Sakura of DOOM

Zoya Singh Solanki was born the exact moment India won the Cricket World Cup in 1983. Her next fateful encounter with cricket happens when she is assigned to work with India's cricket team for a Zing! ad for her agency, and soon, the team begins to win whenever she eats breakfast with them. Before she knows it, she is annoying the handsome captain of the team, getting a free ride to Australia for the World Cup, and being hailed as a cricket goddess by some people.

I don't usually read chick lit all that often because of the frequent focus on things like brand names and shopping, and because while I can deal with annoying gender roles in historical romances, it's much more difficult to brush them aside in contemporary romances. This book does have some of the things that annoy me—Zoya's initial stint in the ad company is obviously very conscious of brands—but it wasn't too bad. Also, you can tell where my priorities lie: I was incredibly annoyed at Nikhil Koda, the love interest, until he and Zoya went to a street market and had food. As Nikhil was a fan of the food, I decided I liked him a lot more.

I thought I would actually be more bored by the cricket than I was, seeing as how I am not a big sports person, but all the snippets from the articles from India and the overall excitement reminded me a lot of being in Asia during South Korea's run in the 2002 World Cup. By the end, I was enjoying the cricket bits more than the romance bits.

Unfortunately, the book is at least 100 pages or so too long; in order to stretch the story out, Chauhan basically has a ton of Not-Too-Big Misunderstandings get in the way of Zoya and Nikhil's happy ending. Zoya had decides to ignore Nikhil based on suspicions from gossip rags, her brother's speculations, her own doubts, and various other things that might have made sense the first two or three times, but have gotten incredibly boring the ninth or so time around.

That said, I do actually like Zoya and Nikhil, and I particularly like Zoya's family and friends. And I laughed so hard at Zoya wondering how on earth monolingual white Australians got by with only one language (what do they do when they are in a different mood?), along with the weirdness of being in a place so full of white people. I so sympathize. And there's just something really fun about Chauhan's narrative voice, from the toinnnnngggg commercial to the two sports announcers and the assorted excerpts from gossip magazines.

Anyway, it's definitely uneven, especially when it comes to the romance, but it felt a lot more familiar than almost all chick lit and/or contemporary romances I read, which is usually split between glamorous big city or small-town (very white) America. So, looking forward to reading her next two books, especially since it sounds like they have plot elements and/or settings that differ even more from standard chick lit/contemporary romance.

Links:
- reviews from the Anuja Chauhan reading club (also, thanks to deepad for setting it up in the first place!)

I really liked Headley's first book, Nothing But the Truth (and a Few White Lies), and I love this one.

Syrah Cheng is the daughter of millionaire Ethan Cheng; she wanted to be a pro snowboarder, but an accident tore her ACL and so far, she hasn't been snowboarding since. To make matters worse, her mom keeps telling her she's fat, her best friend Adrian (Age) is withdrawing because of his new girlfriend, and her half-siblings hate her.

This could easily have been a poor little rich girl story, but I genuinely cared about Syrah and her problems. Part of this is because Headley does address class a little -- there's not that much overt deconstruction, but while we see the dark side of wealth, we (and Syrah) also get to see how many doors money opens, particularly when comparing Syrah with her friend Age and when comparing Syrah with her half-siblings, both of whom grew up with their father before he struck metaphorical gold.

Also, some day I will get sick of saying this, but right now, I'm still delighted that she's Chinese! And she does not angst about her Chinese-ness, but it is very clearly there. I really appreciate Headley's research; she even knows that there are twelve symbols of luck on the traditional Qing dragon robes, frex. But it's not research for the sake of research; a lot of the conflict in the story comes from Syrah's family history, and it's a history very closely tied to politics.

Also also, I really appreciate that most of the things I loved about Nothing But the Truth are back here: the focus on female friendship; the focus on inter-generational relationships that go beyond simple misunderstandings; the consistent framing of romance as a factor and a problem, but not the problem; the set-up of what look like stereotypical YA problems, but quickly turn into more complex issues; the optimism; and the main character's interest in things that aren't clothes, social hierarchy and boys (I have no problem with these interests, being a clotheshorse and an avid reader/watcher of all things romantic, but it's also nice to see variety in YA books).

Like Headley's first book, the ending feels a little too optimistic to be real, but honestly, I don't care. It made me happy, and I wanted Syrah to win. Also, even though the ending to this book is a little larger than life, Syrah still doesn't solve all her problems with a magic wand. What I left with was the feeling that Syrah had gotten some tools for dealing in an adult way, and while there would still be problems ahead, she'd be better equipped to handle them.

Headley's also continued with her multi-racial world; there's a strong focus on East Asian-ness and Chinese-ness in particular, but there's also the casual mention of not one, but several, biracial kids; Age is Mexican-American, and there's just the sense that the world is not whitewashed, which I really like. Also, I cheer for interracial relationships, both romantic and not. In terms of gender politics, I do wish there were some GLBT characters. In general, though, I love how important all the female relationships are. Yeah, you get some of the high school clique girls, but you also get many other girls and women, friends and sisters and cousins and mothers and daughters and grandmothers.

And! I am still not over reading about things that are from my own life, like sitting around the kitchen table wrapping dumplings, complete with learning how to from older female relatives. The part about making dumplings that look like the Son of the Blob? OMG so my first hundred dumplings! Same with the generational divide and language, and I love love love that Headley's Chinese people live in China and Hong Kong and Seattle and Vancouver, that they move around, that some are fourth-gen sons of immigrants. I especially loved the look at Mandarin and Cantonese and the notion of mother tongues and what that actually means. As far as I could tell, most of the references are right, with the exception of girls' manga as "shonin." But hey, given how much else the book gets right, I don't really care.

I just ... I love reading something in which I actually get most or all of the cultural references, as opposed to the usual "Hrm, what is this meatloaf of which you speak?" reaction (I know what meatloaf is now! And I like it! But I spent most of childhood wondering what it was and why everyone seemed to hate it).

So: yay book! And I'm really looking forward to whatever Headley writes next.

Links:
- buymeaclue's review
- gwyneira's review

Does anyone have recommendations for happy YA chicklit starring POC and/or by POC?

Qualifications:

I have read half of Dana Davidson's Jason & Kyra and got bored by the prose and descriptions of what everyone was wearing, I know about Melissa de la Cruz, I've read Does My Head Look Big in This? and liked it, may check out First Daughter soon, read half of Born Confused and got bored by the prose, just read Whale Talk and will probably blaze through Crutcher's backlist, and read a few pages of The Fly on the Wall and got bored. I've also read Justine Larbalestier, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Susan Vaught, Nancy Farmer, Tamora Pierce, and am planning on going through suggestions here. (How is Virginia Hamilton on the depressing scale?)

I also want books, not manga or comics.

I know about the imprint Kimani TRU but haven't read anything of theirs, so thumbs up or down are appreciated.

1. I want happy. As in, I am tired of scanning summaries of books about POC and going "gang, unwanted pregnancy, gang, violence, gang, OPPRESSION, gang, racism, gang, abusive boyfriend, gang, historical oppression, gang." (if you can't tell, please no more gangs!)

2. I am thinking of something sort of like Fresh off the Boat or Does My Head Look Big in This?, or like Maureen Johnson. Sarah Dessen works too (I would prefer interior angst over GANG). I tend to like girls who are not ashamed of their culture and/or race, interesting prose, and romance, but romance isn't required.

3. The book has to star a girl, or at least have her section of the story comprise of at least half.

ETA: 4. The book has to have a POC protagonist (not a secondary role, no matter how cool) or a POC author.

5. Fluff is good! Just to give you an idea... the last three books I have read were about hazing, Japanese internment camps, and physical and emotional abuse. I think I need to read something light and happy and fluffy before going there again.