Last year, I had the absolute delight of being given an ARC of Caster by Elsie Chapman – an exciting dystopian-fantasy where magic – or ‘casting’ – comes with a cost, and is often at the expense of the magic-caster’s body. I enjoyed Caster, and eagerly anticipated the sequel.
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This modern, groundbreaking YA anthology explores the complexity and beauty of interracial and LGBTQ+ relationships where differences are front and center.
When people ask me what this anthology is about, I’m often tempted to give them the complicated answer: it’s about race, and about how being different from the person you love can matter but how it can also not matter, and it’s about Chinese pirate ghosts, black girl vigilantes, colonial India, a flower festival, a garden of poisons, and so, so much else. Honestly, though? I think the answer’s much simpler than that. Color outside the Lines is a collection of stories about young, fierce, brilliantly hopeful people in love.—Sangu Mandanna, editor of Color outside the Lines
A few years ago, I talked about how I craved a good story about interracial relationships beyond a superficial portrayal. I wanted a story that examined the ups and downs of being in an interracial relationship, to illustrate the complexities and the challenges and the dynamics and the unexpected joys and challenges of being in an interracial relationship. Such a book would have held my whole heart with its words, as I craved to see my experiences of being in an interracial relationship depicted in a story. Thus, when I saw that Eric Smith, one of the contributing authors to the anthology, announced that Sangu Mandanna was editing the Color Outside the Lines anthology, I was over the moon; I was thrilled beyond words.
I hope your stomachs are hungry for some delicious food and some food adventure stories today, friends! As part of my contribution for the blog tour for Hungry Hearts, edited by Elsie Chapman and Caroline T. Richmond, I present to you my very own food crawl where I found and ate the food mentioned in Hungry Hearts!
If you haven’t heard, Hungry Hearts is a new young-adult anthology that contains 13 books about food, love, and identity. There’s a strong emphasis on culture and relationships in this anthology, so if that sounds like up your (food!) alley, then I wholeheartedly recommend it. Personally, I absolutely loved this anthology and had so much fun reading all the diverse and brilliant stories. For the curious, you can find my review of Hungry Hearts here.
All of you know that I love reading. But, if there’s one thing that I love more than reading, it is food. Not only does food make me happy and gives my life meaning and colour, food is really important to me as well. As an adventurous foodie, doing this food crawl for Hungry Hearts was a great way for me to merge my love for reading, my love for Hungry Hearts, and my love for food! (How often do you get the chance to have your very own food crawl to celebrate an incredible book’s release?) And thus, I embarked on several food adventures and journeyed around my city to find the food featured in Hungry Hearts.
If you follow me on Twitter, then you should know how much I love Color Outside the Lines, an YA anthology about interracial relationships that I was beyond excited for. As much as I’d love to share the review I’ve written for Color Outside the Lines with you all right now – it’s over 2000 words, whoops – the book releases in November 2019, which is nine months away. Rather than keep in all my excitement to myself, I decided to list sixteen reasons why you should read this gem of an anthology.
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening friends! Welcome back to the Pond and thank you for being here today.
After delving into the many lists on Goodreads about new releases in 2019, I had planned to write a short and sweet ‘top 8 most anticipated books of 2019’. However, I soon realised that one post detailing my top picks for 2019 was not only inadequate, but also impossible. Today, therefore, is the third post of my week-long event of The Pond’s Most Anticipated Reads of 2019!
The Quiet Pond 