Tagged with fiction

America is what's supposed to be a step from heaven for the Park family, when they emigrate there from Korea. Young Ju's family makes its way to the US when she is about four, if I remember correctly. The early parts of the novel, which chronicles her life until just before she leaves for college, are impressionistic, conveying how one's memory of childhood comes in flashes, not narratives. The telling remains episodic, though of course it gets clearer as Young Ju matures. Sometimes I don't like that kind of writing, but in A Step from Heaven it's just how she tells a sometimes painful story. Even the reader needs a little literary distance from Young Ju's abusive father, and from seeing the abuse turn Young Ju's American-born brother Joon Ho into a monster, as well.

I've really got to stop reading graphic novel comics (and tween novels) when more often than not my review starts with a disclaimer that it's not my genre. I was drawn to read the Batwoman story because the Twitterdome was full of "DC's first gay superhero" buzz. It's true that comics don't speak to me the way I think they should, but sometimes they really really do--like if they're written/drawn by Lynda Barry or Alison Bechdel, so I keep trying. However, lesbian though she may be, Batwoman Kate Kane is no dyke to watch out for, not that she isn't scary. She's a soldier manquée (DADT) with a vicious grudge. Speaking of DADT, I should mention here that Dan Choi served as a consultant for the book. You also might want to know that Rachel Maddow wrote the intro.

To me one of the most important things about this book is that it's from a small press, GemmaMedia. From their about page, "Gemma features cultural memoir from around the world, Irish fiction and fine journalism, the Open Door adult literacy series and current affairs publishing with diversity at the heart of the story." Dragon Chica is a pretty great book. It's not a memoir, but it reads like one. It tells the story of a Cambodian-Chinese refugee coming of age in Nebraska. She, her mother, her older sister Sourdi, younger twin sisters and younger brother move there to help their aunt and uncle run a Chinese restaurant.

I so needed a new-to-me paranormal fiction series! The protagonist is a coyote shapeshifter. So far there don't seem to be others of her kind, and having been raised by werewolves, most of her friends are of that persuasion. There is also the odd gremlin or vampire in her social circle--and someone really dangerous, an undercover cop.