In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, check out some great books for teens and adults highlighting different facets of the Asian-American experience. These are available as ebooks from either Overdrive (Libby) or Hoopla. (If you need help getting started with ebooks, check out the tutorials available on this page or contact us with questions!)
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The Wangs vs. the world (Available on Hoopla)
by Jade Chang A wealthy but fractured Chinese family loses everything in the financial crisis before embarking on a haphazard but ultimately redemptive journey across America as part of an effort to reclaim ancestral lands in China. |
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The best we could do : an illustrated memoir (Available on Hoopla)
by Thi Bui The author describes her experiences as a young Vietnamese immigrant, highlighting her family's move from their war-torn home to the United States in graphic novel format. |
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All you can ever know : a memoir (Available on Hoopla)
by Nicole Chung A Korean adoptee who grew up with a white family in Oregon discusses her journey to find her identity as an Asian American woman and a writer after becoming curious about her true origins. |
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I believe in a thing called love (Available on Overdrive)
by Maurene Goo A disaster in romance, high school senior Desi Lee decides to tackle her flirting failures by watching Korean television dramas, where the hapless heroine always seems to end up in the arms of her true love by episode ten. |
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Almost American girl : an illustrated memoir (Available on Overdrive)
by Robin Ha Moving abruptly from Seoul to Alabama, a Korean teen struggles in a hostile blended home and a new school where she does not speak English before forging unexpected connections in a local comic drawing class. |
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The kiss quotient (Available on Overdrive)
by Helen Hoang A 30-year-old math whiz with Asperger's tries to make her love life as rich as her career by hiring an escort to help her with her lack of knowledge and experience in the dating department. |
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Minor feelings : an Asian American reckoning (Available on Overdrive)
by Cathy Park Hong An award-winning poet and essayist offers a ruthlessly honest, emotionally charged exploration of the psychological condition of being Asian American. |
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A river of stars : a novel (Available on Overdrive)
by Vanessa Hua Betrayed by the boss who is also the father of her unborn child, an undocumented Chinese factory worker is forced to flee and reinvent herself in San Francisco's Chinatown in the desperate hopes of securing American citizenship for her baby. |
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Good talk : a memoir in conversations (Available on Overdrive)
by Mira Jacob The author of the critically acclaimed The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing presents an intimate graphic memoir about American identity as it has shaped his interracial family in the aftermath of the 2016 elections. |
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The namesake (Available on Overdrive)
by Jhumpa Lahiri Meet the Ganguli family, new arrivals from Calcutta, trying their best to become Americans even as they pine for home. The name they bestow on their firstborn, Gogol, betrays all the conflicts of honoring tradition in a new world--conflicts that will haunt Gogol on his own winding path through divided loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. In The Namesake, the Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri brilliantly illuminates the immigrant experience and the tangled ties between generations. |
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Number one Chinese restaurant : a novel (Available on Overdrive)
by Lillian Li A working family that has built a busy life running a beloved Maryland Chinese restaurant is forced by youthful recklessness and a tragedy to confront interpersonal conflicts and the limits of what parents are willing to sacrifice for their children. |
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Natalie Tan's book of luck & fortune (Available on Overdrive)
by Roselle Lim Inheriting her grandmother's restaurant in a crumbling San Francisco Chinatown neighborhood, Natalie Tan is advised by the local seer to prepare three recipes from her grandmother's cookbook to help their struggling community. |
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When Dimple met Rishi (Available on Overdrive)
by Sandhya Menon When Dimple Shah and Rishi Patel meet at a Stanford University summer program, Dimple is avoiding her parents' obsession with "marriage prospects" but Rishi hopes to woo her into accepting arranged marriage with him. |
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Rani Patel in full effect (Available on Hoopla)
by Sonia Patel Rani Patel, almost seventeen and living on remote Moloka'i island, is oppressed by the cultural norms of her Gujarati immigrant parents but when Mark, an older man, draws her into new experiences red flags abound. |
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Patron saints of nothing (Available on Overdrive)
by Randy Ribay When seventeen-year-old Jay Reguero learns his Filipino cousin and former best friend, Jun, was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, he flies to the Philippines to learn more. |
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They called us enemy (Available on Hoopla)
by George Takei The iconic actor and activist presents a graphic memoir detailing his experiences as a child prisoner in the Japanese-American internment camps of World War II, reflecting on the hard choices his family made in the face of legalized racism. |
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Dear girls : intimate tales, untold secrets & advice for living your best life (Available on Overdrive)
by Ali Wong Collects the standup comedian’s humorous and heartfelt letters to her daughters, covering everything they need to know in life, like the unpleasant details of dating, how to be a working mom in a male-dominated profession and how she trapped their dad. |
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On earth we're briefly gorgeous : a novel (Available on Overdrive)
by Ocean Vuong A first novel by the award-winning author of Night Sky with Exit Wounds is written in the form of a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read about the impact of the Vietnam war on their family. |
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Stargazing (Available on Overdrive)
by Jen Wang Growing up in the same Chinese-American suburb, perfectionist Christine and artistic, confident, impulsive Moon become unlikely best friends, whose friendship is tested by jealousy, social expectations, and illness. |
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Ms. Marvel : No Normal (Available on Hoopla)
by G. Willow Wilson Kamala Khan, a Pakistani American girl from Jersey City who lives a conservative Muslim lifestyle with her family, suddenly acquires superhuman powers and, despite the pressures of school and home, tries to use her abilities to help her community. |
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Dragon hoops : From Small Steps to Great Leaps (Available on Overdrive)
by Gene Luen Yang An introverted reader starts understanding local enthusiasm about sports in his school when he gets to know some of his talented athletic peers and discovers that their stories are just as thrilling as the comics he loves. By the award-winning author of American Born Chinese. |
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Front desk (Available on Overdrive)
by Kelly Yang After emigrating from China, ten-year-old Mia Tang's parents take a job managing a rundown motel, despite the nasty owner, Mr. Yao, who exploits them, while she works the front desk and tries to cope with fitting in at her school. |
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Frankly in love (Available on Overdrive)
by David Yoon Torn between his love for his white girlfriend and his sense of duty to the matchmaking parents who made hard sacrifices to move to the United States, a Korean American teen looks for solutions along with a friend who has a similar problem. |
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Interior Chinatown (Available on Overdrive)
by Charles Yu A stereotyped character actor stumbles into the spotlight before uncovering surprising links between his family and the secret history of Chinatown. By the award-winning author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. |