Summer Reading (and Watching)
my favorite stories of this summer
Dear Starry Souls,
One thing that I am grateful to have had this summer was a lot of time to myself.
It was the first summer since I was fourteen where I had not worked. I have always been aware of how money made the world and life go round—mainly because my family never had much of it. So I worked as soon as I could: placing myself in the Kumon Tutored to Tutoring Pipeline, being paid under the counter at the Asian takeout restaurant down the street, labeling dog deodorant products, and then watching over 100 of those dogs that use it at a doggy day camp.
Even as I got to university, every semester since freshman year I have worked as an intern at someplace. In short: it has been a while since I truly had a summer break.
So this summer, I decided to use some of the money I’ve saved to travel and do a lot of reading and watching. And couch-rotting.
To be fair, it’s probably my last opportunity to have this sort of rest before I have to be a working adult for the rest of my life. To not feel so freaked out about that, I want to share some of my favorite stories I’ve enjoyed.
Summer Reads
Welcome to the Hyuman-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum
Ironically, this was the first book I read this summer, and one of its key lessons is how to work to live—not live to work.
It starts with our protagonist, Yeongju, who decides to open a bookshop in a smaller town after her busy life of a demanding career and marriage in Seoul crumbles. We follow her story of becoming a bookseller and healing—along with the other characters that find themselves in her store.
The best part of this book for me was how easy it was to find yourself in any of these character’s stories—no matter their age. They are all lost with something in their lives and trying their best to navigate it all. Like Minjun, the barista who finds himself working the cafe at the shop after struggling to find a job after putting himself through the wringer at university, or Jungsuh, a middle-aged woman who quit her job due to unfair policies and finds herself crocheting at the bookstore.
It’s a slower-paced story, but that felt intentional as most of these characters are going through a phase of reflection, healing, and transformation that requires patience and time.
How To Write An Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee
Ever since I read Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner, I have been going into a rabbit hole of reading memoirs—specifically from Asian-American authors.
In this collection of essays, Chee reflects on his identities as a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. We get a glimpse into his growth from a student to a teacher and a writer. It’s also a compelling reflection of the U.S.’s struggles in the last century—from the AIDS crisis to the moments after the election of Donald Trump.
Here’s one of my favorite quotes of Chee from his essay, Tarot Cards:
“…you only think you want to know the future, until you do. It would be like waiting for a bullet to pace its way to your side across the years, watching as it approached, knowing when it would hit, and not being able to move away. Perhaps the only way to escapee your fate is to not know it.”
The Honorable Mentions:
A Psalm For The Wild Built was a little out of my comfort zone as I don’t normally read science fiction—but the best way I could describe this story is that it is like a cyber-punk Studio Ghibli film set in a post-capitalistic, nature-driven society. Very short read but also very comforting.
Fresh Water for Flowers is a lovely story following a woman, Violet Toussaint, who is a caretaker of a cemetery in a small town in France—where a visit from a stranger brings back stories of her life, buried under layers of a complex past. There were beautiful reflections about forgiveness, second chances, and death—if anyone wants to have a go at that. Just be warned that it is almost 500 pages.
I finally read The Joy Luck Club. The movie in itself has been one of my favorites and probably the one that has made me sob the most. So there truly is nothing like reading about the complexities of mother-daughter relationships.
Summer Watches
Lost & Found (1996)
I’m going to be honest. I only decided to watch this film because I have always had a crush on Takeshi Kaneshiro since seeing him in Chungking Express (1994). I wasn’t expecting this to leave a mark on my heart.
We follow Chai Lam, a rich woman who has been recently diagnosed with leukemia and is in search of the “end of the world,” a place a sailor once told her about. But to get there, she must find that sailor—only with the help of a stranger named Mr. Worm, who runs a ‘lost and found’ business.
This one Letterboxd review sums up the meaning of this movie for me:
“To find your hope not merely at the edge of the world, but in the one who tirelessly searched for it on your behalf—now that is poetic.”
The Bear (2022)
After my trip two weeks ago to Chicago, I decided to start watching The Bear and have finished all three seasons. It is a really simple storyline: a young fine-dining chef returns to his family sandwich after the loss of his brother. But the pacing, film style, and character study of this series are what make it so intriguing and impossibly hard to look away.
You can feel and see the anxiety-inducing environment of a kitchen but also the emotional turmoil that comes with loss and grief. The soundtrack is great too.
Mamma Mia
My mom has always been a hardcore ABBA fan. She would listen to their albums as she rode her bike through the muggy and green countryside of Vietnam with her friends when she was younger. And that would lead to her singing it in the car with me after picking me up from school. So as a result, I knew the entire soundtrack of Mamma Mia without ever having watched it. It wasn’t until my last night in Italy that I decided to watch it with my friends.
My verdict: I am convinced everyone was drunk while filming this.
Didi (2024)
There aren’t many coming-of-age films that have an Asian protagonist—especially one that depicts an Asian American upbringing. So already I knew this film would be breaking ground—but also breaking my heart.
Everything truly felt raw and authentic to what it was like being a kid in the late 2000s—from the awkwardness of crushes to navigating where you belong with your friends. You can also really see how our main character, Chris or Wang Wang, is dealing with the complexities of his identity as an Asian-American—whether it was microaggressive comments that you never really realize hurt or the desire to be more ‘American.’ Which to me is accurate to my upbringing. A part of me has always been divided and sometimes it’s in the background—other times it’s loud and clear in front of you.
Don’t even get me started on the depiction of his relationship with his mother and just how moving Joan Chen’s performance was. It tore me apart but also put me all back together so lovingly.
Hope you enjoyed this one and maybe feel inspired to read or watch any of these.
Thanks for reading :)
With love,
Leah K. Tran
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