Dedham's AANHPI Heritage Month List (YA and Adult)

When Bobby is unwillingly outed he turns to boxing, finding a hero in Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao, but when Pacquiao publicly denounces homosexuality, Bobby must discover a hero within himself. Bobby's motto is self preservation. That's how he survived his notoriously violent high school unscathed. Being out and queer would put an unavoidable target on his back, especially in a Filipino community that frowns on homosexuality. When Bobby is unwilling...

"Tara just wants to be treated like any other girl at Ainsley Academy. That is, judged on her merits--not on her transness. But there's no road map for being the first trans girl at an all-girls school. And when she tries to join the Sibyls, an old-fashioned Ainsley sisterhood complete with code names and special privileges, she's thrust into the center of a larger argument about what girlhood means and whether the club should exist at all"--

In the year following their son's death, May Chen's parents face racist accusations of putting too much pressure on their son and causing his death by suicide, and May attempts to challenge the racism and ugly stereotypes through her writing, only to realize that she still has a lot to learn and that her actions have consequences for her family as well as herself.

Struggling with emotional problems and an eating disorder, Jayne, a Korean American college student living in New York City, is estranged from her accomplished older sister June, until June gets cancer. Jayne and June are nothing alike. Their family moved from Seoul to San Antonio and finally New York. The sisters don't want anything to do with each other... until June gets cancer. And Jayne becomes the only one who can help her. Now, flung together...

"In her hit Netflix comedy special Baby Cobra, an eight-month pregnant Ali Wong resonated so strongly with viewers that she became a popular Halloween costume. Wong told the world her remarkably unfiltered thoughts on marriage, sex, working women, and why you never see new-mom comics on stage but you sure see plenty of new dads. Wong's sharp insights and humor are even more personal in this completely original collection. She shares the wisdom she's...

From the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You, the intertwined stories of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the mother and daughter who upend their lives. In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned - from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose...

"The highly original, blistering, and unconventional memoir by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer, which has now sold over one million copies worldwide. With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Viet Thanh Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Vietnam and America, writing with his...

"Eleanor is doing just fine. Yes, she's keeping secrets from her husband. Sure, she quit her PhD program and is now conducting unauthorized research on illegitimately procured mice. And, true, her mother is dead, and Eleanor has yet to go through her things. But what else is she supposed to do? What shape can grief take when you didn't understand the person you've lost? Resisting at every turn, Eleanor tumbles blindly down a path toward confronting...

A harrowing and redemptive immigrant story for readers of Pachinko. A Chinese railroad worker and his young daughter--sold into servitude--in 19th century California search for family, fulfillment, and belonging in a violent new land. "Heaven and earth do not pick and choose. They see everything as straw dogs." A sweeping historical novel of the American West from the little-seen perspective of those who helped to build it, Straw Dogs of the Universe...