Diverse Community Review

Spread Me by Sarah Gailey On a far-flung desert planet, research station life follows a predictable routine: days are for analyzing samples and tracking sandstorms. Nights are for drinking games and romantic entanglements. Or at least, that’s how the rest of the team lets off steam—head researcher Kinsey chose this assignment specifically for the isolation.   As a desert storm appears on the horizon, they discover the body of an alien lifeform buried in the sand. Kinsey breaks protocol … Read more

Sunbirth by An Yu In the desert town of Five Poems Lake, a young woman tries to live a peaceful life of routine despite her circumstances. Twelve years ago, her parents disappeared one by one: only her father’s body was found. Her loss was overshadowed when the sun began to disappear from the sky a sliver at a time.   Since then, the locals who remain have acclimated to the colder … Read more

Solito: A Memoir by Javier Zamora What were you doing at 9 years of age? What were your daily concerns when you were in the fourth grade? At 9 years old, author and poet Javier Zamora traveled 3,000 miles – from El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico – to arrive in the U.S. and reunite … Read more

Ian’s Ride: A Long-distance Journey to Joy by Karen Polinsky On a beautiful, early summer Santa Cruz evening, Ian Mackay was poised on his bike at the top of the Great Meadow bike path, looking down at shimmering Monterey Bay. Tonight was the night, he decided, that he would break his record, rocketing down the … Read more

The Lost Journals of Sacajewea by Debra Magpie Earling Debra Magpie Earling’s “The Lost Journals of Sacajewea” is the reclamation of a historical figure often clouded by myth. Sacajewea was a Shoshone woman who traveled as part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition from 1804 to 1806, serving at times as both an interpreter and … Read more

Out of the Sierra: A Story of Rarámuri Resistance by Victoria Blanco “Out of the Sierra: A Story of Rarámuri Resistance” provides a window into the world of the Rarámuri, an Indigenous group in present-day Chihuahua, Mexico. Author Victoria Blanco spent years researching and living among a Rarámuri community, adapting ethnographic and sociologic practices to … Read more

Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls This year’s winner of the Washington State Book Award for Creative Nonfiction is a breathtaking achievement of memoir, art and Chinese history.  Growing up, Tessa Hulls knew three things about her grandma, Sun Yi: She was from China, she was a writer, she was crazy. Their home … Read more

Summerhouse by Yiğit Karaahmet, translated from the Turkish by Nicholas Glastonbury  To their neighbors on Büyükada, a sleepy island off the coast of Istanbul, pianist Şener and playwright Fehmi are known to their neighbors as unusual artist friends who share a lush, hilltop garden estate. Only their closest friends know the two men have been … Read more

Chlorine by Jade Song “Chlorine,” by Jade Song, is a work of literary fiction that plunges into the disquieting depths of a second-generation Chinese immigrant’s adolescence.  Touching on weighty topics like abuse, self-harm and body mutilation, “Chlorine” can be a profoundly unsettling read. Yet, it also offers a look at the challenges of assimilation, self-identity … Read more

Homeseeking by Karissa Chen  This sweeping epic examines themes of displacement, identity and loss through the lives of a couple separated by war and circumstance. Suchi and Haiwen meet as children in pre-WWII Shanghai. Their connection is instant and intense, and friendship eventually blossoms into love. But Shanghai is gripped by occupation and political upheaval, … Read more