Steph Cha

A powerful and taut novel about racial tensions in LA, following two families—one Korean-American, one African-American—grappling with the effects of a decades-old crime In the wake of the police shooting of a black teenager, Los Angeles is as tense as it’s been since the unrest of the early 1990s. Protests and vigils are being staged all over the city. It’s in this dangerous tinderbox that two families must finally confront their pasts. Grace Park lives a sheltered existence: living at home with her Korean-immigrant parents, working at the family pharmacy, and trying her best to understand why her sister Miriam hasn’t spoken to their mother in years. The chasm in her family is growing wider by the day and Grace is desperate for reconciliation, and frustrated by the feeling that her sister and parents are shielding her from the true cause of the falling out. Shawn Matthews is dealing with a fractured family of his own. His sister, Ava, was murdered as a teenager back in 1991, and this new shooting is bringing up painful memories. Plus, his cousin Ray is just released from prison and needs to reconnect with their family after so many years away. While Shawn is trying his best to keep his demons at bay, he’s not sure Ray can do the same. When another shocking crime hits LA, the Parks and the Matthewses collide in ways they never could have expected. After decades of loss, violence, and injustice, tensions come to a head and force a reckoning that could clear the air or lead to more violence.

A Novel

Your House Will Pay

Daymaris Arca

“This city of good feeling, of tolerance and progress and loving thy neighbor, was also a city that shunned and starved and killed its own. No wonder, was it, that it huffed and heaved, ready to blow. Because the city was human, and humans could only take so much.”
I wasn’t expecting to enjoy a book for school sm but wow was this book so so so so good and the topics it talked about were so relevant. It’s fiction but based on real events and real people and it felt so raw and real.

one of the best books i have read thus far. to be honest, i had expected a poor, stereotypical depiction of black people, especially bc of how more often than not, author’s try to explain another race’s identity when they themselves have never experienced it (cough hanya). this was a great read. 

Barbara Williford

“Their faces blended together in the quickening dark, but they were young and old, black and white and brown and yellow, a raw hunk of the city, brought together by this one annoying, frustrating woman. They were angry, and she made it easy for them—the racist daughter of a racist killer, a focal point for their fervor. 

He remembered those six days of violence, fire and havoc wherever he looked, stumbling bodies and stunned, bleeding faces. He watched his city go up in flames, and under the sadness and rage, the exhilaration of rampage, he recognized the sparkle of hope. Rebirth—that was the promise of destruction.

The olive branch, the rainbow, the good men spared to rebuild the earth. But where was the new city? And who were the good men?”

The book (fiction but based on real events) is about 2 families, of 2 ethnicities and how the struggles of racism, violence and injustice impacts both families living in South Central LA. The story begin at the time of Rodney King Riots in 1991 and moves to 2019 as the family matures and continues to suffer. Eye opening. The sad part, not much has changed during that time. Still sadness and rage and hope for the rebirth, the olive branch, the rainbow.

Two families. One desperate to remember, the other to forget. Will the truth burn them both? 'Masterful.' Ruth Ware 'A smart, sensitive page-turner.' Daily Mail WINNER OF THE LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE 2020 Grace Park and Shawn Mathews share a city, but seemingly little else. Coming from different generations and very different communities, their paths wouldn't normally cross at all. As Grace battles confusion over her elder sister's estrangement from their Korean-immigrant parents, Shawn tries to help his cousin Ray readjust to life on the outside after years spent in prison. But something in their past links these two families. As the city around them threatens to spark into violence, echoing events from their past, the lives of Grace and Shawn are set to collide in ways which will change them all forever. Beautifully written, and marked by its aching humanity as much as its growing sense of dread, Your House Will Pay is a powerful and moving family story, perfect for readers of Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere and Paul Beatty's The Sellout. What readers are saying: 'Simultaneously thrilling and thoughtful... a terrific, fast-moving story of two characters trying to live with the truth.' 'A must-read.' 'This novel is wonderful... it will stick with you.' 'Sensitive and astute, it's a book we need right now, and it's a book that lingers, offering plenty to think about.' 'A smart, powerful, fully-engaged book that never once blinks or backs down or takes an easy out, and then nails one of the best endings I've ever read.'

‘Elegant [and] suspenseful.’ New York Times

priya

“Nothing Jung-Ja Han could ever do would neutralize the shield of her fragile little Asian lady persona. She had the stamp of a victim, someone in need of heroism and protection. This was true when she murdered Ava and sobbed and blubbered as the police arrived. This was true when she sold her story of self-defense, testifying in tearful, shaky English, her dome of a stomach on full display. Unless she murdered a white girl, it would always be true.”

(view spoiler)[“There, on the asphalt, Shawn saw a washed-out blot showing dark red in the sun. Jung-Ja Han’s lifeblood, spilled and scrubbed, but not scrubbed away. Proof that some justice, however messy, had found her at last.” (hide spoiler)]

“He [Shawn] remembered the way he abhorred and adored her, the vicious way they fought, holding nothing back, trying every time to break each other’s hearts, then making up without effort, the wounds they gave each other easily forgotten.”

“That seemed like the only upside to getting shot—it was a way to fulfill the fantasy of viewing your own funeral. How devastating to return from the verge of death and be disappointed.”

(view spoiler)[“She [Yvonne] paid him [their lawyer] to stand in court, his black body forgiving her on behalf of his community” (hide spoiler)]

“Ava wasn’t there to receive their goodness, so they poured it, sloshing, wherever they could.”

“It was unanimous—a united front. Every back turned on Ava and her family. Shawn didn’t know one person who thought this was right or even conceivable. Maybe Shawn didn’t know one person who mattered.”

“The neighborhood looked like a war zone, a place like nowhere he’d [Shawn had] ever seen outside of photographs. But he lived in it now. Victim, civilian, soldier, insurgent.”

“He [Shawn] forgot sometimes that Aunt Sheila’s love was unconditional. She was so staunch, so morally unyielding, that he felt himself measured against some version of himself, an unassailable man who made all the right decisions, who’d made them all along.”

“Thank you.” Her [Jazz] voice was heavy with relief. “We don’t deserve you, Shawn.”
“Don’t say that. We’re family,” he said. “And we all deserve a whole lot better than this mess.”

“But prisons were full of smart black kids. Graveyards, too.”

“Grace had always believed, without really thinking, that the world was fair and reasonable. There were systems and structures to keep society alive and safely regulated, and it didn’t make sense for her to mistrust them when she understood them so little in the first place.”

“She [Auntie Sheila] had suffered enough to make anyone mean, but she took the bitter roots of her heartache and made a healing salve for people she would never know.”

“He [Shawn] watched his city go up in flames, and under the sadness and rage, the exhilaration of rampage, he recognised the sparkle of hope. Rebirth—that was the promise of destruction.”

Your House Will Pay A Novel

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