Book Reviews

the book cover for Meet me Tonight in Atlantic City
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Love, Community, and Honesty in Jane Wong’s Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City

Jane Wong’s memoir reminded me that Asian American literature could be more than stories of poverty or prestige porn. Reading it is not always comfortable—some anecdotes are sad, squeamish, and cringe-inducing, but it is an honest look at a working-class community that is too often forgotten.

The Way to Freedom in Jacqueline Crooks’s Fire Rush
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The Way to Freedom in Jacqueline Crooks’s Fire Rush

Jacqueline Crooks’s novel is a journey from underworlds to natural worlds, from the present to the past, and from secrets to finding one’s voice. Layered in are elements of history and ancestry; of longing for mothers and motherlands; of oppression and uprising; and of the historical, sociopolitical, and spiritual power of music.

the book cover for Birnam Wood
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Disaster Capitalism in Birnam Wood

No generation is immune from the Birnam Wood‘s ire. Idealistic millennials are frauds, Gen X-ers are technocratic looters, Boomers are oblivious resource hoarders. Yet it’s not just the premise that everyone is fatally flawed that generates such intense and oppressive pessimism; rather, it’s that everyone in the novel is so deeply unlikable as well.