Title: Sour Heart
Author: Jenny Zheng
Published: August 2017, Lenny Books
Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
A debut story
collection that plunges readers into the hearts of adolescent girls
growing up in New York City, from poet and National Magazine Award
nominee Jenny Zhang.Centered on a community of immigrants
who have traded their endangered lives as artists in China and Taiwan
for the constant struggle of life at the poverty line in 1990s New York
City, Zhang’s exhilarating collection examines the many ways that family
and history can weigh us down and also lift us up. From the young woman
coming to terms with her grandmother’s role in the Cultural Revolution
to the daughter struggling to understand where her family ends and she
begins, to the girl discovering the power of her body to inspire and
destroy, these seven vibrant stories illuminate the complex and messy
inner lives of girls struggling to define themselves. Fueled by Zhang’s
singular voice and sly humor, this collection introduces Zhang as a
bright and devastating force in literary fiction.
What readers are saying:
“As I read, I quickly realized that this was something so new and
powerful that it would come to shape the world—not just the literary
world, but what we know about reality. Zhang’s version of honesty goes
way past the familiar, with passages that burst into bold, startling,
brilliance. Get ready.”—Miranda July
“Sour Heart blasts
open the so-called immigrant narrative by showing us the
claustrophobic, demented love of families and by giving us the deepest
x-ray of American childhood I can recall. It’s dirty, hilarious, and
utterly original.”—Karan Mahajan, author of The Association of Small Bombs
“No
terrain is more fraught than the inner world of a girl fighting to
define herself, and no writer is better suited to serve as our guide
than Jenny Zhang. She is the coolest—wielding a discerning eye and a wicked wit that will cut you and make you cherish the wound she leaves behind. Sour Heartcaptures
the magnificent mess that is the internal lives of young women seeking
place—in their families, their communities, their bodies, and, most
important, themselves.”—Janet Mock, author of Redefining Realness
“Jenny Zhang has an uncanny ability to articulate the most confusing,
conflicting, elusive thoughts and feelings—the kinds that occur in under
a millisecond but secretly rule our lives. It’s dazzling to witness
until one observation or line of dialogue sends you over the edge into
the depths of another person’s truth. I emerged from Sour Heart bleary-eyed and in love.”—Tavi Gevinson
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Sour Heart by Jenny Zheng is one of BookSparks “Summer Reads” reading selection picks.
Follow the #SRC2017 hashtag on twitter to read reviews on this book as well
as reviews on the other summer books! Also, be sure to check out the BookSparks Facebook page for the#SRC2017
and other fun links. You can participate in weekly secret missions for
chances to win signed copies of selected books and more! There’s a new
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