#AAPI authors

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

Good afternoon, my beloved bookish bats! May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AAPI Heritage Month), which encompasses East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific Islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. To celebrate, here are 144 books that celebrate the cultures and identities within this beautiful community.

What was the last book by an AAPI author you read?

Please note that I'm one insignificant human making these guides with my free time, and I'm bound to make mistakes. Feel free to correct me if necessary. Thank you for your understanding.

[academicmiki]

[batmansymbol]

hello, my sweet sweet tumblr friends. i have a new book out one month from saturday. here we are together, the book and i:

this one was fun. i wrote it with my sister! when we were young, we were cutthroat competitive. she (older) would forbid me from reading the books on her shelves, and i (gremlin) would booby-trap her room, so you decide which of us committed the greater sin. now we have a blast.

our names are pronounced REE-uh-nock and SHEE-fra, and our book was pitched as THE PARENT TRAP meets THE VANISHING HALF. it releases August 15th, 2023. logline is "Two half-Chinese half-siblings collide for the first time at a summer art camp, not knowing they're related—and begin to understand who they are as artists, as brother and sister, and as Asian-Americans."

it's a book about summer camp hijinks, about passing, about what we long for and where we belong. it also says "Robinson & Robinson" on the spine, which makes us sound like an accidental injury law firm. sweet.

of all the books with my name on it, this one is probably the "book club"-iest. if you like coming-of-age novels or stories about the AAPI diaspora, you might like this one :)

you can preorder a signed copy from my local indie here, or non-signed copies from Bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon. i really cannot stress enough how much every single preorder helps, as i am what the industry calls "a midlist author," also known as "an obscure author who has difficulty placing projects with publishers because of sales figures lmao." (this is not to whinge. the majority of working authors exist in this financially & existentially precarious position)

alternatively, i would be totally thrilled if you reblogged this post, or mentioned the book to any teachers, librarians, bookstore workers, or other readers in your life :)

happy summer everybody—may it be the lazy river of your dreams. xoxoxo

[lilliaespi]

AAPI month reminder

I genuinely hate that I have to say this - but there's more to Asian than just SE Asia. Central Asia (India, Kazakhstan, etc.), West Asia (turkey, Iran, etc.) exist. I am Asian American bc of my ancestors coming from India to West Asia to Slav (modern day Russia, Estonia in my case).

It's asian American month. That includes all Asians. Not just Japan, Koreas, Philippines, etc.

[elliepassmore]

Dragonfruit review

4/5 stars Recommended if you like: fantasy, dragons, Polynesian characters, quests

This book has an interesting premise: dragons in fantasy Polynesia. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and the magic system of the book and found myself interested in the plot. However, this does feel like a younger YA or MG book rather than a typical YA. Even when bad stuff happened to the characters, I didn't really feel the teeth of the novel and knew everything would be okay. The stakes just weren't there.

That being said, I did enjoy learning about the dragons. I found them to be interesting and Hanalei knows a bit about them as a result of her job. They're mostly aquatic creatures, but at times will venture onto land and change their morphology slightly to accommodate land living. The parts of a dragon are also a hot commodity, particularly the eggs, which can grant wishes. Through her studies, Hanalei has a deeper understanding of the creatures than most people do, though even among everyday people there seems to be a wide range in how people perceive the dragons. The dragoneers hunt them for their parts, but the people of Tamarind don't want to hurt them unless they themselves are being threatened.

Hanalei was exiled prior to the start of the story as a result of her father stealing a dragon egg meant for the crown princess in order to save her instead. But through a string of bad luck, she ends up back on Tamarind. It's clear from the get-go that Hanalei feels a lot of guilt over what her father did, and when given the chance she's willing to do almost anything to make it up to the royal family, people she once called friends. As the journey progresses, Hanalei begins to learn even more about the dragons than she already knew, and we see her developing a better grasp of how their magic works as well as a deep empathy for the creatures. She's very practical about things, even when emotions are running high, and I liked seeing how she worked to solve conflicting problems.

Sam understands his responsibilities, but he chafes at the choice before him. When Hanalei and a nesting dragon come to Tamarind, he's excited both to be reunited with his long-lost best friend but also to have another chance to save his mother. Despite being a warrior and prince, Sam is a warm and compassionate person, and he knows his people well. It's clear he's a great leader, even if he'll never have the title 'king.'

The side characters in this book were definitely side characters, though I liked most of them. Rosalie (I think her name is Rosalie, I can't quite remember) was catty to begin with, but she grew on me. I thought she and Hanalei were going to have a jealousy problem, but it ended up being a different conflict and it chilled out pretty quickly. Rosalie ended up being one of Hanalei's close confidantes and co-trouble-maker! I also liked William and thought his eagerness to learn was charming. I was hoping to see more from him and Sam's cousin, but oh well.

There is a minor (major?) character death that I was kind of surprised stuck. It didn't really make sense in my opinion, I feel like there's a level of magic that should've been at work there. But my biggest problem with this death is that I.....didn't really feel anything. Like, obviously it's supposed to be sad, and the characters are sad, but the death didn't pack a punch the way I think it was supposed to. It didn't really raise the stakes.

One thing I particularly liked about this book is the sense of family and community, as well as an underlying thread of forgiveness. Hanalei is welcomed back by (almost) all with open arms. The royal family understands that it was her father who stole the egg meant for the princess and that while it went to Hanalei, that she had nothing to do with it. Likewise, over the course of the story it becomes clear how much community means to the characters, particularly those who grew up on Tamarind like Hanalei and Sam. Even characters who mess up in the story (and some of them in a very big way) are eventually met with forgiveness and a second chance.

Overall I enjoyed this book and found it to be interesting. I really liked getting to see Polynesian culture(s) in a fantasy setting. Dragonfruit is a pretty unique story. That being said, the characters felt younger than they actually were and I felt like the book lacked tension, even in moments where it's clear there should've been high stakes.

[chanelslibrary]

🌙𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰🌙

Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

A smog has spread throughout the world depriving the planet of crops and slowly destroying wildlife. A young chef manages to escape the hellscape by getting a job on a luscious Italian mountaintop working for the global elite. Although food is abundant and decadent, and the air is fresh and clean, working for her mysterious employer and his high maintenance daughter comes with its own set of problems.

This book was fantastic! I loved the dystopian background, which felt so real like it could happen today (pollution creating a smog that wipes out plants and eventually animals). And it makes you think how it will affect careers such as chefs, farmers, scientists, meteorologists, etc. Zhang illustrates the chef’s thoughts and these characters so well with excellent prose, metaphors, and details! The research to get the ingredients and names for all of the recipes is so well done and meticulous to show the stark contrast between the wonderful life on the mountain and pollution in the rest of the world. Another great theme Zhang subtly weaved was the subjugation and interchangeably of Asian women. How they are seen as objects and not a whole person. I definitely recommend this book, especially the audiobook!!

Read if you love:

🏔️ Dystopian

👩🏻‍🍳 Culinary commentary

🌈 LGBTQ rep

✊🏼 AAPI rep

[bookwormtck]

So I’ve begun plotting my first serious novel draft and I’m so excited because I realized my stories can be about whatever I want it to. I have the power to take characters on a journey and let them live unique and interesting lives. I can write in as many seals as I want because they’re my favorite animal. I can base the cultural foods of my world off of my knowledge of different dishes around the world and no one will know where I got my ideas from! Fellow writers, don’t forget that your creative powers are the magic that brings your book to life! Don’t give up on whatever weird, crazy or silly ideas you have!

[wordpressdotcom]

We’re celebrating Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) heritage & talent this month! 🎉 Meet some of the incredible AAPI creators on WordPress.com. From mouth-watering recipes to powerful stories of identity and belonging—find your next read & start your own journey!

Read the full blog post here!

[cupofteajones]

Quote of the Day - May 27, 2025

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🌸 Books for AAPI Month

❤️ Celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with this list featuring some of the FEW empowering, vibrant stories written by AAPI authors or starring AAPI protagonists.

🌸 What books did you read for AAPI month?

✨ 2024 Releases ❤️ Night for Day - Roselle Lim 🌸 The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years - Shubnum Khan 🏮The Great Reclamation - Rachel Heng ❤️ Lies and Weddings - Kevin Kwan 🌸 Valley Verified - Kyla Zhao 🏮 The Catch - Amy Lea ❤️ Your Utopia - Bora Chung 🌸 Tehrangeles - Porochista Khakpour 🏮 Horse Barbie - Geena Rocero ❤️ Memory Piece - Lisa Ko 🌸 The Fetishist - Katherine Min 🏮 Real Americans - Rachel Khong ❤️ The Kamogawa Food Detectives - Hisashi Kashiwai 🌸 Manila Takes Manhattan - Carla de Guzman 🏮 The Last Phi Hunter - Salinee Goldenberg and Ilya Nazarov ❤️ May the Best Player Win - Kyla Zhao 🌸 Are You Nobody Too? - Tina Cane 🏮 The Design of Us - Sajni Patel ❤️ Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop - Hwang Bo-Reum 🌸 Heir - Sabaa Tahir 🏮 Maya's Laws of Love - Alina Khawaj ❤️ Midnights with You - Clare Osongco 🌸 Vilest Things - Chloe Gong 🏮 This Place is Magic - Irene Te ❤️ Guilt and Ginataan - Mia P. Manansal 🌸 Icon and Inferno - Marie Lu 🏮 Calling of Light - Lori M. Lee ❤️ Bite Me, Royce Taslim - Lauren Ho 🌸 Rules for Rule Breaking - Talia Tucker 🏮 What's Eating Jackie Oh? - Patricia Park ❤️ How to End a Love Story - Yulin Kuang 🌸 Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White - Amélie Wen Zhao 🏮 This Is How You Fall in Love - Anika Hussain ❤️ Just Playing House - Farah Heron 🌸 The Boyfriend Wish - Swati Teerdhala 🏮 A Tempest of Tea - Hafsah Faizal

✨ Romance ❤️ Dating Dr. Dil - Nisha Sharma 🌸 King of Wrath - Ana Huang 🏮 The Kiss Quotient - Helen Hoang ❤️ Girl Gone Viral - Alisha Rai 🌸 Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors - Sonali Dev 🏮 Role Playing - Cathy Yardley ❤️ The Hurricane Wars - Thea Guanzon 🌸 Ayesha at Last - Uzma Jalaluddin

✨ Fantasy ❤️ She Who Became the Sun - Shelley Parker-Chan 🌸 Babel - R.F. Kuang 🏮 Daughter of the Moon Goddess - Sue Lynn Tan ❤️ The Deep Sky - Yume Kitasei 🌸 The Jasmine Throne - Tasha Suri 🏮 Kaikeyi - Vaishnavi Patel ❤️ Light from Uncommon Stars - Ryka Aoki 🌸 Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

✨ Mystery ❤️ Arsenic and Adobo - Mia P. Manansala 🌸 Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers - Jesse Q. Sutanto 🏮 The Cartographers - Peng Shepherd ❤️ Miracle Creek - Angie Kim 🌸 A Disappearance in Fiji - Nilima Rao 🏮 The Leftover Woman - Jean Kwok ❤️ The Widows of Malabar Hill - Sujata Massey 🌸 Things We Do in the Dark - Jennifer Hillier

✨ Young Adult ❤️ The Wrath and the Dawn - Renée Ahdieh 🌸 All My Rage - Sabaa Tahir 🏮 Forget Me Not - Alyson Derrick ❤️ Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating - Adiba Jaigirdar 🌸 These Violent Delights - Chloe Gong 🏮 This Book Won't Burn - Samira Ahmed ❤️ American Betiya - Anuradha D. Rajurkar 🌸 Dragonfruit - Makiia Lucier

[she-karev]

📚May Book Review📚

3.5/5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐

“. . . as the future hasn't happened yet, I guess that's up to you. . .”

Happy Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! I decided to review this famous Japanese to English novel that has a synopsis to reel you in. Set in a coffee shop in Tokyo lies an opportunity to travel back in time as long as you return before the coffee gets cold. Although slow at first the anthology story brings you to tears as you follow four characters on their individual journeys through time. Each chapter explores the age-old question ‘What would you change if you could travel back in time?’. My complaints however are the chucky writing, too much narrative exposition, little characterization and dry dialogue. As far as first Japanese translated books I was a little underwhelmed but mostly I was enamored by the plot that is original with a set of rules that avoids the paradoxes typical in a time travel story. Overall, this is a book not about changing the past but about moving towards a brighter future.

[academicmiki]

[bigheartedbibliophile]

🌸 Happy Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! 🌸

[curlyhairedbibliophile]

Satisfiction Book Mail 📚📦

What a perfect package to land in my mailbox to close out AAPI Heritage Month! 😍

Both of these have been high on my radar so I couldn’t pass these gorgeous editions from Satisfiction! Excited to add these to the growing collection of both AAPI authors and special editions on my shelves 😊

📚 FEATURED BOOKS: Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier & Song of the Six Realms by Judy I. Lin

[beareadsbookz]

Review: Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao

Summary

Once, Lan had a different name. Now she goes by the one the Elantian colonizers gave her when they invaded her kingdom, killed her mother, and outlawed her people’s magic. She spends her nights as a songgirl in Haak’gong, a city transformed by the conquerors, and her days scavenging for what she can find of the past. Anything to understand the strange mark burned into her arm by her mother in her last act before she died.

The mark is mysterious—an untranslatable Hin character—and no one but Lan can see it. Until the night a boy appears at her teahouse and saves her life.

Zen is a practitioner—one of the fabled magicians of the Last Kingdom. Their magic was rumored to have been drawn from the demons they communed with. Magic believed to be long lost. Now it must be hidden from the Elantians at all costs.

When Zen comes across Lan, he recognizes what she is: a practitioner with a powerful ability hidden in the mark on her arm. He’s never seen anything like it—but he knows that if there are answers, they lie deep in the pine forests and misty mountains of the Last Kingdom, with an order of practitioning masters planning to overthrow the Elantian regime.

Both Lan and Zen have secrets buried deep within—secrets they must hide from others, and secrets that they themselves have yet to discover. Fate has connected them, but their destiny remains unwritten. Both hold the power to liberate their land. And both hold the power to destroy the world.

Now the battle for the Last Kingdom begins.

Thoughts

Okay I have a lot of thoughts, mostly positive but let’s start with the negative.

This book has a lot of things that I’m realizing are common with “romantasy”, which I am learning is not my thing, so take my opinions with a grain of salt. If you love fantasy romance, these things probably won’t bother you.

First, structurally this book felt rushed. There were typos and weird run-on sentences (not a ton, but definitely enough that I noticed). There were times where the wrong word was used (i.e. “Dredges” when the author meant “Dregs”).

Second - and this is something I really disliked about the From Blood and Ash series - there is a lot of infodumping that is often, for some reason, repeated? Like we get a lot of the same information two or three times over, which made the book longer than I felt like it needed to be.

Third, it was kind of insta-love-y. I mean, the book takes place over a long enough period of time that it isn’t necessarily insta-love, but I personally felt like there were odd leaps between romantic moments, so it felt like we really rushed through the main characters bonding, which made the stronger emotions seem a little unfounded.

Fourth, and this is a very specific to myself complaint, I didn’t like Lan’s characterization very much. I’m getting really tired of every female main character being essentially a cardboard cutout of each other. She’s snarky and sassy, but has to be taught everything, but is also somehow a prodigy at everything she does, all while seeing herself as able to handle a lot, yet she’s constantly crying over something. (This isn’t to say that strength = emotionless, it’s just that her character feels set up to be more withdrawn and to keep her emotions inside, but then she’s falling over a lounge chair like a Disney Princess to sob uncontrollably.) I feel like you could replace Lan with Poppy or Seraphina or Feyre and the story wouldn’t change much, if at all.

Lastly, I disliked the fact that Lan has no positive female relationships. Her mother is dead before the book starts; her supposed best friend is murdered like two seconds after we meet her (and Lan almost never thinks about her afterwards); her boss is a horrible person; and the only two female characters she meets for the rest of the book have instantaneous conflict with her that never gets resolved. I'm tired of reading about women and girls who only ever get along with men. Jenifer L Armentrout does this as well: Poppy and Seraphina both have exactly one positive female relationship who they are supposedly close with, but we don't see these women for practically their entire series. Every other female character is a villain or competition for her love interest, or else hates her for no apparent reason.

ON TO THE POSITIVES

I’ve been comparing this book to From Blood and Ash because they share a genre and I had some overlapping complaints, but all of the positives of this book are where we differ from that comparison. For instance, this book had a much more present and coherent plot, one that didn’t make me feel lost and confused every two chapters. I felt like the story was actually going somewhere. It also had a really cool magic system, which I did not feel like we got in FBaA.

Additionally, this book has actual themes about things that matter, and I thought they were handled in a much better and more responsible way. There is a recurring theme in Jenifer L Armentrout’s books of the “big bad” being a sexual predator. It happens because the love interest is just as murder-y and selfish as the bad guy, so she needed a way to differentiate so that we the readers would know why it’s okay for Sexy Lover Boy to be a heartless killer and not Evil Nasty Guy. It felt so lazy and frankly, just rancid overall, especially when it continued happening over and over again in each book of hers that I read.

On the flip side, in Song of Silver, Flame Like Night, we do see threats of sexual violence, but in the context of colonizers and invaders wielding their power over their victims, who have no leverage to say no. We also see villains who are actually just bad (greed, violence, lust for power, etc) without needing to make them rapists to show who we’re supposed to root for.

I thought the overarching points of this book were very important and relevant, especially in the context of current world events. The fact that horrific atrocities have been committed upon your people does not give you the right to turn around and do it to another people. Just because your people have hurt each other does not mean that violence against you is justified or “not that bad”.

The last thing I’ll say is that I really loved the setting and magic. It was so vibrant and I felt like I could really see and hear the places and events I was reading about. I know I’ve mentioned it at least twice now, but seriously this magic system might be one of the coolest and most unique I’ve read about recently (probably tied for first place with the magic system in Faebound).

Overall, it’s a good book, but this genre just isn’t my style. I plan to read the sequel because I’m very curious about where the story goes from here, but I don’t think I’ll be picking up more of this author’s books after that.

Rating: 3.5⭐️

AAPI Heritage Month Hopefuls

(books I want to read if I can get them)

Rise of the Manō by Leialoha Humpherys

Poūkahangatus by Tayi Tibble

Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo

Hula by Jasmin ‘Iolani Hakes

Vā: Stories of the Women of the Moana edited by Sisilia Eteuati and Lani Wendt Young

The Wild Ones by Nafiza Azad

Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao

The Last Bloodcarver by Vanessa Le

The Do’s and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar

Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao

Weird Fishes by Rae Mariz

The Marvelous Mirza Girls by Sheba Karim

One Boy, No Water by Lehua Parker

The Bone People by Keri Hulme

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh

The Wonders We Seek by Saadia Faruqi & Aneesa Mumtaz

Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier

The Dragon Prince: Stories and Legends From Vietnam edited by Thich Nhat Hanh

The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang

Muslim Girls Rise by Saira Amir

Fish Swimming In Dappled Sunlight by Alison Watts & Riku Onda

Red, White, and Whole by Rajani LaRocco

Banyan Moon by Thao Thai

Force Of Fire by Sayantani DasGupta

Rangikura by Tayi Tibble

Writing In Color by multiple authors (including but not limited to Nafiza Azad, Axie Oh, Joan He, Chloe Gong, and Darcie Little Badger)

I will be reblogging with reviews as I finish these!

[chanelslibrary]

🌙𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰🌙

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Shiori’anma is the princess of Kiata with a secret—she can perform magic. Shiori has kept her magic hidden until her betrothal ceremony when she loses control and catches the attention of her stepmother, Raikama, and evaded her unwanted wedding. Soon Raikama revels she is a sorceress by banishing Shiori, turning her brothers into cranes, and cursing her: for if the princess speaks one word her brothers will die. Outcast, voiceless, and alone, Shiori must fight her way back to her family using her skills and the magic she was always forbade from using, before enemies try to seize control of the realm and kill her and her brothers.

I really liked this book! It was such a great retelling of the fairytales Cinderella and the Wild Swans (which I didn’t even know about, but were incorporated through the cranes). I loved how Chinese mythology was woven into the story through Chang’e, the moon goddess, and dragons. The best part of this story was that the characters were so complex and fleshed out, especially the stepmother, Riakama, that it made you want to know more about them. So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there is a prequel: Her Radiant Curse about Raikama and her origin story!! I definitely recommend listen to this book on audio because it was so well done.

Read if you love:

⚔️ Fantasy

🐲 Dragons, snakes, wolves

🐦‍🔥 Chinese mythology

🦢 Fairytale retelling

✊🏼 AAPI rep