May 2024 Book Recommendations for AAPI Month
CELEBRATE WITH BOOKS FOR ALL READER TYPES!
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. This month is an opportunity to recognize and celebrate the rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and history of the AAPI community. So if you're looking for a great way to celebrate AAPI Heritage Month, why not pick up one of these amazing books? Not only will you be supporting AAPI authors and their work, but you'll also gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the AAPI experience.
With 18 different Reader Types and 30+ book recommendations for every Reader Type below, what are you waiting for?
Learn more about AAPI month here!
TOP NEWLY RELEASED BOOKS AAPI Month:
BEACH READER
Red String Theory
by Lauren Kung Jessen
When it comes to love and art, Rooney Gao believes in signs. Most of all, she believes in the Chinese legend that everyone is tied to their one true love by the red string of fate. And that belief has inspired her career as an artist, as well as the large art installations she makes with (obviously) red string. That is until artist's block strikes and Rooney begins to question everything. But then fate leads her to the perfect guy . . .
Jack Liu is perfect. He's absurdly smart, successful, handsome, and after one enchanting New York night--under icy February skies and fueled by fried dumplings--all signs point to destiny. Only Jack doesn't believe. And after their magical date, it looks like they might be lost to each other forever . . . until they're given one more chance to reconnect. But can Rooney convince a reluctant skeptic to take a leap of fate?
You Know What You Did
by K T Nguyen
Annie "Anh Le" Shaw grew up poor, but seems to have it all now: a dream career, a stunning home, and a devoted husband and daughter. When Annie's mother, a Vietnam War refugee, dies suddenly one night, Annie's carefully curated life begins to unravel. Her obsessive-compulsive disorder, which she thought she'd vanquished years ago, comes roaring back--but this time, the disturbing fixations swirling around in Annie's brain might actually be coming true.
A prominent art patron disappears, and the investigation zeroes in on Annie. Spiraling with self-doubt, she distances herself from her family and friends, only to wake up in a hotel room--naked, next to a lifeless body. The police have more questions, but with her mind increasingly fractured, Annie doesn't have answers. All she knows is this: She will do anything to protect her daughter--even if it means losing herself.
With dizzying twists, You Know What You Did is both a harrowing thriller and a heartfelt exploration of the refugee experience, the legacies we leave for our children, and the unbreakable bonds between mothers and daughters.
BOOKWORM
The Funeral Cryer (Original)
by Wenyan Lu
The Funeral Cryer long ago accepted the mundane realities of her life: avoided by fellow villagers because of the stigma attached to her job and underappreciated by her husband, whose fecklessness has pushed the couple close to the brink of breakup. But just when things couldn't be bleaker, she takes a leap of faith--and in so doing, things start to take a surprising turn for the better.
Dark, moving and wry, The Funeral Cryer is both an illuminating depiction of a "left behind" society--and proof that it's never too late to change your life.
River East, River West
by Aube Rey Lescure
Shanghai, 2007: Fourteen-year-old Alva has always longed for more. Raised by her American expat mother, she's never known her Chinese father, and is certain a better life awaits them in America. But when her mother announces her engagement to their wealthy Chinese landlord, Lu Fang, Alva's hopes are dashed, and so she plots for the next best thing: the American School in Shanghai. Upon admission, though, Alva is surprised to discover an institution run by an exclusive community of expats and the ever-wilder thrills of a city where foreigners can ostensibly act as they please.
1985: In the seaside city of Qingdao, Lu Fang is a young, married man and a lowly clerk in a shipping yard. Though he once dreamed of a bright future, he is one of many casualties in his country's harsh political reforms. So when China opens its doors to the first wave of foreigners in decades, Lu Fang's world is split wide open after he meets an American woman who makes him confront difficult questions about his current status in life, and how much will ever be enough.
COOL MOM/DAD
Green Frog: Stories
by Gina Chung
Equal parts fantastical--a pair of talking dolls help twins escape a stifling home, a heart boils on the stove as part of an elaborate cure for melancholy, a fox demon contemplates avenging her sister's death--and true to life--a mother and daughter try to heal their rift when the daughter falls unexpectedly pregnant, a woman reexamines her father's legacy after his death--the stories in this collection are hopeful and heartbreaking, full of danger and full of joy.
Chung is a master at capturing emotion, and her characters--human and otherwise--will claw their way into your heart and make themselves at home.
Real Americans
by Rachel Khong
Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster, and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao's Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love.
In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can't shake the sense she's hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than it provides answers.
In immersive, moving prose, Rachel Khong weaves a profound tale of class and striving, race and visibility, and family and inheritance--a story of trust, forgiveness, and finally coming home.
DISSENTER
The Book of Secrets: A Personal History of Betrayal in Red China
by Xinran Xue
Following the lives of military intelligence officer Jie and his wife Moon, The Book of Secrets weaves recently found material into a narrative that not only illuminates the shadowy world of intelligence in China, but also the emotional tragedies that political extremism inflicted on those working within.
Drawing on Jie's own vivid biography of his youth, Xinran pieces together his trajectory as he joins the great hope of the Chinese young - the Communist Party - and becomes a loyal cadre until the late 1970s when, as a chief in the security forces, he makes a decision that will poison his family against him.
This is a totally unique behind-the-scenes account of a family torn apart by the Tiananmen Square massacre and the attempts of Jie to finally open up the Chinese system to the people, pieced together from an extraordinary archive of personal diaries and letters.
GAME DAY HERO
Naomi Osaka: Her Journey to Finding Her Power and Her Voice
by Ben Rothenberg
Naomi Osaka is everywhere, but how did she get there?
Most tennis fans were introduced to Naomi Osaka as they watched her win the 2018 US Open final in an unforgettably controversial and dramatic victory over her idol, Serena Williams.
Her extraordinary talent propelled her to the top of her sport and onto the front page of newspapers and magazines worldwide, but it was her unique blend of awe-striking power and disarming vulnerability that fascinated millions as she became a champion like none before her.
LEADING LADY
The Fetishist
by Katherine Min
On a cold, gloomy night, twenty-three-year-old Kyoko stands in the rain with a knife in her hoodie's pocket. Her target is Daniel, who seduced Kyoko's mother then callously dropped her, leading to her death. But tonight, there will be repercussions. Following the unsuspecting Daniel home, Kyoko manages to get a rash kidnapping plot off the ground . . . and then nothing goes as planned.
The Fetishist is the story of three people--Kyoko, a Japanese American punk-rock singer full of rage and grief; Daniel, a philandering violinist forced to confront the wreckage of his past; and Alma, the love of Daniel's life, a Korean American cello prodigy long adored for her beauty, passion, and talent, but who spends her final days examining if she was ever, truly, loved.
An exuberant, provocative story that confronts race, complicity, visibility, and ideals of femininity, The Fetishist was written before the celebrated author's untimely death in 2019. Startlingly prescient, as wise and powerful as it is utterly delightful, this novel cements Katherine Min's legacy as a writer with a singular voice for our times.
Memory Piece
by Lisa Ko
In the early 1980s, Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng are three teenagers drawn together by their shared sense of alienation and desire for something different. "Allied in the weirdest parts of themselves," they envision each other as artistic collaborators and embark on a future defined by freedom and creativity.
By the time they are adults, their dreams are murkier. As a performance artist, Giselle must navigate an elite social world she never conceived of. As a coder thrilled by the internet's early egalitarian promise, Jackie must contend with its more sinister shift toward monetization and surveillance. And as a community activist, Ellen confronts the increasing gentrification and policing overwhelming her New York City neighborhood. Over time their friendship matures and changes, their definitions of success become complicated, and their sense of what matters evolves.
Moving from the predigital 1980s to the art and tech subcultures of the 1990s to a strikingly imagined portrait of the 2040s, Memory Piece is an innovative and audacious story of three lifelong friends as they strive to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised.
LIFELONG LEARNER
Dinner on Monster Island: Essays
by Tania de Rozario
Tania De Rozario was just twelve years old when she was gay-exorcised. Convinced that her boyish style and demeanor were a sign of something wicked, her mother and a pair of her church friends tried to "banish the evil" from Tania. That day, the young girl realized that monsters weren't just found in horror tales. They could lurk anywhere--including your own family and community--and look just like you.
Dinner on Monster Island is Tania's memoir of her life and childhood in Singapore--where she discovered how difference is often perceived as deviant, damaged, disobedient, and sometimes, demonic. As she pulls back the veil on life on the small island, she reveals the sometimes kind, sometimes monstrous side of all of us. Intertwined with her experiences is an analysis of the role of women in horror. Tania looks at films and popular culture such as Carrie, The Witch, and The Ring to illuminate the ways in which women are often portrayed as monsters, and how in real life, monsters are not what we think.
A Year of Last Things: Poems
by Michael Ondaatje
Following several of his internationally acclaimed novels, A Year of Last Things is Michael Ondaatje's long-awaited return to poetry. In pieces that are sometimes witty, sometimes moving, and always wise, we journey back through time by way of alchemical leaps, unearthing writings by revered masters, moments of shared tenderness, and the abandoned landscapes we hold on to to rediscover the influence of every border crossed.
Moving from a Sri Lankan boarding school to Molière's chair during his last stage performance, to Bulgarian churches and their icons, to the California coast and his beloved Canadian rivers, Michael Ondaatje casts a brilliant eye that merges memory with the present, in the way memory as the distant shores of art and lost friends continue to influence everything that surrounds him.
MODERN ROMANTIC
Lies and Weddings
by Kevin Kwan
Rufus Leung Gresham, future Earl of Greshambury and son of a former Hong Kong supermodel has a problem: the legendary Gresham Trust has been depleted by decades of profligate spending, and behind all the magazine covers and Instagram stories manors and yachts lies nothing more than a gargantuan mountain of debt. The only solution, put forth by Rufus's scheming mother, is for Rufus to attend his sister's wedding at a luxury eco-resort, a veritable who's-who of sultans, barons, and oligarchs, and seduce a woman with money.
Should he marry Solène de Courcy, a French hotel heiress with honey blond tresses and a royal bloodline? Should he pursue Martha Dung, the tattooed venture capital genius who passes out billions like lollipops? Or should he follow his heart, betray his family, squander his legacy, and finally confess his love to the literal girl next door, the humble daughter of a doctor, Eden Tong? When a volcanic eruption burns through the nuptials and a hot mic exposes a secret tryst, the Gresham family plans--and their reputation--go up in flames.
Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie
by Jackie Lau
Writer and barista Emily Hung is tired of hearing about the great Mark Chan, the son of her parents' friends. You'd think he single-handedly stopped climate change and ended child poverty from the way her mother raves about him. But in reality, he's just a boring, sweater-vest-wearing engineer, and when they're forced together at Emily's sister's wedding, it's obvious he thinks he's too good for her.
But now that Emily is her family's last single daughter, her mother is fixated on getting her married and she has her sights on Mark. There's only one solution, clearly: convince Mark to be in a fake relationship with her long enough to put an end to her mom's meddling. He reluctantly agrees.
Unfortunately, lying isn't enough. Family friends keep popping up at their supposed dates--including a bubble tea shop and cake-decorating class--so they'll have to spend more time together to make their relationship look real. With each fake date, though, Emily realizes that Mark's not quite what she assumed and maybe that argyle sweater isn't so ugly after all…
MOUNTAIN CLIMBER
Cargo of Hope: Voyages of the Humanitarian Ship Vega
by Shane Granger
This is the story of the historic ship Vega's first missions of mercy-a real-life sea tale complete with vicious storms, exotic locations, heart-rending moments, and priceless glimpses into real life on some of the world's most remote tropical islands. In December 2004, Shane Granger and his partner, Meggi Macoun, had just completed a sailing odyssey from South Africa to Malaysia and were enjoying a well-earned siesta when the Boxing Day Tsunami changed their lives forever. In a matter of hours, unstoppable waves, often over ten meters high, demolished cities not only in Malaysia but also as far away as Sri Lanka, Thailand, and East Africa, making it the deadliest tsunami in recorded history. With thousands of people suddenly in dire need, Shane and Meggi loaded their vessel with donated food and medical supplies, then set sail for Sumatra to deliver aid.
SELF-STARTER
Rental Person Who Does Nothing: A Memoir (Original)
by Shoji Morimoto
Or perhaps you'd like someone to keep a space in the park for your cherry blossom viewing party...
Shoji Morimoto was constantly being told by his boss, "It makes no difference whether you're here or not," and that his presence contributed nothing to the company. Morimoto began to wonder whether a person who "does nothing" could still have actual value and a place in the world. Perhaps he could turn "doing nothing" into a service? With one tweet, Rental Person was born.
SERIAL READER
The Murder of Mr. Ma
by Sj Rozan - John Shen Yen Nee
London, 1924. When shy academic Lao She meets larger-than-life Judge Dee Ren Jie, his quiet life abruptly turns from books and lectures to daring chases and narrow escapes. Dee has come to London to investigate the murder of a man he'd known during World War I when serving with the Chinese Labour Corps. No sooner has Dee interviewed the grieving widow than another dead body turns up. Then another. All stabbed to death with a butterfly sword. Will Dee and Lao be able to connect the threads of the murders--or are they next in line as victims?
Blending traditional gong'an crime fiction with the most iconic aspects of the Sherlock Holmes canon, Dee and Lao's first adventure is as thrilling and visual as an action film, as imaginative and transportive as a timeless classic.
The Night of the Storm
by Nishita Parekh
Hurricane Harvey is about to hit Houston. Meanwhile, single mom Jia Shah is already having a rough week: her twelve-year-old son, Ishaan, has just been suspended from school for getting in a fight. Still reeling from the fallout of her divorce--their move to Houston, her family's disapproval, the struggle to make ends meet on her own--now Jia is worried about Ishaan's future, too. Will her solo parenting be enough? Doesn't a boy need a father?
And now their apartment complex is under a mandatory evacuation order. Jia's sister, Seema, has invited them to hunker down in her fancy house in Sugar Land, and despite Jia's misgivings--Seema's husband, Vipul, has been just a little too friendly with her lately--Jia concedes it's probably the best place to keep Ishaan safe during the hurricane. With Jia's philandering ex scrutinizing her every move, all too eager to snatch back custody of Ishaan, she can't afford to make a mistake.
SPIRITUAL SEEKER
As Long as You Need: Permission to Grieve
by J S Park
In As Long As You Need, J.S. offers an honest and unrushed engagement with grief, decoding four types of grieving--spiritual, mental, physical, and relational--and offering compassionate self-care and soul-care along the way.
If you are struggling to process loss, pain, or grief from the last few years or the last few minutes, J.S. is an experienced and deeply empathetic listener and grief catcher who has held the pain and questions of thousands of patients. While social and cultural narratives about grief are dominated by "letting go, moving on, or turning the page" in his nearly decade of service as a chaplain at a major hospital with a designated level one trauma center J.S. understands firsthand how rushing or suppressing grief only adds a suffocating layer of pain on top of the original wound.
SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT
The Emperor and the Endless Palace: A Romantasy Novel (Original)
by Justinian Huang
In the year 4 BCE, an ambitious courtier is called upon to seduce the young emperor--but quickly discovers they are both ruled by blood, sex and intrigue.
In 1740, a lonely innkeeper agrees to help a mysterious visitor procure a rare medicine, only to unleash an otherworldly terror instead.
And in present-day Los Angeles, a college student meets a beautiful stranger and cannot shake the feeling they've met before.
Across these seemingly unrelated timelines woven together only by the twists and turns of fate, two men are reborn, lifetime after lifetime. Within the treacherous walls of an ancient palace and the boundless forests of the Asian wilderness to the heart-pounding cement floors of underground rave scenes, our lovers are inexplicably drawn to each other, constantly tested by the worlds around them.
Night for Day
by Roselle Lim
Exes Ward Dunbar and Camille Buhay thought they would never see each other again. They had broken up to pursue their dream jobs on opposite sides of the country--her to New York City, and him to Los Angeles. But years later, they unexpectedly reconnect in London, where they are interviewing for similar jobs. The spark they feel when they meet again is palpable--the attraction comes back like muscle memory, reminding them of what they had lost. When Ward and Camille discover they both got the job working opposing shifts, they vow to give their relationship another try.
Ward starts the day shift and finds the immortal clientele unusual and dazzling. When he clocks out at the end of the day, he finds the door locked and himself trapped in the building. After a horrific first night shift contending with restless spirits and ghosts, Camille is also unable to escape. In their respective prisons, they discover that they're able to talk to each other a few minutes before dawn. This fleeting encounter incites longing for each other, but their promise to be together feels impossible. Because they are caught in the middle of a war of the gods--and their choices will determine the outcome.
TIME TRAVELER
Daughters of Shandong
by Eve J Chung
In 1948, civil war ravages the Chinese countryside, but in rural Shandong, the wealthy, landowning Angs are more concerned with their lack of an heir. Hai is the eldest of four girls and spends her days looking after her sisters. Headstrong Di, who is just a year younger, learns to hide in plain sight, and their mother--abused by the family for failing to birth a boy--finds her own small acts of rebellion in the kitchen. As the Communist army closes in on their town, the rest of the prosperous household flees, leaving behind the girls and their mother because they view them as useless mouths to feed.
Without an Ang male to punish, the land-seizing cadres choose Hai, as the eldest child, to stand trial for her family's crimes. She barely survives their brutality. Realizing the worst is yet to come, the women plan their escape. Starving and penniless but resourceful, they forge travel permits and embark on a thousand-mile journey to confront the family that abandoned them.
The Fox Wife
by Yangsze Choo
Manchuria, 1908.
In the last years of the dying Qing Empire, a courtesan is found frozen in a doorway. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and handsome men. Bao, a detective with an uncanny ability to sniff out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman's identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they've remained tantalizingly out of reach--until, perhaps, now.
Meanwhile, a family who owns a famous Chinese medicine shop can cure ailments but can't escape the curse that afflicts them--their eldest sons die before their twenty-fourth birthdays. When a disruptively winsome servant named Snow enters their household, the family's luck seems to change--or does it?
TRENDSETTER
The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties
by Jesse Q Sutanto
After an ultra-romantic honeymoon across Europe, Meddy Chan and her husband Nathan have landed in Jakarta to spend Chinese New Year with her entire extended family. Chinese New Year, already the biggest celebration of the Lunar calendar, gets even more festive when a former beau of Second Aunt's shows up at the Chan residence bearing extravagant gifts--he's determined to rekindle his romance with Second Aunt and the gifts are his way of announcing his courtship.
His grand gesture goes awry however, when it's discovered that not all the gifts were meant for Second Aunt and the Chans--one particular gift was intended for a business rival to cement their alliance and included by accident. Of course the Aunties agree that it's only right to return the gift--after all, anyone would forgive an honest mistake, right? But what should have been a simple retrieval turns disastrous and suddenly Meddy and the Aunties are helpless pawns in a decades-long war between Jakarta's most powerful business factions. The fighting turns personal, however, when Nathan and the Aunties are endangered and it's up to Meddy to come up with a plan to save them all. Determined to rescue her loved ones, Meddy embarks on an impossible mission--but with the Aunties by her side, nothing is truly impossible...
How to End a Love Story
by Yulin Kuang
Helen Zhang hasn't seen Grant Shepard once in the thirteen years since the tragic accident that bound their lives together forever.
Now a bestselling author, Helen pours everything into her career. She's even scored a coveted spot in the writers' room of the TV adaptation of her popular young adult novels, and if she can hide her imposter syndrome and overcome her writer's block, surely the rest of her life will fall into place too. LA is the fresh start she needs. After all, no one knows her there. Except...
Grant has done everything in his power to move on from the past, including building a life across the country. And while the panic attacks have never quite gone away, he's well liked around town as a screenwriter. He knows he shouldn't have taken the job on Helen's show, but it will open doors to developing his own projects that he just can't pass up.
WOKE UP LIKE THIS
Cinema Love
by Jiaming Tang
For over thirty years, Old Second and Bao Mei have cobbled together a meager existence in New York City's Chinatown. But unlike other couples, these two share an unusual past. In rural Fuzhou, before they emigrated, they frequented the Workers' Cinema: a theater where gay men cruised for love.
While classic war films played, Old Second and his countrymen found intimacy in the screening rooms. In the box office, Bao Mei sold movie tickets to closeted men, guarding their secrets and finding her own happiness with the projectionist. But when Old Second's passion for his male lover is revealed, a series of haunting events unfold, propelling these characters toward an uncertain future in America.
Road to Ruin
by Hana Lee
Jin-Lu has the most dangerous job in the wasteland. She's a magebike courier, one of the few who venture outside the domed cities on motorcycles powered by magic. Every day, she braves the wasteland's dangers--deadly storms, roving marauders, and territorial beasts--to deliver her wares.
Her most valuable cargo? A prince's love letters addressed to Yi-Nereen, a princess desperate to escape the clutches of her abusive family and soon-to-be husband. Jin, desperately in love with both her and the prince, can't refuse Yi-Nereen's plea for help. The two of them flee across the wastes, pursued by Yi-Nereen's furious father, her scheming betrothed, and a bounty hunter with mysterious powers.
A storm to end all storms is brewing and dark secrets about the heritability of magic are coming to light. Jin's heart has led her into peril before, but this time she may not find her way back.
WORLD TRAVELER
Tiffy Cooks: 88 Easy Asian Recipes from My Family to Yours: A Cookbook
by Tiffy Chen
Tiffy Chen started blogging about food and recipes after learning to cook from her mother and grandmother. In her debut cookbook, Tiffy shares memories and recipes shaped by growing up in Taiwan--a country with rich culture, diverse cuisines, and some of the best street food in the world--along with beloved family recipes and unique dishes inspired by her travels across Southeast Asia.
YOUNG AT HEART
Dead Things Are Closer Than They Appear
by Robin Wasley
Sid Spencer has always been the most normal girl in her abnormal hometown, a tourist trap built over one of the fault lines that seal magic away from the world. Meanwhile, all Sid has to deal with is hair-ruining humidity, painful awkwardness, being one of four Asians in town, and her friends dumping her when they start dating each other--just days after one of the most humiliating romantic rejections faced by anyone, ever, in all of history.
Then someone kills one of the Guardians who protect the seal. The earth rips open and unleashes the magic trapped inside. Monsters crawl from the ground, no one can enter or leave, and the man behind it all is roaming the streets with a gang of violent vigilantes. Suddenly, Sid's life becomes a lot less ordinary. When she finds out her missing brother is involved, she joins the remaining Guardians, desperate to find him and close the fault line for good.
Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir
by Tessa Hulls
In her evocative, genre-defying graphic memoir, Tessa Hulls tells the story of three generations of women in her family: her Chinese grandmother, Sun Yi; her mother, Rose; and herself.
Sun Yi was a Shanghai journalist caught in the political crosshairs of the 1949 Communist victory. After eight years of government harassment, she fled to Hong Kong with her daughter. Upon arrival, Sun Yi wrote a bestselling memoir about her persecution and survival, used the proceeds to put Rose in an elite boarding school--and promptly had a breakdown that left her committed to a mental institution. Rose eventually came to the United States on a scholarship and brought Sun Yi to live with her.
Tessa watched her mother care for Sun Yi, both of them struggling under the weight of Sun Yi's unexamined trauma and mental illness. Vowing to escape her mother's smothering fear, Tessa left home and traveled to the farthest-flung corners of the globe (Antarctica). But at the age of thirty, it starts to feel less like freedom and more like running away, and she returns home to face the history that shaped her family.
I Hope This Doesn't Find You
by Ann Liang
Sadie Wen is perfect on paper: school captain, valedictorian, and a "pleasure to have in class." It's not easy, but she has a trick to keep her model-student smile plastered on her face at all times: she channels all her frustrations into her email drafts. She'd never send them of course -- she'd rather die than hurt anyone's feelings -- but it's a relief to let loose on her power-hungry English teacher or a freeloading classmate taking credit for Sadie's work.
All her most vehemently worded emails are directed at her infuriating cocaptain, Julius Gong, whose arrogance and competitive streak have irked Sadie since they were kids. “You're attention starved and self-obsessed and unbearably vain . . . I really hope your comb breaks and you run out of whatever expensive hair products you've been using to make your hair appear deceptively soft . . .”
Sadie doesn't have to hold back in her emails, because nobody will ever read them . . . that is, until they're accidentally sent out.
Overnight, Sadie's carefully crafted, conflict-free life is turned upside down. It's her worst nightmare -- now everyone at school knows what she really thinks of them, and they're not afraid to tell her what they really think of her either. But amidst the chaos, there's one person growing to appreciate the "real" Sadie -- Julius, the only boy she's sworn to hate . . . .