We’re excited to share this year-end roundup of the best books written by Asian American authors in 2022. We asked writers, scholars, and contributors to recommend one book. Keep scrolling to see which books they chose:
All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews
“In her debut work, All This Could Be Different, Sarah Thankam Mathews has crafted a generous, expansive novel that serves as a model for how one might approach and repair friendship with the same attention usually only accorded to romantic relationships. Mathews’ novel concerns S, an Indian immigrant in her early 20s entering her first job in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Flawed, angry, secretive, indignant, impulsive, ashamed, and beloved—yes, beloved—S is of the most memorable, complex, and precise characters i’ve encountered in recent memory. Reading the novel put into words the malaise that had followed me throughout my own early adulthood. This book made me feel understood; made me feel that such a thing as understanding oneself could even be possible.” – Sarah Sukardi, co-founder and co-editor of Soapberry Review
Read our review here.
Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou
“As I explained to Chou in a tweet, ‘I think about scenes from [this] novel several times a week and also made my sister read it.’ The scenes I think about are the ones that describe, with pitch-perfect accuracy, the fantasies and delusions of certain academic fields. The reason I made my sister read it is because of the novel’s relentless engagement with the politics of dating for cis, heterosexual Asian American women. This was, by far, the most fun I had reading a novel this year, despite—no, because of—how much it made me cringe!” – Chris Fan, assistant professor of English at UCI, Hyphen Magazine co-founder
Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho
“Fiona and Jane left me aching for all of my childhood friends, for the deep bond we once had, and for the complete trust we had in each other. Told in alternating stories about the titular best friends, Fiona and Jane covers four decades of friendship between two Taiwanese American women from their late night hangs as teenagers to marriage and divorce as adults. While Fiona and Jane’s closeness with one another vacillates over the course of their lives, their implicit trust and love for each other is never questioned. It’s this bond that will leave you either wanting to reach out to your childhood besties or basking in nostalgia for the friends you’ve loved.” – Audrey Fong, co-founder and co-editor of Soapberry Review
The Forty-Something Fanboy by Sam Choi
“Most of us are desperate to leave the COVID-19 pandemic behind, when the virus is not yet done with us and may never be. So, why is it worthwhile to reflect on how a collective lock-down changed our lives? The Forty-Something Fanboy by Sam Choi takes us into a period of life (a midlife crisis) and a period of time (the age of COVID) to reflect on the obsessions, frustrations, and hopes of a Korean American newly divorced man. Living in the midst of the corporate suburbia of Orange County, California, the main character fantasizes about a social media influencer in South Korea. The book is funny and moving and explores the psyche of a man who wants to do the right thing by his family, friends, and himself but isn’t quite sure what the right thing is. I recommend this book for all of us as we search for meaning and connection in our lives.” – Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, professor of history and Asian American studies at UCI
“More than parables or lyric retellings, the stories in Gods of Want overflow with a lushness that superimposes the past onto the present. The effect is unyielding. Blood hangs like a ‘rain-swollen earthworm,’ when a bone breaks it sings and whistles, a woman pulls her tongue out to drown it in the ocean. Chang renders mundane violence with a sheen of grandiose ceremony, calling for us to look again at the overlooked, the way a banal sunset can turn majestic when properly recognized. I was swept away, again and again.” – Grace Shuyi Liew, author of Careen
“A young woman opens an ear-cleaning business while becoming an accomplice to a local group performing increasingly violent ‘Resisting Acts’ in Jamie Marina Lau’s exploration of working class disaffection in a generic American suburb. Everyone in Par Mars must decide where they stand relative to the system—will they be a worker or an owner? Will they sit happily where they are, or look for ways to change their station in life? Lau brings to life the fury and helplessness simmering among youths today and the actions and inactions they pursue to cope.” – Katherine Jin, writer and contributor
Making a Scene by Constance Wu
“In Making a Scene, Constance Wu provides a raw and honest look into her life past the glamorous façade Hollywood has portrayed of her. From hilarious anecdotes to heartbreaking observations, Wu artfully weaves her narrative and speaks her truth. She calls out the institutional powers that have worked to keep her down while at the same time holds herself accountable when the situation calls for it, demonstrating her relatable humanity that the screen and media strips away. Forget Crazy Rich Asians or Fresh Off the Boat, this book is wholly representative of Constance Wu, and it is a definite must read.” – Justine Trinh, Ph.D. English student at Washington State University and contributor
“The DMZ, the line separating Korea into South and North, is at the heart of Joseph Han’s debut novel, Nuclear Family. What my Korean aunt calls ‘the scar that ripped apart the soul of our country.’ Because it is separation of land, separation of families and the ensuing grief that ripples through generations that echoes through Han’s beautiful novel. Yet this novel isn’t dour—it is, in fact, downright hilarious at times. Starting with Tae-woo, a ghost so desperate to return to the North he inhabits the body of his grandson, Jacob. Han upends the cliché of Korean dramas about ghosts by depicting the most comical relationship I’ve ever read about a grandfather and his progeny. The juxtaposition of hilarity and heartbreak is so masterful I’m jealous I didn’t write this book. Nuclear Family is the funniest yet most poignant novel I’ve read this year about dysfunction in families, the arrogance of American hegemony, the colonization of Native lands in Hawaii, the misfiring of nuclear missiles, and the myriad ways humans cope with Grief.” – Helena Rho, author of American Seoul
Read our interview with Rho here.
The Peanutbutter Sisters and Other American Stories by Rumi Hara
“Without a doubt, my favorite reading experience this year has to be The Peanutbutter Sisters and Other American Stories by Rumi Hara, a graphic novel comprising a collection of short stories. Each story is wildly different from each other, and through it all Hara is able to make something that’s humorous and playful while also being genuinely heartfelt. From beginning to end, I was in awe of the imagination on display and the vibrant and energetic artwork. Hara creates her own sense of mythology and plays with the roots of culture, folklore, and storytelling, and through that, I was reminded of the sheer infinite potential of literature. It’s definitely a work that’ll stick with me, and she’s an author whose work I’ll follow going forward.” – Essa Rasheed, contributor
Read our review of Peanutbutter Sisters here.
“Otsuka’s previous novels, When the Emperor Was Divine and The Buddha in the Attic, are brilliant examinations of Japanese American experience and indictments of the racism and violence that these communities endured. The Swimmers was a bit of a surprise; the tragedies that lie beneath its surface only emerge slowly. Like The Buddha in the Attic, The Swimmers opens with a collective ‘we’ narrator, made up of a large group of swimmers who use the same community pool and are absolutely fanatical about maintaining their daily lap routine. One day a mysterious crack appears at the bottom of the pool, throwing the swimmers into a state of anxiety and uncertainty. The pool is permanently closed, and it is at this point that the narrative zooms in on one of the swimmers: an elderly Japanese American woman named Alice, whose life slowly comes unmoored without the tether that swimming offered. The offbeat eccentricity of the swimmers’ collective narrative ‘we’ in the novel’s first half becomes the guilt-racked voice of Alice’s daughter, who uses the accusatory ‘you’ to talk about her own inability to understand her mother’s past, which was marked by the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, an unhappy marriage, and the loss of a child. Otsuka’s brilliance lies in the way that she evokes the personal costs of historical trauma and shows how its effects can linger and fracture lives for years afterward.” – Julia H. Lee, professor and chair of Asian American studies at UCI, author of The Racial Railroad (2022)
A Tinderbox in Three Acts by Cynthia Dewi Oka
“Cynthia Dewi Oka’s powerful latest volume of poetry addresses the 1965-66 mass killings in Indonesia, as civilians turned on each other under General Suharto’s call to purge leftist elements. The death toll is anywhere from 500,000 to 3 million. Unlike Joshua Oppenheimer’s chilling 2013 documentary about this history, The Act of Killing, Oka’s poetry introduces a set of important characters other than the death squad members who committed the killings. The collection effectively draws from U.S. government archival material released in 2017, revealing the detailed knowledge the U.S. officials had of the mass killings. Like the first embers of fire contained in a tinderbox, sparks of human collateral are seen contained: ‘I watch America watch my people open each other.’ Keenly observant and deeply imaginative, the collection rings as an elegy which resists easy narrative clarity and coherence of an irrepresentable historical event. Readers are to simply listen, mesmerized.” – Rei Magosaki, associate professor of English at Chapman University
What We Fed to the Manticore by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri
“What We Fed to the Manticore is a short story collection told from the point of views of different animals across the world. Manticore is one of the most brilliant and unique speculative fiction novels I have read. Kolluri’s writing balances both lyricism and practicality as she places you behind an animal’s eyes. There is both sincerity and scientific backing in each page. The stories achieve smart commentary about poverty, climate change, and dangers to wildlife, without coming across as didactic. Kolluri has written something elegant, precious and rare. It’s my favorite new book of the year.” – Sinclair Adams, writer and contributor
Read our review of Manticore here.