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@leahreadz

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Casual reader.
Amateur reviewer.
Professional book hoarder.
🇨🇳🇺🇸 transracial transna’tl adoptee.
Maybe a movie review here and there too.

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍★𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐂𝐊 preview! ⁣
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8️⃣8️⃣ pages curated and edited by yours truly❣️Peep almost half of the amazing work and words featured in the upcoming release of this community zine! Featuring art, music, poetry, interviews, a reading list, photography, and all kinds of diverse experiences. Supporting the intersectionality of Asian creatives, MOONSTRUCK is a unique project much needed in the American South. I hope to grow the audience and build this project for years to come!⁣ 🎊
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Be sure to check out and follow some of the amazing contributors!⁣ Come to the zine release @thelabyrinthlr this Friday Sept. 13 to pre-order this zine and try a homemade snow skin mooncake! 🥮
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#asian #southern #art #zine #diy #arkansas #florida #tennessee #asianart #community #asiancommunity #artzine #collab #biblebelt #asiansinthesouth #asianamerican

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As May draws to a close, I’d like to highlight some smaller Asian bookstagrammers to follow to make sure you’re getting different perspectives and diversifying your reading lists all year round. These are thoughtful readers who deserve more attention, so please check them out and share with others. It’s always my joy to connect folks with one another, so feel free to shout out your own recs in the comments!

@rendezvouswithbooks – Bhavna’s reflections on translated lit and litfic always pique my interest

@cyndithinks – Cyndi has great off-the-beaten-path picks

@bibliomich – I love how intentional Michelle is in her book choices and reflections

@adelicatereader – Ren’s aesthetics and translated lit picks are perfection

@bookedinsaigon – Steph’s taste in books, photos, and solidarity with others inspire me

@frommethuyou - Anh Thư consistently exposes me to books I haven’t heard of yet

@leahreadz – Leah reads across a range of genres with a focus on Asian lit and I appreciate her perspective as a transracial, transnational adoptee

@thebookwormstories – Preeti writes lovely reviews on all the books that I want to read

@indukisreading – Induk has incredibly thoughtful reviews of important reads

@readsndrants – Shaily brings a focus on Indian literature and in-depth reviews

@theritareads – Rita reads a wide range of books and always brings incisive commentary

@littlecornerreads – Veronica has great compilations and focuses on Asian lit (esp fantasy!)

@bhanedit – Britta manages to read and write book reviews while in surgical residency / fellowship (!)

@herxmit – Come for the vibes, stay for the reviews

@thebellekeys – Always appreciate Bilqee’s Indo-Caribbean perspective!

Happy connecting,
Kristin

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It's the first day of #AANHPIHeritageMonth! In addition to reading books by Asian authors that have been patiently waiting on my TBR, I'll be participating in the #APIBookstagramTour hosted by my SoCal friend, @booknerdkat. It seems like Instagram has made a lot of changes to suppress hashtag usage, but please follow the hashtag and the incredible tour participants (I tagged as many as I could in this post before I was cut off). I'll be doing my best to share their posts in my stories to amplify them and make them easier to find!

I also want to highlight that there was more interest in this tour than people who could participate, and participants were chosen at random from everyone who applied. So leave a comment if you're an Asian-identifying Bookstagrammer who couldn't participate for whatever reason—didn't know it was happening, couldn't find the time, etc.—and I'll be sure to check in on your posts throughout the month, too.

Are you excited for the API Bookstagram Tour? The first graphic shows the hashtag #APIBookstagramTour, the handle booknerdkat, and the instructions to "Follow the hashtag!"

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Is it an honor to be Asian?

For adoptees, when we see people celebrate our ethnic, racial, and/or cultural heritage and identities, it can leave us asking this very question: is it really an honor?

Too often we’re left out of the conversation. And when we try to approach these spaces for the first time, we’re met with “so you’re not really Asian” or “you’re not Asian enough” because we were adopted into white households — many times by people from said communities were trying to find our place within.

Instead of honor, we feel less than, excluded.

@lee_uhh & @patrickintheworld talk about her journey from questioning that very thing to being able to step into and feel that feeling on tomorrow’s episode. We also chat about her faith journey, more adoptee stuff, and we laugh, lots.

Tune in on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts 🎥🎙️📸

Edited by @torinmesser

#ConversationPiece #Podcast @iamsandraohinsta #AsianAmerican #Adoptee #AdopteeVoice #AsianAdoptee #Oscars #Emmys #ItsAnHonorJustToBeAsian #Identity #Journey #Honor

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💫 Part 2: If You Like These Books, Follow These Bookstagrammers - Adoptee Edition💫

I recently reread All You Can Ever Know and the quote "it’s always a welcome relief to find myself in the company of other adopted people, because only we can understand what it means to grow up adopted" was one of the many excerpts I highlighted both times I read it.

After reading that sentence, I immediately knew I had to put together part two of this series featuring adoptee bookstagrammers and their all time favorite BIPOC written books! 🥰 This one is really near and dear to my heart and I'm EXTREMELY giddy to have Nicole Chung be a part of it. 🥹🫶🏼

So, without further ado:

If you love Breathe, The Hurting Kind, If You Leave Me, Memorial, or The Swimmers follow Nicole! @nicolesjchung

If you love All You Can Ever Know, The Arsonists' City, Know My Name, Men We Reaped, or On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous follow Danielle! @dogmombookwork

If you love All You Can Ever Know, Black Cake, Finding Me, or Razorblade Tears follow Erin! @erinreads920

If you love All You Can Even Know, Mom and Me and Mom, Surviving the White Gaze, or Tokyo Ever After follow Leah! @leahreadz

If you love Black Buck, Disorientation, Little Fireflies Everywhere, Seven Days in June, or Yolk follow Elizabeth! @bookedbyelizabeth

If you love The Blood Trials, Infinite Country, Fruit of the Drunken Tree, or Queenie follow Erin! @erinreadswhat

If you love Elatsoe, Jade City, Little Fires Everywhere, The Other Side of Perfect, or Raybearer then follow Maura! @thenovelmaura

#BookstaFriends #ListenToAdoptees #AdopteeVoices #TransracialAdoptee #TransnationalAdoptee #DiversifyYourFeed #DiversifyYourBookshelf #AllTimeBestBooks #AllTimeFavorites #AllTimeBookFavs #ReadTheseBooks #ReadDiverseBooks #ReadDiverseSpines appreciation post: @a.millionbooks

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#Repost @leahreadz
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This is a powerful read for this National Adoptee Awareness month. I cried reading the dedication. I loved that the main character was an adult adoptee and of course the fact that this book was written BY an adoptee. As an adoptee myself, I firmly believe we should be the ones telling adoptee stories. Trigger and content warnings at the very end of this post.

I appreciated how raw the read was when V, our main character, would speak about her experiences in her group therapy or alone with her therapist. If you don’t read it for the writing style, please stick with it for the story’s sake! It’s so important to listen and hear all adoptees experiences and stories.

Some memorable lines,

“It just hurts to constantly feel too seen and invisible at the same time.” pg. 53

“Once you learn all this, you can’t unlearn it. Knowledge changed you.” pg. 68

Check out the various podcasts that Hanna has been featured on where she talks about her inspiration for this story!

TW and CW: s3xual harassment, abuse, self harm,
su!c!de.

#asianauthors #adopteeauthors #adopteevoices #writersofinstagram #authorsofinstagram #asianamerican #adopteemovement

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[AD-pr product]
Hey friends! I was tagged by the lovelies @mostardentlyalice and @zp_reads to show you my #fivefavessofarof2021 !

Crying in H Mart- Zauners memoir was such an emotive and moving account of the complicated reality of family and living as a diaspora. [proof copy from @picadorbooks]

Yolk- a lovely and messy story about two korean sisters in New York navigating life and finding themselves in multiple pickles! Like, a whole jar full.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club- a heartfelt and compelling coming of age story exploring what it means to be Chinese and lesbian in 1950s San Francisco.

Mixed/Other- a non fiction exploring what it means to be mixed in the UK, cementing and validating my identity.

Betty- Etherial and silky prose, vivid and stark imagery and a beautiful, bittersweet depiction of a father-daughter relationship. I already need to reread!

Ive tagged a few of you if you want to join in!
Let me know what some of your fave reads have been so far!

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H O P E. This past week @benvsbooks tagged me to share on what I’m hopeful about. It feels strange to feel hopeful about anything when it feels like the world is on fire, literally at times, but figuratively.

If I’m learning anything these days, it’s that we can hold space for multiple things. We can feel hopeful and hopeless at the same time. We can feel cautiously excited about ‘things going back to normal’ while knowing nothing will be the same as we move forward.

As I’m almost halfway through Chanel Miller’s “Know My Name”, I’m able to see how our bodies and our minds can carry a multitude of ideas, feelings and emotions.

As hope and cynicism, joy and despair, anticipation and dread all flow through my mind and my body, I’m acknowledging they can co-exist. I don’t know much about manifesting or conjuring realities based on my own hopes and dreams, but I know it can be a safe place to slip away to.

This past year has been a long lesson on being patient and gracious with myself and with others. We don’t know and can’t ever know what the future holds, but I guess being hopeful is believing and living in a way trusting today can be better than yesterday.

I leave you with this short excerpt from “Know My Name” as Miller is talking to her mother.

“When I listened to her, I understood: You have to hold out to see how your life unfolds, because it is most likely beyond what you can imagine. It is not a question of if you will survive this, but what beautiful things await when you do. I had to believe her, because she was living proof. Then she said, ‘Good and bad things come from the universe holding hands. Wait for the good to come.’”

Tagging others, but no pressure!

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I was tagged a while ago by @poppies.and.pages to do the #GetToKnowMeThroughBooks challenge and I’m finally getting around to it. Here are my answers!

Favorite book read in 2021: Firekeeper’s Daughter. I’ve read a few five-star books but this one is still my fave!

Favorite classic: A Tale of Two Cities. Is it because I read it three times during my schooling and wrote a ton of papers on it? Maybe. But also Sydney Carton 🥺

Book that changed my life: Okay, this one was hard to pick. I don’t really have one book that I think of as pivotally changing my life. More like multiple books collectively have changed my life. But I went with The Singer of All Songs, just because it’s one that I randomly discovered at a Scholastic book fair in middle school and it’s one of the first fantasy books I read with a female lead. My love of female-driven fantasy books hasn’t slowed down since.

Book I will always recommend: Know My Name. Because of its power and importance.

Book I didn’t like: The Midnight Library (represented by my iPad in its Book Book case, since I have it as an ebook).

Book I still obsess over: The Hunger Games (also represented by the iPad). Mostly I’ve just obsessed over this series the longest, I think. I reread them last year and still just love them. I cry every time!

Currently reading: Quiet in Her Bones and One Last Stop on audio.

Most looking forward to reading in 2021: A ton but I went with Legendborn, because it was nearby and I’m reading it soon!

I tagged a few of you if you want to do the challenge too, but if you’re reading this, consider yourself tagged! No pressure 😊

Do we have any books in common?

#BookStack #BooksBooksBooks #SundayBookStack #BookChallenge #AlwaysReading #LifelongReader #GirlsWhoRead #TheSingerOfAllSongs #KnowMyName #QuietInHerBones #Legendborn #ATaleOfTwoCities #FirekeepersDaughter #BookBook #Bookworm #Bibliophile

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Another beautiful #apibookstack ! May is the month to delve deeper into stories written by and featuring people of the API community. Heritage months are also a great time to read books you wouldn’t usually consider, and gain a new perspective. With so many amazing stories out there, we shouldn’t be limiting ourselves! Which API books have you read this month? Have you discovered a new favorite author? Leave a comment in the section below 😊
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A special thanks to @leahreadz for permission to repost. Go follow this lovely bookstagram for some amazing bookish content and view her original post where she discusses her experiences as a Chinese adoptee (another thing we have in common 😉). Stack of AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) books spread out over a white, cracked surface.

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🇵🇷 #StackForACause 🇵🇷

Thank you @prismaticpages and @libraryofanormalgirl for the tag. Thank you @libraryofanormalgirl and @thebookishletters for hosting this challenge and for raising awareness.

Info from their posts:

Puerto Rico is in a state of emergency, violence against women continues to be ignored. In 2020, 60 women were murdered on the island and approximately 6,603 incidents of domestic violence were reported. This violence is nothing new. For years we have been losing sisters, daughters, friends and mothers to domestic abuse. The time to act is now.

For every post tagged #NiUnaMasStack that spells “Ni Una Más” or “Ni Una Menos” through May 31, Nat and Kat will donate $1 to @hogarruthpr (up to $50 each). The Ruth Home for Battered Women is an organization dedicated to promoting human rights and offering safe and supportive coexistence spaces that save the lives of women and children who are survivors of domestic violence in Puerto Rico.

My stack:
📚 [N]ext Year in Havana
📚 The [I]ntimacy Experiment
📚 Yo[U] Had Me At Hola
📚 I[N] a Holidaze
📚 [A]lways and Forever, Lara Jean
📚 The [M]arriage Game
📚 [A]ct Your Age, Eve Brown
📚 [S]erena Singh Flips the Script

Please consider participating in this stack challenge to help raise awareness and support domestic violence survivors in Puerto Rico. Matching or making donations of your own is encouraged too!

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It's the most wonderful time of the year .. to hang out with your new favorite book club on Zoom of course 💻

A snap from our last virtual @aagcbookclub meeting, where "We Are Not Free" author @tracicheeauthor joined us! We are ALWAYS taking new members over at AAGC Book Club, and would love to see your face at our next virtual meeting.

Stay tuned for our next book announcement, so be sure to follow along here, on @aagcbookclub, and in our very own #AAGCBookClub Slack channel✨

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