Own Voices: Induk’s April Books
Below are my–mostly dark and angry–April books
How to Not Be Afraid of Everything by Jane Wong. This poetry collection shows us the depth of and reasons behind an Asian immigrant woman’s fear, exhaustion, and rage living in the US. The imagery Wong creates to express her feelings--angry wild boar ready to charge, wilted cactus, slowly rotting orange--is vivid, intimate and very dearly familiar. I loved this book and will come back to it time and again.
This is Paradise 🌴 by Kristiana Kahakauwila: A short story collection of Hawaii. The cleaning ladies of a Waikiki hotel, rural cockfighters, an old school Hawaiian rancher and his gay son, native Hawaiians who moved to the mainland, haole settlers who see themselves as Hawaiian… The diverse characters tell us stories of Hawaii that we don’t hear as the islands’ visitors. Tender and heart-warming, another book I greatly appreciated.
My Heart is a Chainsaw 🪚🩸by Stephen Graham Jones. A traumatized, unloved, and semi-abandoned teenager Jade, who is half-Blackfoot and half-white, seeks her escape by becoming a slasher movie nerd. Then one day her dream comes true as gruesome murders begin to happen in her small Idaho town undergoing gentrification (resembling colonization). There is a double-mystery to be solved here: the identity of the slasher and Jade’s trauma. But more important than the mystery is Jade’s desperate effort toward her own salvation. I thought this book was 100X better than another final girl slasher book I read recently (“The Final Girl Support Group” by Grady Hendrix).
Almond by Sohn Won-Pyung. This Korean YA fiction translated into English chronicles an unlikely friendship between two lonely, so-called “unlovable” children: one is incapable of feeling and understanding emotions, the other has extreme violent tendencies. There is a lot to like about this book—its setting in a used bookstore, the slow evolution of a friendship, a couple of cool grownup characters in the periphery, to list a few. Not sure if I love the book’s ending, however.
Lemon 🍋by Kwon Yeo-Sun. Another Korean fiction translated into English. A murder mystery combined with a sharp social critique of Korea’s widening wealth gap. The alternating POV of three different female voices gives the book an interesting structure. I really liked it.
Unfamiliar Fishes 🏝by Sarah Vowell. A nonfiction book about the history of Hawaii’s colonization from Captain Cook’s arrival in 1778 to the annexation in 1898. The history is sad and often infuriating but Vowell uses her humor well to make it an enjoyable read.
About the Author // Induk Kim (hawaii79@gmail.com) is a former academic, a first-generation Korean American, a full-time parent, and a non-native speaker of English. As a firm believer that books can save lives, she enjoys reading books that help decolonize her mind. She lives in Edgewater, Chicago with her partner, a daughter, a cat, and five chickens.