Underwater Heists, Jim Crow Asylums, and More in Today's Best BIPOC Releases
Plus a cute lil book sleeve
Today’s In Reading Color is brought to you by: the audiobook edition of ARYA KHANNA’S BOLLYWOOD MOMENT
Arushi Avachat’s sparkling debut rom-com is about a high school senior whose life suddenly gets a Bollywood spin when her sister gets engaged.
With shaadi preparations in full swing, the Khannas are finally together again, and Arya is determined to enjoy it. But she soon finds herself in the middle of her sister’s fights with their mother and her own complicated feelings. Meanwhile at school, Arya is struggling to navigate the aftermath of a breakup between her best friends and a tense partnership with her frustratingly attractive rival. Determined to keep the peace, Arya faces some new realities while learning that life doesn’t always work out like her beloved Bollywood movies. ARYA KHANNA’S BOLLYWOOD MOMENT is narrated by Nikhaar Kishnani. Find out more about the audiobook edition of ARYA KHANNA’S BOLLYWOOD MOMENT here!
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There’s never a dull moment in Booklandia (turns out book people can be messy af?). The latest tea comes by way of The Hugo Awards. Right now, no one really knows exactly what’s going on, just that certain books — including the mega-popular Babel by R.F. Kuang — were made ineligible for unclear reasons, and no one’s feeling it. We’ll see how this one shakes out.
In other awards news, the American Library Association’s Youth Media Awards have been announced, and the winners look really dope.
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As for today’s new releases, they look at grief in different ways, document how this country has cared for its mentally ill Black population (it hasn’t), and take us on thrilling underwater heists.
New Releases
Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum by Antonia Hylton
In 1911, 12 Black men were made to construct a building from scratch in a cold forest in Maryland. Once they were finished, they became its first patients. The hospital was a state-owned one meant for the “Negro Insane,” and here, multi-award-winning Hylton documents this hospital’s — named Crownsville Hospital — 93-year history. Crownsville went from an antebellum-style work camp, to a hospital with more than 2,000 patients, to virtually fading from view once prisons and jails took over as America’s primary way to house poor people needing mental health care. This is the kind of book that sounds so interesting and necessary for me to read, but also one I know will make me feel a type of way.
Into the Sunken City by Dinesh Thiru
Five hundred years from now, climate change results in a drowning world. In this dystopian future, even in places like Arizona, the rain never stops. It’s in this moist, hellish landscape that 18-year-old Jin Haldar is trying her best to keep her and her sister Thara afloat without their parents. Desperation leads to Thara accepting a job offered by an eccentric stranger, and even though Jin swore off diving since their father’s death, she agrees too. And, as with any good heist, a spicy crew is assembled. As the group tries to get the gold score of a lifetime from a submerged Las Vegas, they’ll encounter sea beasts, pirates, and mysterious figures.
Wild Life by Opal Wei
So we’re mixing it up as far as contemporary romance protagonists go. Zoey Fong researches the same type of cancer that almost killed her sister. One day, an important tissue sample accidentally leaves the lab with handsome visitor Davy Hsieh. Zoey follows him home to a rather unusual place: an island estate in need of a little TLC. Davy’s goal is to run an animal sanctuary on the estate, which would allow him to wake up as a hermit every day, thereby escaping his past. But his plans change when Zoey enters his life.
The Colliding Worlds of Mina Lee by Ellen Oh
Have you ever read a book adaptation of a music video? Well, The Colliding Worlds of Mina Lee was inspired by A-ha's "Take on Me." In it, Mina wakes up one morning to find herself in a fictional world she created. To get out, she’ll have to go up against a supervillain, uncover a conspiracy, and maybe even risk losing the boy of her dreams forever.
Broughtupsy by Christina Cooke
After her brother passes away from sickle cell anemia, 22-year-old Akúa flies back to Jamaica from Canada to reconnect with her sister. Once there, Akúa and her sister Tamika revisit childhood spots where they spread their brother’s ashes. Despite this new bonding, Akúa can’t help but question her sister’s abandonment of her, and if she even still has a home in Jamaica as a gay woman.
You're Breaking My Heart by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
Fourteen-year-old Harriet is struggling after her brother Tunde was killed in a shooting at their old school. Though she has some support, it’s not enough to stop her from feeling guilt over the last thing she said to Tunde the day he died. Then, a new classmate shows up. Alisia is a bit odd like Harriet, but more interestingly, she offers up knowledge of a fantastical world that exists beneath New York City’s subways — a world where Harriet may find the cure to her grief.
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
The grief from losing his parents drives Iranian American poet Cyrus Shams to alcoholism and an obsession with martyrdom. This obsession leads him to find out about certain mysteries surrounding his own family, starting with an Angel of Death uncle and his mother, who may not have been who she seemed.
Dead in Long Beach, California by Venita Blackburn
Here’s another one that looks at how we process grief and heads up, Blackburn’s protagonist Coral’s methods aren’t the healthiest. When she discovers her brother in his apartment dead from suicide, instead of telling his daughter Khadija the news, she decides to masquerade as him — using his phone, she texts people back in his voice. Soon, though, her surrounding reality starts to crumble and blend with the world of her bestselling dystopian novel Wildfire.
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The illustrated characters in this padded book sleeve are achieving my ideal levels of coziness. $24+
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