Favorite Books by Asian Authors 🌸 + #asianreadathon TBR

Hello fellow bookworms 🌸 For today’s post, I wanted to highlight some of my favorite books by Asian authors in honor of the Asian Readathon happening, so I can provide some recommendations if you are looking for them! I have divided the books that I love into three categories based on the genres they fall into (Contemporary, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and books from other genre/who fall into multiple genres) and will also include my reviews if you want to find out more about them! I’m very excited to be highlighting books by Asian authors that I love and I’ve also included some of the books still on my TBR (excluding authors I already mentioned) as well as my #asianreadathon TBR that you can also find over on my Twitter if you want to know more about my progress! 🥰

🌸 Check out these other amazing posts! 🌺

• 37 Asian YA Novels to read asap (Afoma @ afomaumesi)
• 7 Asian YA/MG Book & Snack Pairings (Books & Boba)
• 78 South Asian Book Recommendations (Fanna @ fannatality)
• Favorite Books by Asian Authors (Katie @ A Cup of Cyanide)
• 25 Books by Asian Authors to Read, Especially for Asian Heritage Month!! & My May TBR in Celebration of Asian Heritage Month! (Asian Readathon) (May @ foreverandeverly)
• 46 South Asian Books To Add To Your TBR (Krisha @ bookathon)
• 2020 Asian Readathon Recommendations & TBR (Ren @ abookishbalance)

🌸 Contemporary Books 🌺

Saints and Misfits (S.K. Ali) ➽ Time to scream about this book again, as it deserves all the love! Saints and Misfits was one of my surprise favorites and I still love it very dearly as it has such strong, female friendships and a lot of amazing girl characters in general! It also deals with heavy topics as the main character was sexually harassed by someone highly respected in her community and is trying to cope with that. I inhaled the story in one sitting because it was just that good! 🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

When Dimple Met Rishi (Sandhya Menon) ➽ Sandhya Menon is one of my favorite contemporary authors because she writes great, swoony romance stories with interesting characters! I recently talked about how much I loved From Twinkle, With Love (my favorite book by her so far), so today I want to highlight her debut When Dimple Met Rishi, which is the perfect summer romance and a perfect binge-read! 🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

Of Curses and Kisses (Sandhya Menon)  ➽ More Sandhya Menon incoming! I couldn’t resist also mentioning her new contemporary – but with a magical twist – retelling Series that just started this year. I was lucky enough to get an Arc and I loved this Beauty and the Beast retelling! It had enemies to lovers, great banter and flawed, real characters. I cannot wait to see what the rest of the series has in store!  🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

A Very Large Expanse of Sea (Tahereh Mafi) ➽ I haven’t had the chance to write a full review for it, but this is definitely Mafi’s best work so far! I like her writing style for contemporary a lot more, as it’s rather down-to-earth and perfectly fit the main character Shirin and her reality.  The romance here was so adorable and totally owned my heart as I wanted them to be happy together! However, this also deals with heavy Islamophobia and how Shirin had to constantly keep her guards up. 🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

Starfish (Akemi Dawn Bowman) ➽ I haven’t talked about this book in a while, so here we go! I remember this being a hard, emotional read because it deals with parental abuse and sexual assault.  However, I’m also reminded of how much I related to Kiko and her anxiety, it really struck a chord in me, and I loved that she was also an artist!🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

🌸 Fantasy Books 🌺

The Star-Touched Queen (Roshani Chokshi) ➽ Roshani Chokshi is one of my favorite Fantasy authors as she always manages to create such interesting, complex worlds and honestly has such a beautiful, descriptive writing style that I would love to master as well. The Star-Touched Queen is a super swoony Hades and Persephone retelling that also focuses on growing and learning from your mistakes, no matter how hard it is! The companion novel A Crown of Wishes is even better and has banter-filled hate to love romance with two super headstrong, snarky characters that I loved! 🌺Read my Review Here 🌺

The Wrath and the Dawn (Reneé Ahdieh) ➽ Another Duology I’m due to reread as I remember loving it so much when I last read it. The Wrath and the Dawn has a lot of my favorite things, including a snarky heroine, banter-filled enemies to lovers romance and gorgeous food descriptions that made my mouth water. The author really manages to describe a super vivid setting and makes all the characters come to life, so I’d highly recommend it!  🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

The Reader (Traci Chee)  ➽  This is full of book love and literally contains little riddles for the reader to find, so you’ll want to check this out if you love cool fantasy worlds! I love how reading is included in the world-building and how the focus of everything hinges on a mysterious book in a world where almost everyone is illiterate.  I will say that the sequel is even better and honestly takes things to a whole new level. The Speaker blew me away and is definitely worth reading if you liked some of the aspects of the first book! 🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

The Young Elites (Marie Lu) ➽ Hand-down, this has one of the best morally grey main characters and tells a compelling villain origin story of a scorned and misunderstood teen girl with illusion powers. Adelina is such an interesting character and her character arc is so well done, she’s definitely my favorite morally grey lady! I also loved the interesting magic system and all the other characters, I’m definitely due for a reread! 🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

Empress of All Seasons (Emiko Jean) ➽ I haven’t talked about this book in a while, but it’s a perfect read if you want to read an interesting standalone Fantasy book! I really liked the worldbuilding here was it’s based on mystical creatures being hunted down and captured by humans, with the main character being an Animal Wife. It also featured a fierce competition through 4 seasonal rooms for the emperor’s hand in marriage and was a super intense story! 🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

🌸 Sci-Fi Books 🌺

Warcross (Marie Lu) ➽ I honestly love Warcross so much, it’s another testament to how amazing Marie Lu is as a writer! I’m also super down for the futuristic setting all about advanced technology and an addictive game called Warcross that has its own championships and is played globally. This book definitely has a place in my heart, as it has a strong, determined main character learning to work with others and a delicious, slow-burn romance that remains one of my favorites because it made me feel all the things! 🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

Rebel Seoul (Axie Oh) ➽ I haven’t screamed about this favorite in a while, but I’m hoping to get more people to read Rebel Seoul 😉 It’s set in Neo Seoul in the future after a lot of wars have taken place and includes interesting technology as well as a super-secret project including special powers, The book drew me in and completely wrenched my heart in all the good ways. I was so invested that I flew through this book and I’m definitely due for a reread so I can finally enjoy the sequel, as my prayers for more content were heard! 🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

Interment (Samira Ahmed) ➽ This was one of my favorite books last year and definitely deserves some more love. I didn’t realize how much I would end up loving it, even though Internment is a hard to read book. It’s set in a dystopian world (that is more likely 10 minutes into the future) where islamophobic people have made people’s love a living hell and now made the first Internment camp for Muslims, fuelling prejudice and hatred. The main character Layla is such a strong and inspirational person in her fight to be heard and work against the hatred that consumes her world.  🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

Not Your Sidekick (C.B. Lee) ➽ I just recently read this, but I loved it so much and I’m glad that I finally checked out this series. It’s all about a slightly dystopian world – set after a nuclear war and some freaky natural phenomenon – where superpowers have developed in people. I’ve been in a superhero mood lately so this was the perfect book. It had a super sweet sapphic romance, a relatable main character without powers, and an interesting friendship group! This is a perfect comfort read and great to binge-read.🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

🌸 Other Books 🌺

Wintersong (S. Jae-Jones) ➽ I’d say that this is another underrated favorite that found a place in my heart. Wintersong is a mix of historical fiction and a lot of fantastical and whimsical elements that really spoke to me. I was all here for the swoony enemies to lovers romance with the mysterious Gobling King and thought that the entire Underworld setting was so vivid and well done. The book is on the longer side but is so atmospheric that I enjoyed every last scene that I read! I’m going to be reading the sequel soon! 🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

The Girl from Everywhere (Heidi Heilig) ➽  This book convinced me with the interesting concept it had of time travel and is a mix of fantasy elements and historical fiction. I loved most of the characters, especially Kashmir and Nix whose banter is superior to all else. I found the exploration of different time periods very interesting and loved that the ship was such a big part of the story. The book was hard to read at times though as the father reads as very emotionally abusive, so be mindful of that going into the book. 🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

In Order to Live (Yeonmi Park)  ➽  The only nonfiction book on this list, but I had to recommend it, as In Order to Live was such a haunting and emotional memoir about a North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom. The book touches upon a lot of serious topics and highlights the hardships the author had to face in order to finally build a new life in peace. The memoir introduced me to a lot more knowledge about what life is like in North Korea and got us an insight into how difficult it is to truly be free. 🌺 Read my Review Here 🌺

🌸 Some of the Books by Asian Authors On my TBR 🌺

1. I’ll be the One (Lyla Lee)
2. Star Daughter (Shveta Thakrar)
3. Darius the Great Is Not Okay (Adib Khorram)
4. Spin the Dawn (Elizabeth Lim)
5. The Downstairs Girl (Stacey Lee)
6. The Weight of Our Sky (Hanna Alkaf)
7. Wicked Fox (Kat Cho)
8. Empire of Sand (Tasha Suri)
9. We Hunt the Flame (Hafsah Faizal)
10. Forest of a Thousand Lanterns (Julie C. Dao)

🌸 Asian Readathon 2020 TBR 🌺

➽ The Asian Readathon is hosted by Cindy @ readwithcindy, runs the entire month of May, and includes several reading challenges if you want an extra element to the Readathon. The main objective is to read books by Asian authors and like last year it’s encouraged to read from authors of different ethnicities. You can find my reading thread over on Twitter where I’ll be sharing any updates!

1. Not Your Villain (C.B. Lee) 🌸 Read a book written by an Asian author who is different from you. (The author is Chinese-Vietnamese)
2. Shadowsong (S. Jae-Jones) 🌸 Read a book written by an Asian author who you can relate to (The author is also a woman)
3. Darius the Great Is Not Okay (Adib Khorram) 🌸 Read a book recommended by an Asian (I picked this up because I saw that Caitlin liked it 💗)
4. The Gilded Wolves (Roshani Chokshi) 🌸 Read any book by an Asian author

What are your favorite books written by Asian authors? Feel free to recommend me some books down below! 🌸