Three Book Releases for Lunar New Year 2024

It’s so validating to see people celebrating Lunar New Year, to see the way our heritage is acknowledged with festivities, red and gold, pictures of dragons – plus the feasts. These three books, released in January and February of 2024, recognize Asian heritage, but with a slight spin. “River East, River West” subverts the immigrant trope by focusing on an American as the foreigner in China. “Lunar New Year Love Story” is a love story from a second-generation young adult perspective that takes place around Lunar New Year. “The Fox Wife” puts a fantasy twist on early 1900s Chinese history. 

We hope you enjoy these stories, and that the warm feeling of celebrating our heritage continues after Lunar New Year.

Just a heads-up: Some of these books are linked to Bookshop.org, where every purchase supports both your reading journey and ours. Happy reading!

“River East, River West” by Aube Rey Lescure (William Morrow, Jan. 9, 2024)

The narrative of Asian immigrants coming to the United States can feel like a tired trope at times, so what Aube Rey Lescure does in “River East, River West”–putting white American expats living in Shanghai under the microscope–feels particularly subversive. In this distinctively modern look at contemporary China, Lescure introduces us to Alva, a biracial Chinese and white teenager born and raised in Shanghai by her single white American mother, Sloane. Alva is aggrieved that Sloane is marrying Lu Fang, an average, middle-aged, Chinese businessman with nothing going for him except his wealth. 

Alva’s viewpoint alternates with Lu Fang’s backstory, which truly carries the novel. Through Lu Fang, readers gain insight into how the Cultural Revolution spread shockwaves through a generation, resulting in long-lasting impacts on the psyche. Lu Fang’s journey to resolve the tension between accepting his diminished lot in life and yet continuing to dream of more is explored with empathy and depth.

While Alva starts off as a bratty, America-obsessed, consumer brand-loving teenager who wants to go to international school and ideally leave China behind forever, her relationships with Lu Fang, her mother, and the U.S. evolve over the course of the book. The maturation that Alva undergoes is both poignant and authentically developed.

Overlying the evolution of these two main characters is layers of social commentary on capitalism, class divides, international schools, smarmy white expat behavior, the glorification of the West, and internalized racism. While Lescure leaves a lot open to interpretation, her critique of mediocre white people getting away with atrocious behavior in China is impossible to miss. As long as the reader can have patience with Alva’s bad attitude and bad choices–she’s a teenager, after all– there is a lot to appreciate in the novel’s examination of modern China from new angles. — Kristin T. Lee

“Lunar New Year Love Story” written by Gene Luen Yang and illustrated by LeUyen Pham (First Second, Jan. 9, 2024)

Aptly timed for Lunar New Year and Valentine’s Day, the graphic novel “Lunar New Year Love Story” (written by Gene Luen Yang and illustrated by LeUyen Pham) presents a love story with an Asian twist, featuring lion dancing and Lunar New Year celebrations.

The story itself is the age-old plot about Valentina Tran (or Val, for short) a fading hopeless romantic. Val discovers that her mom is not dead, like she’d been told all her life, but that she walked out on her family. This cements Val’s suspicion that her family is cursed, which her grandma confirms: “Our family unlucky in love. Even me and your grandpa. No divorce, but only because he die early.”

Still, Val isn’t quite ready to abandon true love. She makes a deal with Saint Valentine, a shape-shifting figment of Val’s imagination, that she’ll either find true love within a year or will allow Saint Valentine to have her heart forever, protecting it from pain.

You can probably guess what happens. We have the classic love triangle, with the “girl meets pretty boy, but becomes more emotionally attached to the broody underdog and has to decide which guy to pursue” plot. It’s predictable, but still cute and entertaining. We also see lion dancing as a thread throughout the book, portrayed with energy and dazzling imagery. The art grounds Val back to her body and mind, unifies the characters, and symbolizes opposing but co-existing concepts — majesty and misery, water and sunlight, love and suffering.

Though I’m a sucker for a good love story, the most rewarding relationships in this book were those between Val and her elders. Val craves emotional connection and honesty with her dad, but he awkwardly demonstrates love in the only ways he knows — offering food, attending her lion dance performances, giving her rides. To open the door to the past and his pain would be too uncomfortable. And then you have the overbearing, painfully frank grandma who doesn’t hold back her opinions: “Too many freckles! Why you both stay in the sun so much?” “They become high school sweethearts. But senior year, they sweetheart too much. Your mommy get pregnant.”

I’m not the one typically reading graphic novels in my household — I leave that to my kids. But now I get it. Pham’s riveting monochromatic illustrations give us deeper context to the characters and settings. The characters’ voices become more alive and animated, and their facial expressions reveal more than words can.  

Yang and Pham, dancing gracefully as one beneath the lion costume, have given us a charming and visually captivating coming-of-age tale that will encourage us to open our hearts and believe in true love. — Melody Ip

“The Fox Wife” by Yangsze Choo (Henry Holt and Co., Feb. 13, 2024)

Yangsze Choo (author of THE NIGHT TIGER and THE GHOST BRIDE) is the consummate writer of mysterious tales braiding Asian folklore and supernatural vibes with a propulsive narrative. In THE FOX WIFE, she takes her talents to early 1900s Manchuria, where the Qing Empire is on its last legs. 

In the first of two alternating storylines, a fox named Snow–in human form–takes a position as the servant to the matriarch of a family that runs a Chinese medicine shop. Grieving her daughter’s death, Snow is on the hunt for the murderer, taking her on a journey across the seas to Japan and back. Meanwhile, a separate narrative follows Bao, a private investigator who tries to uncover the truth behind a courtesan found frozen in an alleyway one early morning.

With gripping suspense, Choo conjures an atmospheric tale through her lush prose and cliffhanger chapter endings. Part family saga, part detective story, part quest, this book has something for every reader, especially those who want to be immersed in an enchanted world of Asian fable-inspired historical fiction. There’s an enthralling wholesomeness to Choo’s characters, especially the two protagonists, who manage to get out of every bind with wit, luck, and charm. 

This is a cozy, heartwarming tale that’s perfect for these wintry days. Don’t miss out on the audiobook, which Choo narrates herself, with beguiling, bewitching warmth. — K.T.L.