Kristiana Kahakauwila recommends
Significant Others (2024)
Zoe Eisenberg
"Zoe Eisenberg's Significant Others is a heart-felt journey set against the backdrop of the Big Island of Hawai'i. Through the distinct voices of life-long besties Jess and Ren, Eisenberg explores female friendship in all its intensity, heartbreak, tenderness, and expansive love. I can't wait to gift this book to my own significant others!"
A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens (2023)
Raul Palma
"Raul Palma's A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens is the Florida novel of our moment. In a Miami filled with ghosts, curses, and personal loss, a Bolivian American babalawo and his debt collector negotiate their immigrant histories and identities in relation to one another. Channeling Junot Diaz, Helena Maria Viramontes, and even Nathanial Hawthorne, Palma playfully limns gothic and supernatural literary traditions in order to offer a serious critique of a post-racial and post-ethnic American Dream."
One Potato (2022)
Tyler McMahon
"Fast-paced, comedic, with significant social undercurrents - Tyler McMahon's latest novel One Potato is a wild ride with real heart. [McMahon] pairs hilarious antics and a sweet romance with very real research into GMO plants and products. If you've always wondered how Michael Pollan's nonfiction would look in the hands of Tom Robbins or TC Boyle, then this is the novel for you."
