The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory was simply lovely. Alexa and Drew meet when stuck in a hotel elevator together in San Francisco. Alexa is on her way to meet her sister to celebrate a promotion. Drew is begrudgingly going to his ex-girlfriend’s wedding. The two strangers hit it off immediately, so Drew takes a chance and invites Alexa to the wedding. He gets a bit carried away and tells everyone she’s his girlfriend. Luckily, Alexa doesn’t mind and they have an amazing time at the wedding and […]
A reluctant superheroine
Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn was fantastic! This is the first novel in a new series about Evie Tanaka, personal assistant and best friend to San Francisco’s number #1 superheroine, Aveda Jupiter. They have been BFFs since they were kids when Aveda was only Annie Chang. They were obsessed with a Michelle Yeoh action flick, “The Heroic Trio”, where martial arts heroes battled The Evil Master. It inspired Aveda to become a hero in real life even before a demonic portal opened up in the […]
Do not read if you are not doing carbs right now
I’ve never been to California in my life. I’ve never even been to the West Coast. I kind of have this image in my head that everybody is either Guy Fieri or Mark Zuckerberg with surfboards in cosplay, which intellectually I know isn’t accurate, but I still have a hard time picturing the San Francisco area otherwise. Similarly, the corporate pieces of the story totally matches with the general idea of what your typical tech San Francisco start-up must be like ( I say that […]
Myth, history and culture collide
Ho Lin’s short story anthology was an interesting read. Each tale aimed to shed light on random moments from varying points of view. He pulls in the reader with unexpected juxtapositions of settings and tone. The collection exudes emotion as if the stories were collective memories meshed together. He rarely delves deep into any specific narratives. The stories bounced between Asia and American even within the same story. We meet an American ex-Pat in China, then a host of characters in San Francisco, while another […]