‘Tis the season for book awards and best-of lists! What have you read and loved in 2019? Any immigrant, refugee or mental health works you’d recommend for fellow Foreign Bodies subscribers? Other unrelated books you can’t stop thinking about? Tell us in the comments!
Good Talk by Mira Jacob is the best memoir yet! And The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri is spectacular also. Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur held me mesmerized.
LOVE good talk/mira jacob!! may have read it like 3 times already. still haven't read dina nayeri but plan to close out the year with the ungrateful refugee + the other americans. what's wild game about??
Wild Game is set in Cape Cod about how a 14-year old Adrienne was asked to be the go between/cover up for her mother who had a multiple-year affair with her husband's best friend--it reads like fiction. I had read her Modern Love essay and she has talked about it in jest many times. But how this affected a young girl in how she viewed the world is a fascinating story. Beautifully crafted memoir.
I'm really liking Nothing Ever Dies by Viet Thanh Nguyen! I find it uses the lens of memory to beautifully tie together the politics of remembering and unremembering, the SEA refugee experience, and visibility in the United States.
oh man, this is officially on my to-buy list. every viet thanh nguyen book at my library is ALWAYS checked out! have you read on earth we're briefly gorgeous? love how ocean vuong uses memory to take readers back and forth, too.
I have not! It sounds great though, I've gained a lot more interest in memory as social commentary and as a means of storytelling. I'll be sure to check it out!
Ahhhhhhh I love Esmé Wang's work from Catapult and only JUST got The Collected Schizophrenias. Have a few people ahead of me on The Border of Paradise library waitlist.
Both Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng and There, There by Tommy Orange we’re incredible personal reads. My middle/high school book clubs are reading Lisa Ramèe’s A Good Kind of Trouble and Angie Thomas’ On the Come Up. They’re enjoying them a lot, and we’re finding them to be both age appropriate and thought-provoking!
I'm listening to LFE right now!! Loving it. And yes, There There was fantastic! If you liked it, you might enjoy The Overstory (one of my all-time faves). I haven't read much YA tbh but really liked Angie Thomas' Hate U Give. Is the Lisa Ramée book inspired by John Lewis (#goodtrouble). and hi Liz! welcome <3
I hadn't delved super far into YA anytime recently but am sort of finding it to be a guilty pleasure now that I"m back reading it for the schools. Yes, Ramée's book is inspired by that movement. I will check out The Overstory! Glad to be here!
I just started reading A Particular Kind of Black Man by Tope Folarin. The book is about a young Nigerian boy who grows up in Utah but his mother has to leave to return to Nigeria because of her mental illness. It’s good so far.
Oh this sounds so good. Have you read Tope Folarin's short story "Miracle" yet? A friend *just* send me a link to it and I plan to indulge tonight: http://www.magunga.com/miracle-by-tope-folarin/
Oh, one more: Right now, I’m reading ORDINARY GIRLS by Jaquira Diaz, and it’s astonishing. Diaz’s writing stays with you, and when I’m not reading, I can’t wait to get back to this book. It discusses mental illness quite a bit, too.
My #1 recommendation comes out in January 2020! It's called ALMOST AMERICAN GIRL by Robin Ha. It's a graphic memoir published by an imprint of HarperCollins, and it made me laugh and cry and feel so much empathy. And the art is stunning!
I'm in the middle of 'Girl, Woman, Other' right now, which is fiction but sometimes is so painfully on-point I have to put it down (in a good way!) Traces the lives of a group of people (as this review describes it, "twelve very different people - mostly women, mostly black") over years as they adjust to life in Britain. Lot of heartbreak and loss and confusion and survival, I'm so impressed by it.
I know I'm a few years late, but loved "One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter" by Scaachi Koul! Also, some poetry including If They Come For Us and Citizen Illegal!
Good Talk by Mira Jacob is the best memoir yet! And The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri is spectacular also. Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur held me mesmerized.
LOVE good talk/mira jacob!! may have read it like 3 times already. still haven't read dina nayeri but plan to close out the year with the ungrateful refugee + the other americans. what's wild game about??
Wild Game is set in Cape Cod about how a 14-year old Adrienne was asked to be the go between/cover up for her mother who had a multiple-year affair with her husband's best friend--it reads like fiction. I had read her Modern Love essay and she has talked about it in jest many times. But how this affected a young girl in how she viewed the world is a fascinating story. Beautifully crafted memoir.
you just won me over. this sounds so. good.
fiza, will good talk be part of a giveaway soon?:)
hehe https://foreignbodies.net/giveaways
I'm really liking Nothing Ever Dies by Viet Thanh Nguyen! I find it uses the lens of memory to beautifully tie together the politics of remembering and unremembering, the SEA refugee experience, and visibility in the United States.
oh man, this is officially on my to-buy list. every viet thanh nguyen book at my library is ALWAYS checked out! have you read on earth we're briefly gorgeous? love how ocean vuong uses memory to take readers back and forth, too.
I have not! It sounds great though, I've gained a lot more interest in memory as social commentary and as a means of storytelling. I'll be sure to check it out!
20 love poems and a song of despair-pablo neruda!
AHHHHHHHalex. <333
The Border Of Paradise was a good mix of mental health and migrant trauma, and some of the writing was absolutely arresting.
Ahhhhhhh I love Esmé Wang's work from Catapult and only JUST got The Collected Schizophrenias. Have a few people ahead of me on The Border of Paradise library waitlist.
btw have you read the Bassey Ikpi collection? lmk what you think if you do!
oooh I have not but am excited to check it out!
Both Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng and There, There by Tommy Orange we’re incredible personal reads. My middle/high school book clubs are reading Lisa Ramèe’s A Good Kind of Trouble and Angie Thomas’ On the Come Up. They’re enjoying them a lot, and we’re finding them to be both age appropriate and thought-provoking!
I'm listening to LFE right now!! Loving it. And yes, There There was fantastic! If you liked it, you might enjoy The Overstory (one of my all-time faves). I haven't read much YA tbh but really liked Angie Thomas' Hate U Give. Is the Lisa Ramée book inspired by John Lewis (#goodtrouble). and hi Liz! welcome <3
I hadn't delved super far into YA anytime recently but am sort of finding it to be a guilty pleasure now that I"m back reading it for the schools. Yes, Ramée's book is inspired by that movement. I will check out The Overstory! Glad to be here!
I just started reading A Particular Kind of Black Man by Tope Folarin. The book is about a young Nigerian boy who grows up in Utah but his mother has to leave to return to Nigeria because of her mental illness. It’s good so far.
Oh this sounds so good. Have you read Tope Folarin's short story "Miracle" yet? A friend *just* send me a link to it and I plan to indulge tonight: http://www.magunga.com/miracle-by-tope-folarin/
Oh, one more: Right now, I’m reading ORDINARY GIRLS by Jaquira Diaz, and it’s astonishing. Diaz’s writing stays with you, and when I’m not reading, I can’t wait to get back to this book. It discusses mental illness quite a bit, too.
I requested a copy at my library last week!!
My #1 recommendation comes out in January 2020! It's called ALMOST AMERICAN GIRL by Robin Ha. It's a graphic memoir published by an imprint of HarperCollins, and it made me laugh and cry and feel so much empathy. And the art is stunning!
i've been obsessed with graphic memoirs as of late. can't wait for this one!!
I'm in the middle of 'Girl, Woman, Other' right now, which is fiction but sometimes is so painfully on-point I have to put it down (in a good way!) Traces the lives of a group of people (as this review describes it, "twelve very different people - mostly women, mostly black") over years as they adjust to life in Britain. Lot of heartbreak and loss and confusion and survival, I'm so impressed by it.
Oops forgot link: https://thebookerprizes.com/books/girl-woman-other-by
I've heard so many great things about girl woman other!! can't wait to read and follow up w/ you
I know I'm a few years late, but loved "One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter" by Scaachi Koul! Also, some poetry including If They Come For Us and Citizen Illegal!
I'm even later. It's on my shelf and I still haven't picked it up! What'd you love about One Day We'll All Be Dead? (ps, love fatimah asghar!)
It was funny! Usually memoirs like these are serious and sad but not this one!
always here for the funny memoirs. i need more comedy reads in my life!
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins undid me.
oooh tell me more. i've never read jeanine cummins! are you reviewing it? (see a jan 2020 release date)
in the dream house by carmen machacdo!!
machado*** sorry lol!
omg yes! this book is on my secret santa wish list ;-)
you will love it:)