kiana

Happy AANHPI Month and thanks for stopping by my page for the #ANHPIBookstaTour ✨ One of my favorite books to recommend when people are searching for titles written by Pacific Islanders is CHamoru Legends: A Gathering of Stories as told by Teresita Perez (a MAGA’HÅGA!!). Many of the legends in this book are familiar to anyone who grew up in Guåhan or the Marianas, but each person who tells these stories will deliver it a bit differently, and I am still in love with the way Perez treats each one. The legend of Sirena, for example, is one that I’ve heard countless times, but what I appreciated most about this retelling was its attention to her actual physical transformation, along with all the pain and grief Sirena, her nåna, and her nina felt in the process. Those threads of grief and longing—a daughter’s longing for the ocean, a mother’s grief over and longing for her child, a nina’s grief at the conflict between two people she loves—really culminated in that moment when she’s overtaken by both her mother’s curse and her nina’s blessing, then rendered almost weightless in her new form. There was such beauty in the magnification of those details. The wonder of legends is that they can be shared in a myriad of ways and offer lessons that people anywhere can relate to but at the core, they reflect something essential about the people who are telling them. The legend of Sirena might teach universal lessons about the importance of listening to your parents, the wisdom that elders hold, or the dangers of putting yourself (and your desires) before your loved ones. As a daughter of Guåhan, Sirena also tells me something particular about the ways in which CHamoru women mother their daughters and about how godmothers (ninas) hold such an important place in the family. So much can be said, but you should read this if you haven’t already, and we can talk about it!! Be sure to stop by @lukeslibrary.jpg page for more recommendations! Happy reading. (Also enjoy these random pics of me and my coworkers dressed as the Pontan and Fo’na creation legend, Teresita Perez with me, and Teresita Perez with my neni girl! I’ll forever be a fangirl 🫶🏾)

I’m always searching for books that enchant me, and Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia definitely did to a degree. I loved that this book offered bits of lore about faeries from different places and emphasized the importance of stories for understanding them. It was fun to see Emily use these stories in actionable ways. I enjoyed her moments of recall and the little footnotes she provided with background information on different theories and studies. However, the nature of her field journal—the methodical + typically unfeeling way she wrote about her discoveries & experiences in Ljosland—was enough to keep me interested but not very emotionally invested in her or the other characters at first. Her own removal from matters of the heart made it hard for me to care about her story at times. But she grew on me by the end, which I guess was part of the point. My favorite threads in this book were: (1) the changeling, (2) shadow’s origin, and (3) Bambleby’s door. The whole bit about the tree and faerie king (which I recognize is connected to the changeling + where most of the “action” happens) didn’t really interest me as much; I’m not sure why. Definitely wanting to read the second one though. (Stories about fairies have drawn me in since I was a child reading The Spiderwick Chronicles for the first time. Love me some magic lol).

Ocean Mother by Arielle Taitano Lowe 🌊 As a daughter of Guåhan who has moved away from home for the first time this year, I find comfort in the beauty of Arielle’s words across this poetry collection—in the ways that she takes the landscape of our island and makes the familiar feel fantastical, reflecting a profound love for the water and land that raised us. I can only hope that my own daughter will come to know this love herself. Beyond poems about Guåhan, there are pieces that explore identity, familial love and conflict, trauma and healing. This reading experience is truly a movement through Arielle’s journey, one that pushes and pulls you like the tides of the ocean for which it is named. Can’t recommend her book enough 💛 Biba Pasifika Readathon Challenge! Biba AAPI month! #pasifikareadathonchallenge #poetrybooks #pacificislanderbooks #pacificislanderwriters

Okay, but can we also take a moment to appreciate Year of the Reaper, which was so much fun to read 😭👏🏾💛 I absolutely loved this historical fantasy / mystery, which I can honestly say was a unique reading experience for me. A PDN review talked about how Lucier breathed new life into the genre, and I totally agree with that! Fantasy novels are my favorites, and I feel like I have good instincts when I’m reading, but I was truly surprised when the big reveal came in this one. 👀 I felt that Cas was a strong protagonist, and enjoyed seeing his relationships with everyone, after he was gone for so long. And his romantic interest in Lena didn’t feel overdone. I appreciated how well paced and subdued their relationship was. I also read a review by @a_coldroom_readings and I too wish that more space was given to the climax of the novel, the particular confrontation we were all waiting for. I found myself wanting more here, especially because of the anticipation 😭 STILL THOUGH, I found the story imaginative and engaging. The plague, the ghosts, the castles, the lynxes—all of it! My favorite reading moment had to be when Cas went down to the kitchen and Cook was making red rice and latiya. It was nice to see these little details that paid homage to Guåhan. Also just want to add that, while this was definitely a fun, page-turner, Lucier covered some important, more serious themes dealing with: ptsd, death and grief, human experimentation & the exploitation of women’s bodies (if you know your history, you know how real this is). On a final note, I’m just so happy to see a writer from home, who shares the same heritage as me (both Black & Chamoru!!) out there doing the thing. Can’t wait to read your next one @makiialucier ☺️💛

It’s the last day of Mes Chamoru! I have been wanting to post about this book, but I’ve had trouble finding the words to describe my reading experience or offer a somewhat coherent review. So, I give up. I’m just going to share my thoughts, however disjointed they may seem. If you know, you know. And if you don’t, you should pick this up and find out. If Julian Aguon intended this collection to be a love letter to young people—a call to action—I think he succeeded because since I first read this book last year, I have continued to hold it close to my heart because it celebrates what makes us beautiful and calls in the parts of us that are not because it asks us to remember where we’ve been and imagine all we can become because I remember the magic when I saw the star sand for the first time because I know what it feels like to go through the sakåti without long sleeves, because he tells stories of home because his words urge us to fight and speak and resist for ourselves—for our families and our neighbors because when he wrote about seeing his grandma tied to the bed, under lock and key, I thought about my Auntie Mina. I thought about the room they kept her in, and the ropes around her wrist, and her grave in Luta, too far from us here because I was one of those graduates in 2018 who received a copy of Overcoming Speechlessness, and I want to be brave I hold some of these writings closer than others, but they all feel important. If you haven’t picked up anything by a Chamoru writer yet, I hope you do soon. This book is a good place to start.

“But still I’m asked, what good is science fiction to Black people? What good is any form of literature to Black people? What good is science fiction’s thinking about the present, the future, and the past? What good is its tendency to warn or to consider alternative ways of thinking and doing? What good is its examination of the possible effects of science and technology, or social organization and political direction? At its best, science fiction stimulates imagination and creativity. It gets reader and writer off the beaten track, off the narrow, narrow footpath of what ‘everyone’ is saying, doing, thinking—whoever ‘everyone’ happens to be this year. And what good is all this to Black people?” — Octavia Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories ••• Here’s to another of my favorite Black writers. Pictured are a few of her novels that I particularly enjoyed. I’ve read almost everything Octavia Butler has written, and pretty much everything I’ve read has shaken me in some way. Whether by stretching my imagination to allow for the possibility of other worlds and ways of being, or by forcing me to contemplate the often harsh realities in front of me, she has a true talent for really getting in my head and staying for a while. I’m so happy that hers was the voice welcoming me into the science fiction genre. Definitely set the tone for what I would come to enjoy. Other books of hers I appreciated: Bloodchild and Other Stories, Mind of my Mind Books of hers I have not yet read: Clay’s Ark, Wildseed, Parable of the Talents

Reflecting on some of my favorite books by Black writers this month, and that means starting with ZNH and the book that saw me at the beginning of a major identity shift in early adulthood. I read her essay “How it Feels to be Colored Me” for the first time in 2016. In that essay she writes about remembering the day she became colored and about feeling her color most “when thrown against a sharp white background.” I resonated with these words, as a young Black+Chamoru woman who grew up, not in a community of white people, but in a community of non-Black people where my Blackness was often verbalized in ways that created distance. When I read this piece, I had just began unpacking my biracial identity (I never had the courage to before), and even though ZNH and I were feeling our Blackness in different contexts, I felt like she was a long lost aunt of mine, coming into my life just when I needed her guidance. And then I read Their Eyes Were Watching God and I felt that connection to her even more. As Janie moved through each of her relationships, as she searched for her horizon, I continued to move through my own journey. And when we came to the end and she wrapped her horizon around her, I felt all of the warmth and comfort that I imagined would come when I found my own answers. Of course, I didn’t find those answers when I finished this book. I was nowhere near “the end” of my own journey, and I’m not sure if I ever will be. But what a start. So much love for Zora Neale Hurston, then and now 💛

I’m so happy to be a part of the #APIBookstagramTour this month! Often, people see me & they focalize on my Blackness—my skin color, my hair: indicators that I belong to the Black community. And they’re right; I do. I experience the world largely as a Black woman (and I’m proud to), but what people can’t always see on the outside is that I am also a proud Chamoru woman from gi islan Guåhan. So goes my biracial experience, similar to many others participating in this tour. This month, I’ve been lucky to share the Bookstagram space with fellow Pacific Islanders for the #PasifikaReadathonChallenge while we encourage others to read books from our homes by our peoples. Too often we see people conflate “Asian” and “Pacific Islander” as one when both terms encompass so many different communities and heritages. So, here’s to the “PI” in the API label: some of my favorite books by Pacific Islander writers. I love all of these dearly, but The Bone People has my heart—the story has stayed with me since I first read it 💛 Follow the readathon hashtag above to get more recommendations! And while I am dedicating my time to reading Pacific Islander voices this month, I also have to acknowledge my favorite books by Asian authors. Special shout-out to Ken Liu because that short story collection wrecked me. 🥲 Let me know if you’ve read any of these titles and what you thought about them, or if you plan on adding any to your TBR! Saina ma’åse’ for reading. Don’t forget to check out @booktimistic who also has a tour stop today & @bookedwithemma who is up tomorrow!