Five Reasons to Read Family Lore, Hula, and/or All My Rage

Every month, Tuma's Books offers diverse monthly reads to help you diversify your reading with books that have various cultural representation. Our August titles are Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo, Hula by Jasmin Iolani Hakes, and All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir. 

Keep reading for 5 reasons to read each title!

5 Reasons to Read Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo

1. Literary fiction with a HEAPING spoonful of magical realism is your jam

2. You are obsessed with everything Acevedo writes and loved Poet X, With the Fire on High, Clap When You Land, and/or Inheritance: A Visual Poem

3. You enjoy multiple POVs, as we learn about the Marte family through the perspective of mothers and daughters, sisters and cousins, aunts and nieces.

4. This Quote: “I have known death since before I was born, but I had not truly known life until I gave it to you."

5. The characters are raw and real. You might not like all of them, but you won't be able to forget them.

In Family Lore, Acevedo writes her first novel for adults about the story of one Dominican-American family told through the voices of its women as they await a gathering that will forever change their lives.

Flor has a gift. She can see when someone will die. So when she tells her family that she wants to have a living wake . . . for herself, you can imagine their survive. But she won't tell anyone, even her sisters why.

Yet they ALL have secrets. Each of Flor's sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila, have their secrets they're keeping to themselves. So is the younger generation, cousins Ona and Yani.

Within the three days before the wake, Acevedo weaves us through each Marte woman's history, experiences, pains, joys, and triumphs to help us understand how they came to be at this present moment of their lives. Have they been prepared for what is now about to come?

Have you read Family Lore? Thoughts?

5 Reasons to Read Hula by Jasmin Iolani Hakes

1. Thoughtful author's note that provides important context for the novel; author was born and raised in Hawaii but isn't Native Hawaiian

2. Learn about the nuance between Hawaiians who have lived on islands for generations vs. who is considered Native Hawaiian

3. Multi-generational, mother-daughter saga that will definitely tug heartstrings

4. If you loved Black Cake, The Only Good Indians, or The Mountains Sing

5. Expand your horizons by learning about Hawaii’s tortured history and how it connects to its fractured present, including the evolution of the Hawaiian Sovereignty movement

In Hula by Jasmin Lolani Hakes, we are introduced to Hi'i, the youngest of the legendary Naupaka dynasty. As the dynasty's legacy is jeopardized by heavy silences and unexplained absences, Hi'i hope that winning the Miss Aloha Hula contest will help heal her family. However, she has always felt separate from her community. And the harder she tries to prove she belongs through dancing hula, the farther the distance seems to grow.

When secrets start bubbling over, everyone wants to know the truth, especially Hi'i, about the disappearance of her mother when she was young. When the devestating secret involves Hi'i, the entire community is faced with an important decision that will affect everything and determine the course of Hi'i's future.

What books by and/or about Hawaiian people/culture have you read? I've only read A Little Life by Hanya Yanigahara

5 Reasons to Read All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

1. SABAA’S HEART ON THE PAGE: This is the book that Sabaa has always wanted to write. With elements pulled directly from her own history—like a family living in a motel in the Californian desert—this book is deeply personal and meaningful to her.

2. COMPELLING AND GUT-WRENCHING STORY: this story is absolutely tragic in the most compelling way, and while you’ll find yourself tearing up for these characters, it’s impossible to stop reading once you’ve begun.

3. HOPE ISN’T ALL LOST: A glimpse of hope that is offered to readers, and the message that there’s always something worth fighting for.

4. A BOOK ABOUT AMERICAN KIDS: Explores the different struggles that teens experience daily, from racism and bullying, to abuse and financial worries. This is about American kids that happen to be immigrant and first generation and brown.

5. MULTIGENERATIONAL HISTORIES: This book not only follows the lives of Noor and Salahudin, it also traces the past of Salahudin’s mother Misbah, offering a new perspective on what it means to be American and to follow your dreams.

Get your KLEENEX ready!

Back in Lahore, Pakistan, Misbah was a dreamer, newly wed to Toufiq in an arrange match. When their young lives are shaken by tragedy, they move to the US and open the Clouds' Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start.

Now, we're in Juniper, California and Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they're family. Both feeling like outcasts in their small desert town, they understand one another intimidately. Until, a huge fight breaks their bond. Sal is scrambling to run his family's motel as his mother's health fails and his grieving father drinks. Noor is secretly applying to college while she works in her wrathful uncle's liquor store, to escape him.

When Sal’s attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth—and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.  

If you've read All My Rage, how many tissues did it take to get to the final page?

Thanks for reading this post! Comment below in response to any of the questions. And shop our August titles at www.tumasbooks.com or www.bookshop.org/shop/tumasbooks