeping debut spanning China to Hawaii that follows four generations of a wealthy shipping family whose rise and decline is riddled with secrets and tragic love—from a young, powerful new voice in fiction “Diamond Head takes the family saga to a new and very high place. . . . Readers will follow the fortunes of this family breathlessly, hungry for more.” —Mary Gordon, author of Circling My Mother At the turn of the nineteenth-century, Frank Leong, a fabulously wealthy shipping industrialist, moves his family from China to the island of Oahu. But something ancient follows the Leongs to Hawaii, haunting them. The parable of the red string of fate, t...

Name of Book: The Year She Left Us Author: Kathryn Ma ISBN: 978-0-06-227334-5 Publisher: Harper Collins Type of book: International adoption, single parenting, lawyers, interracial relationships, multi-generational book, troublemaker, incompleteness, friendship, siblings Year it was published: 2014 Summary: From the winner of the 2009 Iowa Short Fiction Prize—comes the extraordinary, unexpected debut tale of three generations of Chinese-American women in a San Francisco family who must confront their past and carve out a future. The Kong women are in crisis. A disastrous trip to visit her "home" orphanage in China has plunged eighteen-year-old Ari into a self-destructive spiral. Her adoptive mother, Charlie, a lawyer with a great heart, is desperate to keep her daughter safe. Meanwhile, Charlie must endure the prickly scrutiny of her beautiful, Bryn Mawr educated mother, Gran—who, as the daughter of a cultured Chinese doctor, came to America to survive M...

Name of Book: Red Shoes for Lab Blues Author: D.B. Sieders ISBN:  9781616504663 Publisher: Lyrical Press Type of book: interracial relationship Chinese-American male/American female, medicine, romance, adult, crush, mystery, science, laboratory politics and life, dedication Year it was published: 2013 Summary: Can love and sex overcome logic and sabotage... Dr. Stacey Jamison thinks she's close to validating PharmEx's new anti-cancer drug. Her budding independent career, her boss’s tenure, and a ton of research dollars are at stake. She just has to prove Compound Z kills cancer cells. So far, it doesn’t. Then along comes Dr. Henry Chan, the department’s new rising star. Henry is smart, handsome, and confident. He’s also captivated by the enigmatic Dr. Jamison, who seems oblivious to her own charms. But will Henry risk his heart when the research project is at stake? A rival drug company, an insider with a personal grudge, and militant animal rights pro...

Title: Fresh of the Boat A memoir Author: Eddie Huang Date it will be published: February 2013 Type of book: food, immigrants, FOB, drugs, street-wear, 1980s-2010s, rap/ hip-hop, "rotten banana", China Subject matter: Focuses on the story of what it's like living as an Asian American and having to experience racism and whatnot as well as why and how he turned out the way he did. Special features: Since this is an ARC, none. I would imagine that the published versions will have pictures of him and his family. Price: $26.00 dollars in USA, $31.00 dollars in Canada ISBN: 978-0-679-64488-0 Publishing company: Spiegel & Grau Hardcover What Is The Meaning of This Primary Source? This is an autobiography of Eddie Huang that charts time from his childhood to the time his restaurant makes it into New York Times. In there he talks about the racism he experienced from the time he was a kid to the impact it had on him on as a teenager and a man. Eddie is...

Name of Book: The Bonesetter's Daughter Author: Amy Tan ISBN: 9780399146435 Publisher: G.P Putnam Type of book: China, mother-daughter relationship, 1920s-1990s?, living together, dementia/Alzheimer, legends, stories, myths Year it was published: 2001 Summary: A major new novel from the internationally bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife and The Hundred Secret Senses. LuLing Young is now in her eighties, and finally beginning to feel the effects of old age. Trying to hold on to the evaporating past, she begins to write down all that she can remember of her life as a girl in China. Meanwhile, her daughter Ruth, a ghostwriter for authors of self-help books, is losing the ability to speak up for herself in front of the man she lives with. LuLing can only look on, helpless: her prickly relationship with her daughter does not make it easy to discuss such matters. In turn, Ruth has begun to suspect that something is wrong with her mother: s...

Name of Book: Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time Author: Lisa Yee ISBN: 978-0-439-62248-6 Publisher: Scholastic Apple Part of a Series: Millicent Min trilogy; Millicent Min, Girl Genius, So Totally Emily Ebers Type of book:   young adult, boy book,friendship, first love, interracial relationship,  Asian male/white female, 2000s, California Year it was published: 2005 Summary: "We interrupt your lives to announce Stanford Wong has flunked sixth grade!!!" All right, so maybe there hasn't been an announcement like that. But that's the way it feels to Stanford. He's used to being a hero on hte basketball court, where he's the first sixth-grader ever to make the A-team, and just getting by in class. But when he flunks English-Flunks it big time-and learns he'll have to trade basketball camp for summer school, Stanford freaks out. His friends can't know or they'll dump him. His had has to know and it's awful. The beautiful Emily E...

Name of Book: Millicent Min, Girl Genius Author: Lisa Yee ISBN: 0-439-42520-4 Publisher: Scholastic Part of a Series: Milly Trilly; Stanford Wong flunks big time, So totally Emily Ebers Type of book: young adult, genius, changing, friendship, 2000s Year it was published: 2004 Summary: Millicent Min is having a bad summer. Her fellow high school students hate her for setting the curve. Her fellow eleven-year-olds hate her for going to high school. Her grandmother Maddie is moving away. And in an effort to give Millicent a more "normal" childhood, her mom has not only signed her up for volleyball, she's also arranged for her to tutor Stanford Wong-jock, jerk and poster boy for Chinese geekdom. But when Millicent meets Emily, things start to look up. Emily doesn't know Millicent's IQ score. She actually thinks Millicent is cool. And if Millicent can hide her awards, ignore her grandmother's advice, blackmail Stanford into silence, learn to ...

Name of book: The Kitchen God's Wife Author Name: Amy Tan ISBN: 0-8041-0753-X Publisher: Ballantine Books Type of book: Young adult? (Not sure if schools use this book for curriculum) Adult, fantasy China, historical, modern Year it was published: 1991 Summary: From amazon: " Fans of Tan's Joy Luck Club (Putnam, 1989) will love her powerful second novel. Here she creates an absorbing story about the lives of a Chinese mother and her adult American-born daughter. Pressured to reveal to the young woman her secret past in war-torn China in the 1940s, Winnie weaves an unbelievable account of a childhood of loneliness and abandonment and a young adulthood marred by a nightmarish arranged marriage. Winnie survives her many ordeals because of the friendship and strength of her female friends, the love of her second husband, and her own steadfast courage and endurance. At the conclusion, her secrets are uncovered and she shares a trust/love relationship with her...

Name of book:   The Hundred Secret Senses Author Name:  Amy Tan ISBN:  0-8041-1109-X Publisher:  Ivy Books, Ballantine Books Type of Book:  Adult, fantasy-history china, contemporary Year it was published:  1995 Summary:   From amazon: "Olivia, the narrator of this story, was born to an American mother and a Chinese father. She meets her 18-year-old Chinese half sister, Kwan, for the first time shortly after their father's death. Kwan adores "Libby-ah" and tries to introduce her to her Chinese heritage through stories and memories. Olivia is embarrassed by her sibling, but finds as she matures that she has inadvertently absorbed much about Chinese superstitions, spirits, and reincarnation. Olivia explains, "My sister Kwan believes she has Yin eyes. She sees those who have died and now dwell in the World of Yin..." Now in her mid-30s, Olivia, a photographer, is still seeking a meaningful life. The climax of the story comes when she and her...

 Chinese Fairytale Gone wrong Name of book:  The Joy Luck Club Author Name:  Amy Tan ISBN:  0-8041-0630-4 Publisher: Ballantine Books New York Type of book:  Originally an adult novel, now young adult-adult, fantasy china, historical, contemporary Year it was published:  October 1989 Summary:  Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful,...