Tag: Contempo Lit

RE JANE: A Novel (Penguin Books ; On-sale: April 19, 2016; $16.00; ISBN: 978014310794) by Patricia Park is a fresh, contemporary retelling of Jane Eyre and a poignant Korean-American debut novel that takes its heroine Jane Re on a journey from Queens to Brooklyn to Seoul—and back.

For Jane, a half-Korean, half-American orphan, Flushing, Queens, is the place she’s been trying to escape from her whole life. Sardonic yet vulnerable, she toils, unappreciated, in her strict uncle’s grocery store and politely observes the traditional principle of nunchi (a combination of good manners, hierarchy, and obligation).

Desperate for a new life, she’s thrilled to become the au pair for the Mazer-Farleys, two Brooklyn English professors and their adopted Chinese daughter. Inducted into the world of organic food co-ops, and nineteenth-century novels, Jane is the recipient of Beth Mazer’s feminist lectures and Ed Farley’s very male attention. But when a family death interrupts Jane and Ed’s blossoming affair, she flies off to Seoul, leaving New York far behind.

Reconnecting with family, and struggling to learn the ways of modern-day Korea, Jane begins to wonder if Ed Farley is really the man for her. Jane returns to Queens, where she must find a balance between two cultures and accept who she really is.

Perfect for readers of Ruth Ozeki, Chang-rae Lee, Allegra Goodman, and—of course—Charlotte Brontë, RE JANE is a bright, comic story of falling in love, finding strength, and living not just out of obligation to others, but for one’s self.

Continue reading “Special Feature: RE JANE by Patricia Park” →

Since the book, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, has been released at the end of February it’s been on everyone’s lips not to mention all over social media!

From People, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post to magazines such as O to Cosmo and Marie Claire, pretty much anyone who has picked it up has been blown away. Roxane Gay has even called the book “necessary” and “Beautiful” and just this week highlighted it in a recommendation list for iBooks.

People are saying that it’s one of the most powerful novels they have read. Many are saying that author Mona Awad is saying things that have been in the heads of readers all over and they find camaraderie and comfort in her latest novel.

Awad tells the story of Lizzie March in a series of vignettes, starting with her awkward teenage years palling around the suburban town she calls “Misery Saga” with her best friend Mel. She navigates friendships, dating, and fraught relationships with both of her parents, constantly seeking confidence and acceptance.

When she leaves high school she begins, through a course of extreme deprivation, to lose the weight, until she can squeeze into the tight dresses she covets. But being thin doesn’t fix everything—in fact, her relationships with her mother, her husband, and her friends are only further complicated by her new physique, and all the complex feelings that surround it.

13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl may focus on Lizzie’s particular issues around body image and self-acceptance, but anyone who has ever felt the angst and alienation of growing up, who has ever felt inadequate or wished to be something other than what they are, will see themselves in this book.

Beyond that, this book is about female friendship, mother-daughter relationships, romantic relationships, and the relationship we have with ourselves.

With a book that is sending this powerful message and discussing these important issues that many women feel……I don’t expect the conversation about this book to die down anytime soon.

The folks at Viking/Penguin have created a stunning book club kit that includes playlists, movie lists, recipes, recommended readings, as well as discussion questions and an author Q & A. I highly recommend checking out the kit as well as the book! I am so bummed I couldn’t fit it into my review schedule for March but I am hoping I can swing a review later this spring or early summer!