Past Books

Dec 2024

The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong

A wandering fortune teller finds an unexpected family in this warm and cozy debut fantasy.

  • Non-traditional family structures

  • The importance of companionship

  • Xenophobia and othering of immigrants

  • Assimilation and the immigrant identity

  • Being satisfied with what you have

  • Seeing beauty in the mundane

  • Focusing on the journey instead of the destination

  • Healing from past trauma

  • Different ways of dealing with grief

  • Children forced to grow up due to necessity

Themes discussed

Nov 2024

Sorry for the Inconvenience by Farah Naz Rishi

A bracing memoir about tradition, upending expectations, and the volatility of family, friendship, and love.

  • Complicated family dynamics

  • The weight of family expectations

  • Growing up as a South Asian and Muslim immigrant in America

  • Relationships that differ from conventions

  • Emotional abuse and toxic relationships

  • Bereavement of family members

  • Homophobia and its toll on members of the queer community

  • Depression and suicide

  • Growing up with a narcissistic family member

  • The importance of friendships and support groups

Themes discussed

Oct 2024

The tale of a status-driven wedding planner grappling with her social ambitions, absent mother, and Puerto Rican roots—all in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez

  • What it means to pursue the “American dream”

  • The cost of family secrets

  • Colonial exploitation

  • The beauty of imperfect families

  • The complicated inheritance of diaspora

  • The weight of societal expectations

  • Parental neglect and its role in life trajectories

  • Internalized trauma and how people cope

Themes discussed

September 2024

Aiza trains to be a squire with dreams of becoming a knight just like the ones in the stories she loves. Along the way, she starts to question the truth behind the stories that she loves so much.

Squire by Sara Alfageeh & Nadia Shammas

  • Systems of oppression, war, and settler colonialism

  • The lies we tell ourselves

  • Internalized trauma

  • Role of allies in the liberation struggle

  • Glorification of war

  • Cost of our silence

  • The erasure of stories and reshaping of narratives

  • Being indigenous to a land

Themes discussed

August 2024

An immigrant family gets caught in the middle of a criminal investigation exposing the racial bias and social privilege that was carefully masked in the community.

Our Best Intentions by Vibhuti Jain

  • Double standards towards people of color

  • The criminalization and policing of Black people

  • Anti-Blackness in Asian communities

  • Racial bias and privilege in education

  • Raising a child as an immigrant

  • Raising a child as a single parent

  • Stigmatization of mental health in people of color

  • Lack of support towards vulnerable youth

  • Casual racism

Themes discussed

July 2024

An unforgettable story about female friendship and queer love in a Pakistani-American community, with the protagonist struggling to reconcile her heritage and faith with her desire to be true to herself.

Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman

  • The hardships of being a Queer Muslim immigrant of color

  • The increased discrimination for intersectional identities

  • The role of friendships and community as support

  • How loved ones can hurt us

  • The mindset difference between a first-generation and second-generation immigrant

  • The challenges of assimilation vs. preserving your roots

  • Cultural appropriation and the erasure of stories

  • Islamophobia

  • Violence against women

Themes discussed

June 2024

Set in 18th century Ghana at the heart of the slave trade, this is the story of two sisters facing much different fates. It's an unflinching narrative of the lasting effects of slavery.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

  • The lasting effects of slavery and colonization

  • The dehumanization of African people and culture

  • How people of color can become complicit to morally corrupt practices, even to a system that treats them as inferior

  • Questions of identity in biracial children

  • The different ways that anti-Blackness manifests in societies

  • The repression of women in patriarchal societies

  • The true meaning of freedom

Themes discussed

May 2024

A deeply moving family story about identity, faith, and belonging set in the Muslim immigrant enclave of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn following three siblings coming of age over the course of one Ramadan.

Between Two Moons by Aisha Abdel Gawad

  • The realities of Islamophobia in the US

  • Growing up as a Muslim in America

  • Surveillance of Muslim communities

  • The false promise of the American dream

  • How internalized racism can lead to low self-esteem

  • Self-destructive behaviors as a coping mechanism

  • Gender differences in coping with trauma

  • Coming of age in an immigrant community

  • Complicated family relationships

Themes discussed

April 2024

The contentious relationship between a Vietnamese mother and daughter comes to a head when their family’s beloved matriarch dies.

Banyan Moon by Thao Thai

  • The trauma from war

  • The difficulties of settling in a new country

  • The challenges of cultural assimilation

  • Complicated mother-daughter relationships

  • Physical and emotional abuse in romantic relationships

  • Casual sexism and racism that women of color go through

  • The fetishization of Asian women

Themes discussed

March 2024

A mystery novel featuring a 25-year-old Indian police sergeant investigating a missing persons case in 1914 colonial Fiji.

A Disappearance in Fiji by Nilima Rao

  • The brutalities of colonialism

  • How colonialism thrives on slave labor

  • The Indian indentured service program

  • Questions of personhood and caste

  • How society shames those who have made mistakes

Themes discussed

February 2024

A young girl in Harlem discovers slam poetry as a way to understand her mother’s religion and her own relationship to the world.

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

  • Difficult parent-child relationships

  • Parents passing on their hopes and dreams onto their children

  • Growing up in a conservative or religious household

  • The weight of unspoken things

  • The power of writing to heal and move others

  • The importance of caring mentors

Themes discussed

January 2024

  • The pain of being displaced

  • The toll of war on people’s lives

  • Questions of identity in diaspora

  • Finding community in diaspora

  • The challenges of being separated from loved ones

  • Intergenerational trauma due to exile

  • Not having the words to express trauma

  • The radicalization that can happen in disenfranchised communities

Themes discussed

The story follows three generations of a Palestinian family and asks us to confront that most devastating of all truths: not being able to go home again.

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan

December 2023

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

A lonely shopkeeper takes it upon herself to solve a murder in the most peculiar way in this mystery novel.

  • Generational differences in the definition of success

  • Success being attached to wealth and fame instead of happiness and connection

  • Families of birth vs. families of choice

  • Abusive family dynamics and the cost to mental health

  • How abusers isolate their victims from support networks

  • Exploitation of people who are struggling or vulnerable

  • Connection to your culture of origin

  • The role of police in society

Themes discussed

November 2023

This Hindu philosophy-inspired debut science fantasy follows a husband and wife racing to save their living city—and their troubled marriage—high above a jungle world besieged by cataclysmic storms.

The Surviving Sky by Kritika H. Rao

  • Class disparity and inequity

  • How power corrupts

  • Moral dilemmas in the aftermath of climate catastrophe

  • Difficulties of long-term relationships or marriages

  • Struggles of marriages between people with opposite ideologies

  • How secrets destroy relationships

  • The question of who gets to write history

  • How society defines who people are meant to be

  • Struggles of mental health

Themes discussed

October 2023

Late Bloomers charts the reverberations of divorce throughout an Indian-American family when the parents decide to split after 36 years of arranged marriage.

Late Bloomers by Deepa Varadarajan

  • The challenges of dating as an older person

  • The difficulties of assimilating into a new culture when immigrating as an adult

  • Mindset gap between immigrant parents and their children

  • Generational differences in expressions of love

  • Intergenerational trauma and its reverberating effects

  • Finding your community as an immigrant

Themes discussed

September 2023

Like most 20-somethings, Maddie wants to find her place in the world. Between serving as her ailing father’s primary caregiver and living on the whims of her difficult mother and nightmare boss, she’s ready to make some changes. Maame, Jessica George’s debut novel explores what it means to live with an open heart.

Maame by Jessica George

  • Difficulties of being a Black woman in white spaces

  • Racial “micro”aggressions at work

  • Casual racism among friends

  • Taking care of aging parents

  • Mindset gap between immigrant parents and their kids

  • Intergenerational trauma and its reverberating effects

  • The feeling of not belonging

  • How patriarchy shapes our sexualities

  • Lack of social support for young people of color

  • Lack of generational wealth

  • The nature of grief

Themes discussed

Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn’t write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American.Yellowface is an immersive satire from the perspective of the antagonist.

August 2023

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

  • Plagiarism and appropriation of literature

  • Racism in the publishing industry

  • The centering of white voices

  • Resenting BIPOC when things don’t go well instead of the true culprits in an inequitable system

  • The struggles of artists and creatives and the lack of support

  • Cancel culture and online bullying

  • How entitlement can make someone ignorant and arrogant

  • The great lengths people go to in desperation

Themes discussed

July 2023

An Indian woman finds the false rumors that she killed her husband surprisingly useful in keeping her shielded from village politics—until other women in the village start asking for her help to get rid of their own abusive husbands.

The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff

  • The challenges of being a woman in a patriarchal society

  • Violence and abuse against women in marriage

  • The social stigma and isolation of being a victim of abuse

  • India’s caste system and ostracization of lower castes

  • The power of politics and hierarchy of influence in villages

  • The poverty cycle and the role of microloans

  • The importance of female friendships

  • How societal expectations define self-worth

Themes discussed

June 2023

Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

  • The hidden pressures parents exert on their children

  • The weight of unspoken things

  • The cost of intergenerational trauma

  • Growing up as a BIPOC in a community where no-one else looks like you

  • Acts of racial aggression and their cumulative effects - death by a thousand paper cuts

  • The challenges of intercultural marriages

Themes discussed

May 2023

This coming-of-age story follows Charlie, a fat brown girl on a journey of self-acceptance while the world (including her mother) is telling her she needs to be thinner, lighter, and quieter.

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

  • Fatphobia in society

  • The unrealistic beauty and body standards of our world

  • Complicated mother-daughter relationships

  • The different manifestations of grief

  • Fitting in as a bi-racial person

  • The shame of not being fluent in the native tongue of your culture

  • The difficult journey of self-acceptance

  • High school bullying

Themes discussed

April 2023

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story that challenges everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves. We can’t choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become?

The Cover of the book Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson. The cover is a kaleidoscope of colors, similar to an abstract painting. The portrait of a woman can be seen in the pack if you look closely enough.

Themes discussed

  • The difficulties of immigration and assimiliation

  • The pain of not having a community

  • Generational trauma

  • Traditions as a language of love

  • The role of language and food in BIPOC communities

March 2023

The Love Match by Priyanka Taslim

This is a delightful and heartfelt rom-com about a Bangladeshi American teen whose mother arranges a match to secure their family’s financial security — just as she’s falling in love with someone else.

The Love Match, a book by Priyanka Taslim. Cover features a brown teen drinking tea from a cup and wearing Desi clothes. On the left is a boy with curly hair and spectacles, holding the girls dopatta, and on the right is a boy with longer hair

  • Navigating dual identities, cultures, and communities

  • The invisible barriers of women of color

  • Being Muslim in America

  • Being LGBTQIA+ and Muslim

  • The struggles of a single parent household

  • The unspoken nature of grief

  • Family love and bonds

  • Expectation gap between immigrant parents & their US-born children

Themes discussed