Here are some varied topics that range from identity, family, and romance
2020 has been a rough and unusual year. With everything that’s been happening around the world, the world of entertainment and literature is what’s keeping people entertained most of the time. So here are some books that you can enjoy while staying indoors.
1. Memorial, by Bryan Washington
From the bestseller Lot’s author comes a story about two men from Houston : Benson, a Black daycare teacher, and Mike, a Japanese-American chef. The couple have been together for a long time, but their relationship had taken a hit, but neither of them were putting an effort to rekindle or end it. Then comes news that Mike’s estranged father is dying in Japan, right when his mother Mitsuko is coming over to stay. Mike goes to visit his father, making his mom and Benson to be roommates. Memorial is a beautiful story about how love can get withered, but also deepened through time.
2. Leave the World Behind, by Rumaan Alarm
Alam’s third novel is about a White family, whose family getaway to a rented home in the Hamptons, after a mysterious blackout in New York happens, get disrupted when an older Black couple claiming to be the owners show up and asks to stay with them. Filled with suspicions but at the same time attempting to make fragile bonds, Leave the World Behind discusses family, class and race.
3. Pizza Girl, by Jean Kyoung Frazier
Frazier’s debut novel is a hell of a ride, to put mildly, where the nameless narrator, who is eighteen, pregnant, and feeling lost, goes about as a Los Angeles pizza delivery girl. A lot is on her mind, such as the death of her alcoholic father, and avoiding the excessive care of her mother and boyfriend. Things change when a suburban housewife becomes her customer, which becomes a psychosexual obsession and throws things further into disarray. The book is just 193 pages, but packs a punch.
(Cover: Goodreads)