The month of May has been designated since 1992 as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in the U.S. It's a month of observance and celebration of the countless achievements and contributions of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) people in all facets of American life, including literature and the arts.
This year, AAPI Heritage Month feels especially poignant, not only because we are still in the midst of a pandemic, but because we are still processing the senseless acts of violence and increased number of reported hate crimes toward members of the AAPI community. Despite the uptick in coverage of these issues that are due in large part to the work of activists like Amanda Nguyen, many AAPI people say that support — from both non-Asian peers and the system at large — is severely lacking.
We do not have simple solutions for these complex issues. While bipartisan approval for legislation to protect the AAPI community appears to be a step in the right direction, many believe that comprehensive systemic change — not increased policing — is what's needed to eradicate the racism that AAPI people and other marginalized groups are facing now.
Comprising far from an exhaustive list, these books by AAPI authors are a mix of new releases and older favorites that span genres of memoir, cultural criticism, romance, and YA. We hope you can extend your support in the following ways: buying these books from independent bookstores, donating to organizations like HateIsAVirus and Stop AAPI Hate, attending bystander intervention training from an organization like Hollaback!, and supporting grassroots initiatives like New York City's Welcome to Chinatown and the San Francisco Bay Area's Cut Fruit Collective to keep local AAPI-owned businesses thriving in an already difficult time.
In the spirit of AAPI Heritage Month (and exceeding well beyond), we hope that reading these incredible books helps you to reflect on the infinitely multifaceted nature of identity — while also entertaining you for hours on end.
If you've ever read Mary H.K. Choi's YA novels, you know that 1. they have a distinct dryly humorous, of-the-moment, cerebral tone, and 2. they often deal with heavy topics. Her latest book, Yolk, is about two once-close sisters, June and Jayne, who've lost touch to the point where they are now bitterly estranged.
It takes something life-changingly terrible — June getting cancer — to get both sisters to reckon with their core woundings from childhood.
Even if we are not our parents, we cannot help but be impacted by their traumas and complicated choices. Elizabeth Miki Brina's stunning debut memoir is a personal search for making sense of growing up in a mixed-race family, feeling a dissonance and lack of belonging.
Weaving together history and personal narrative, she charts her complicated family origin story as the daughter of a white American soldier and an Okinawan woman who saw marriage to him as her only option out of a war-torn existence.
For lovers of YA, satire, and magical realism, put Gold Diggers on your reading list. This novel follows Neil, a second-generation Indian American teen growing up in the Atlanta suburbs, who is increasingly annoyed by the high-achieving aspirations that his parents want for him.
He's always been close with his neighbor Anita — that is until she starts ascending the popularity ranks at school and excelling in mysterious ways. What is the cause of this change? Neil discovers that her powers come from an alchemical potion made of gold, but not just any gold, though — stolen gold.
4'Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning' by Cathy Park Hong
Cathy Park Hong's 2020 memoir seems to be directly in dialogue with this exact moment in history. This powerful book of essays responds to the years of racialized gaslighting — both overt and subtle — that she endured as the daughter of Korean immigrants to America.
Her self-aware, poetic language incisively illustrates not only the forces of white supremacy that work to shame and erase AAPI experience but also the turmoil and self-doubt that she actively works to dismantle within herself.
5'Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion' by Jia Tolentino
Jia Tolentino's debut essay collection Trick Mirror was somewhat of a phenomenon when it was published in 2019. But its near-universal approval is far from just hype. Each of the nine essays skillfully peels back layers of a societally accepted concept to reveal the con at the very center.
The essay “Always Be Optimizing” in particular yokes social media, the industry of barre classes, and fast-casual salad chains like Sweetgreen together to make a compelling argument about how we streamline the self to project an idealized image.
6‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel’ by Ocean Vuong
Tender, raw, and loving, it's amazing to think that On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a debut work.
This novel in the form of a letter explores mother-son history and trauma, depictions of poverty and queerness, and the complicated understanding of the Vietnamese American identity, all in Ocean Vuong's inimitable poetic voice.
This beautifully written collection of short stories from Xuan Juliana Wang centers around the Chinese millennial experience.
Wang's moving and slightly surrealist narratives transport the reader from China to America and back again, reckoning with generational disparities, the ache of secret love, and the privilege of having endless choices.
We don’t use the word “romp” lightly, but we can’t help but feel it when it comes to describing Chang-rae Lee's comic yet dark new novel My Year Abroad.
Narrated by the 20-year-old Tiller Bardmon, a white American with one-eighth Korean ancestry, the book follows his experience meeting a charismatic Chinese American pharmaceuticals entrepreneur named Pong Lou. Tiller gets recruited by Pong in his venture to commercialize a miracle health tonic, and the pair embark on a Hangover-like business trip across Asia.
Countless hijinks ensue, but the undercurrent of this novel, dealing with mental health, the effects of globalization, and Western stereotyping of Asians, is anything but lighthearted.
Whether or not you've seen the hit Netflix movies based on this Jenny Han love story, you'll want to read the book that started it all.
When all five of Lara Jean Song’s crushes get ahold of the love letters she’s written to them — but for her eyes only — her love life spins out of control.
Shoegaze enthusiasts are no doubt familiar with the dreamy sounds and emotional lyricism of the band Japanese Breakfast, but frontwoman Michelle Zauner's memoiristic writing speaks for itself.
Zauner's recently published Crying at H Mart began as a heartwrenching 2018 essay in The New Yorker. The book is equal parts brutal and beautiful, expanding upon the original essay to encompass the story of Zauner's relationship with her mother, cut brutally short by cancer. As she loses her mother, Zauner also grapples with her Korean American identity similarly slipping away from her.
Susan Choi's writing is devastatingly descriptive, unflinching, and evocative. Her 2019 novel, Trust Exercise, is a tragicomedy set in the early 1980s at a performing arts high school, and centers around the hyper-competitive relationships between the students and the world outside of the campus. It layers on so much tension with each brilliantly crafted sentence.
Choi's darkly sexy and quirky 2013 novel My Education is another all-time favorite of ours.
12‘Little Fires Everywhere: A Novel’ by Celeste Ng
If you’ve binged the Hulu series, read Celeste Ng’s blockbuster novel Little Fires Everywhere to piece it all back together.
After Elena Richardson rents out a house to a charismatic single mother, Mia Warren, and her teenage daughter, Pearl, in her picture-perfect suburban community of Shaker Heights, near Cleveland — things start to change.
All of Elena’s four children are infatuated with Mia and Pearl and their mysterious past, which is unlike anything they’ve been exposed to before. Elena, determined to discover the truth to Mia’s past, finds herself uncovering unexpected and devastating secrets.
13'How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays' by Alexander Chee
Alexander Chee's 2018 essay collection How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is a coming-of-age story in the author's own words. He deftly elucidates formative experiences such as his father's death, growing up during the AIDS crisis, first loves, early jobs ... all while bending the essay genre in the most unexpected ways.
If you're a historical fiction fan (or even if you think you're not), definitely check out Chee's earlier work, The Queen of the Night. It's an operatic epic and a compelling 500-plus-page read with no slow parts.
14‘How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy’ by Jenny Odell
You may be tempted to take a snap of the gorgeous cover of Jenny Odell's How to Do Nothing and post it on Instagram ... but that would be entirely missing the point. In her debut nonfiction book, Odell critiques the omnipresent digital strategy known as the “attention economy,” which is meant to keep users engaged, outraged, and constantly refreshing their feeds.
In one chapter, Odell illustrates her argument for attuning one's attention back toward the local bioregion with a poignant personal example. She learns of a weather event called an atmospheric river, in which trapped moisture from the Philippines is transported across the Pacific to fall as rain when it reaches Oakland, California. This surprising connection between the homeland of her mother's family and her current city of residence deepens her relationship to both places at once.
Fundamentalism, political extremism, and terrorism make for a perfect storm of doomsday scenarios, and the novel The Incendiaries is a compelling look into the darkest timeline.
College students Phoebe and Will find themselves pulled into an underworld cult with ties to North Korea. Both students try to patch the profound sense of loss in their lives through acceptance by this group ... even when they're forced to commit some truly horrific atrocities.
Looking for a thriller of a different sort? Author R.O. Kwon also coedited the recently released Kink, an anthology of short fiction and erotica by some of today's most widely read literary luminaries.
Melanie YatesSenior Home Decor EditorMelanie is the senior home decor editor of Best Products, where she's been researching and testing out home and bedding products since 2015 — her work can also be found on House Beautiful and Women's Health.
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