Art by Charis
For this The Lit Club Edition, we're bringing you a whole batch of new books by people of color for people of color. This month, as it's Trans Awareness Month, we've incorporated a few books where trans folk are the protagonists. Enjoy!
RECOMMENDATIONS
George by Alex Gino
When people look at George, they think they see a boy. But she knows she's not a boy. She knows she's a girl.
George thinks she'll have to keep this a secret forever. Then her teacher announces that their class play is going to be Charlotte's Web. George really, really, REALLY wants to play Charlotte. But the teacher says she can't even try out for the part . . . because she's a boy.
With the help of her best friend, Kelly, George comes up with a plan. Not just so she can be Charlotte -- but so everyone can know who she is, once and for all. - Goodreads
Genre: LGBTQ+ Literature
Wandering Son by Takako Shimura
Wandering Son is a sophisticated work of literary manga translated with rare skill and sensitivity by veteran translator and comics scholar Matt Thorn. - Fantagraphics
Genre: Manga, LGBTQ+ Literature
Like Son by Felicia Luna Lemus
Set amidst the outsider worlds of New York, Los Angeles, and Mexico City, Like Son is the not-so-simple story of a father, a son, and the love blindness shared between them.
Meet Frank Cruz: a post-punk thirty-year-old who unwittingly inherits his dead father's legacy. Born a bouncing baby girl named Francisca to parents tangled in a doomed love affair, Frank grows up in both the poorest barrios and poshest hills of Southern California. At the age of eighteen, Frank leaves for the big city, but is pulled back into helping his estranged and blind father navigate an untimely death. Upon his death, Frank's father leaves his only child a mysterious crumbling photograph of a woman with a stunning gaze: Nahui Olin, a captivating member of the early 20th century Mexican avant-garde who once brought tragedy upon the Cruz family.
Punctured to his core by Nahui, Frank takes her portrait and flees to New York City to start anew—this time for real. There he meets fiery and eccentric Nathalie. The two fall in love, but after seven years of happy-go-lucky life together, in September 2001 the New York skyline tumbles, and Frank finds himself smack in the middle of his predestined fate. - Goodreads
Genre: Fiction, LGBTQ+ Fiction
Intolerable by Kamal Al-Solaylee
As a gay man living in an intolerant country, Al-Solaylee escaped first to England and eventually to Canada, where he became a prominent journalist and academic. While he was enjoying the cultural and personal freedoms of life in the West, his once-liberal family slowly fell into the hard-line interpretations of Islam that were sweeping large parts of the Arab-Muslim world in the 1980s and 1990s. The differences between his life and theirs were brought into sharp relief by the 2011 revolution in Egypt and the civil war in Yemen.
Intolerable is part memoir of an Arab family caught in the turmoil of Middle Eastern politics over six decades, part personal coming-out narrative and part cultural analysis. This is a story of the modern Middle East that we think we know so much about. - Goodreads
Genre: Nonfiction
REVIEWS
Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older
This book was a very colorful and diverse book, filled with characters from multiple ethnicities ranging from Puerto Rican to Haitian and also featured a lesbian couple. Throughout the novel, Older sets a realistic view of Brooklyn, featuring AAVE dialect and conversations on topics varying from gentrification to cultural appropriation. Most of these topics are introduced offhandedly, not the focus of the book, but still refreshing to be presented to these realities so many other YA authors glide over. One aspect of Shadowshapers I loved in particular was of the issue of colorism within her family, for the most part pushed by her aunt. Through many comments, Sierra’s aunt made it clear that being lighter was optimal. Finally, once her aunt directs her colorist comments towards her new darker-skinned friend Robbie, Sierra finally stands up for her beliefs - that all shades of brown are beautiful and she's proud of the shade she's got.
Although the book was very strong on diversity and realistic perspectives, I felt as though it lacked in creating depth within its characters and their relationships. Looking at the characters in Shadowshapers, Sierra was a very well written, but all the other characters seemed to fall flat. Her friends, family and antagonist, Dr. Jonathan Wick are very two dimensional, each holding a few traits and not bringing anything more. And since these characters are all pretty two dimensional, Sierra’s relationships feels off, especially the one she shares with Robbie. It feels too stereotypical and staged, nothing feels natural and Robbie offers another diverse character, to the storyline with dreads, tattoos and a Haitian background, but adds nothing else to Sierra or their relationship
Older’s Shadowshapers may have lacked depth in it's characters, apart from Sierra, and their relationship, but provided in the end a colorful and realistic read in out presently eurocentric YA series and novels.
Adele’s rating: 3.6/5 stars