For Asian Pacific Islander American (APIA) Heritage Month, Seeta Menon Estrada, YES Prep English Content Director, invited students that identify as APIA to write book reviews on novels they recommend. Menon Estrada also joined the students and shared a book review with us!

Scroll down to read all the book reviews or click below to read a specific one. 

• If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura
• A Pho Love Story by Loan Le
• Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel 

If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura

A book review by Tracy Nguyen, senior, YES Prep Brays Oaks Secondary

Our narrator has just been diagnosed with cancer - stage 4. We meet the devil, who is actually just us but in a Hawaiian shirt rocking Ray-Ban sunglasses. Why is the devil here? Well, to prolong our life of course! What's the catch? We have to make one thing disappear from the world per every each day of extra life.

Alright, you're probably experiencing quite the whiplash from those previous sentences just now, sorry guys. But just like that, our book also gives us a roller coaster of things to deal with and problems to face. In Kawamura's "If Cats Disappeared from the World," we're placed in the shoes of - well, we actually don't ever know the narrator's name. That's also one of the beauties of this novel; as the main narrator is living their last days, we too are living our last days. What will happen to them? What will happen to us? When dealt the card of death, only then do you truly acknowledge the things that disappeared from your world but were in plain sight the whole time.

I'll be honest with you, the only reason I bought this book was for the cover (I mean, look at it!), but man, is this book pretty darn good. It's definitely giving the "don't judge a book by its cover" saying a run for its money. This book beautifully highlights the importance of not letting the things you want to do in the future stay in the future because life is too brief to be complacent. Each chapter is represented by a day of the week, starting on Monday and ending on Sunday. One week. One week to tell a story, and Kawamura does it with writing that just blows your mind. He crafted a story that anyone can connect to, no matter their identity.

About the Tracy Nguyen: Tracy just recently graduated from YES Prep Brays Oaks Secondary and plans to attend the University of Houston - Main Campus and major in computer science. During her free time, she enjoys playing video games, building custom keyboards and buying books with nice covers.

A Pho Love Story by Loan Le

A book review by Kelly Truong, junior, YES Prep Southeast Secondary

A Pho Love Story written by Vietnamese author Loan Le captures the love story between two Vietnamese American teens pitted against each other because of their family’s competing restaurants.

Always being across from each other yet forced to never speak creates a tense, yet unexpectedly remarkable relationship full of sparks that light each of them up. A single encounter brings Linh and Bao to blur the line of separation, but they will always immediately remember how they are doomed to never be together due to their families. The book incorporates both Vietnamese culture with periodic Vietnamese dialect to connect with the audience.

This book was a fun read for me because I would have never picked it up if my AP English Literature teacher, Ms. Rangel, hadn’t recommended it to me as a fun read. Love stories have never been my thing, but the cheesy aspects blended with parts of my Vietnamese heritage made it more meaningful and genuine to me. When I read it, I could not help but feel elated by the traditions common in the Vietnamese culture because I have always been surrounded by a predominating Latinx culture. In the silly story, I was able to find a comforting aspect to the problems of the curious teenagers who were going through similar feelings as me. A big takeaway I got from this book was learning how to read some Vietnamese. I only know how to speak Vietnamese, so learning to read some of it was an exciting part for me that drew me in more.

About the Kelly Truong: Kelly is a rising senior at YES Prep Southeast Secondary and a proud Vietnamese American. She has a strong passion for computer science, so she has founded the first STEM club at her school. She also enjoys cooking Vietnamese food for her family whilst maintaining the valedictorian position as a recognition for her hard work and resilience.

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel 

A book review by Seeta Menon Estrada, English Content Director

“Kaikeyi” retells the story of Kaikeyi, one of the stepmothers of Rama, a Hindu god who is the main character of the epic The Ramayana. The Ramayana is a Hindu epic about Prince Rama’s journey to rescue Sita, his wife, from Ravana, a principal demon in Hindu mythology. This book both challenged my biases and gave me a perspective I didn’t know I craved. In the Ramayana, Kaikeyi is the central villain, banishing brave Rama to the forest just as he was about to become king of Ayodhya. However, in this eponymous novel written by an Indian American author, Kaikeyi is now the central character and the hero.

This coming-of-age story imagines Kaikeyi’s life from childhood and all the circumstances that led to her decision to banish Rama. The story is filled with magical and mythical events, moral conflicts and even some epic battle scenes. A reader doesn’t need to know the original story from The Ramayana to be engaged in the story of Kaikeyi and her growth.  

My name, Seeta, comes from the Ramayana, Rama’s wife Sita. Throughout the Ramayana, Sita’s life takes a back seat to her husband’s, and she is remembered and admired for her faithfulness to her husband and children not for her own personal achievements. Names are important, and while Sita has so many admirable qualities, being named after a woman whose identity does not center around her independence is difficult. However, this imagining of Kaikeyi’s life and choices creates a feminist reinterpretation of the events that happened in the Ramayana, and I loved being able to experience it.

About Seeta Menon Estrada: Seeta Menon Estrada is the Content Director for English at YES Prep. Creating English classrooms that are engaging, rigorous, and full of authentic reading, writing, and discussion has been a passion over her past 12 years. Prior to her current role, she has served as a as content specialist, dean of instruction, AP English literature teacher and sixth grade English teacher. Seeta is South Asian American, and she loves sharing aspects of her APIA identity with her students and colleagues through food, stories and of course, literature.