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Tag: Book Review
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A Scrying for the Unheard Voices: A Review of Cathy Linh Che’s Becoming Ghost
A Review by Timmy Trần As a superstitious person myself, I spent most of my life straying clear from any ghostly activity—such a thing was taboo for me; but in Becoming Ghost (2025), Cathy Linh Che reveals how communing with the deceased can be restorative. Within this poetry collection, Che recollects the personal and established…
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Writing About Immigrant Trauma From a Reparative Lens: A review of reyna grande’s migrant heart
A Review by Kai Julian Migrant Heart (2026) by Reyna Grande is an intimate and poignant memoir that explores the interconnected themes of immigration, family separation, acculturation, identity fragmentation, intergenerational trauma, and child abuse among many others. As an undocumented nine-year-old Mexican immigrant who turned into an award-winning author, writing teacher, motivational speaker, and immigrant…
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What Could Be More Like a Poem?: A Review of Michelle Peñaloza’s All the Words I Can Remember Are Poems
Review by Krysten Nakamura Michelle Peñaloza’s All the Words I Can Remember Are Poems asks readers to slow down. I read Peñaloza’s poetry collection on a quiet Saturday, in between scoops of last night’s rice and laughter with my sister over a cheesy horror movie. In this collection, Peñaloza, a child of Filipino immigrants, shares…
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Coexisting Contradictions: A Review of Alicia Upano’s Everything to the Sea
Review by Kaitlyn Choy Hawaiʻi-born author Alicia Upano makes an impressive debut with a heartbreakingly beautiful story of enduring love, profound loss, and the gradual journey of healing against the backdrop of catastrophe. Set in Hilo, Hawaiʻi, Everything to the Sea follows Jane and Kenji, whose all-consuming whirlwind summer romance is upended when an unexpected…
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Grief as Plot: A Review of Kelly Murashige’s The Yomigaeri Tunnel
Review by Gabriella Contratto One of the first lessons a creative writer learns is the shape of a good plot, the flat line of exposition, the rising action that culminates in the pointy climax where the plot turns, and the downhill line of the falling action ending in a neat resolution. In Fiction Writing 101,…
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