Asian Readathon Wrap Up – Down the Rabbit Hole

As always, this Asian Readathon didn’t go quite as planned but I discovered new books along the way! I always enjoy looking through the Directory of Asian Books on Storygraph which has some great recs. My storygraph challenge for this month is here. Did anyone else take part in the Asian readathon?

I’ve been meaning to read this book for so long, and owned it for about two years, so I was glad for an excuse to get to it. That said, while I enjoyed the magic system a lot and the little secret coven of witches, the characters of Nowhere House didn’t gel with me and I found multiple troubling things in this book which were brought up and then brushed aside (how the three children came to Nowhere House, the children’s isolation and the lack of plan to solve it, Jaime’s family, how easily Primrose’s concerns were swept aside). The book was easy to read and yet left an unpleasant feeling behind.

• A retelling/features LGBTQ+ characters

I got around to this manga which I was given last year after watching the film version and really loving the plot and the atmosphere. The manga had some beautiful drawings, I appreciated how close the film version was to the plot, and definitely how we got both characters’ inner thoughts. That seems to be a rariety in romance manga and I was pleasantly surprised to see it here.

• Emotional read/features older character

While I got this book on KU, I had it on my TBR for a while. A book about grief and identity, it made me feel for the author even as I sometimes wondered at her decisions. None of the members of their three person family behaved perfectly but the love was readily apparent, especially when her mother got sick. Definitely one I’m glad I read but not for reread.

• International/underrated book

This is definitely not an underrated book, considering it’s 13th century poetry which has been thought worthy enough to continue to be translated in the modern day, but it is very international. And I think translating poetry from one language to another is harder than anything else, so I was very impressed by the flow of this poetry. The musings on love and life were beautiful to listen and I felt almost meditative as I listened to them. Very glad I listened to this for this readathon!

This book has been on my TBR for a while after I saw a booktuber recommend it. I can’t remember what they said but I had listened to one of this author’s short stories before and so I was happy to check it out, especially when my library had the audiobook ready to borrow. I enjoyed it throughly, though the plot didn’t stick around that long (especially in the second half) the script format commenting on representation and stereotypes on screen was really fun to listen to.