Here are some of my favorite works of fiction along with brief reviews to tell you what I think is so great about each one. You can read more fiction reviews and see the rest of the books I've read on my goodreads.com page.

THE KITE RUNNER by Khaled Hosseini

This is, in my opinion, the TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD of the new century. It's similarly accessible and has the same kind of moral weight and deep characterization as Harper Lee's classic. An absolutely phenomenal book.

GODS IN ALABAMA by Joshilyn Jackson  

This book is packed with great characters who are vividly drawn without becoming stereotypes, which is especially impressive given that about 3/4 of the book is set in the South, which is so frequently the victim of stereotype.

There's a murder mystery, love in many forms, and a convincing and unique narrative voice that rings true with the exception of a few overdramatic moments. I was also impressed that a book largely occupied (at least on a surface level) with murder and sex had a remarka...moreThere's a murder mystery, love in many forms, and a convincing and unique narrative voice that rings true with the exception of a few overdramatic moments. The protagonist, Arlene, was raised Baptist, but her faith is more than just childhood baggage, it's something that lives in her and affects what she does. Yet GODS IN ALABAMA is by no means "inspirational," nor does it resort to tired tropes.

The characters are real and have heart, the plot is convincing, and the dialogue and narration are well-written (or at least it sounds good in audio). That's enough to make me like most any book, and the fact that there's a moral undercurrent that doesn't hit me over the head, but that I can really relate to... well, that makes it even better.

THE HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER by Luis Alberto Urrea

Luis Alberto Urrea has achieved something important here, capturing the texture of rural Mexican life during El Porfiriato without overlooking its humor and its brutality. Vibrant, funny, intoxicating.

THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB by Karen Joy Fowler

I loved the varied characters in this book. Some reviewers have objected to the fact that much of the book is told as "backstory," but I would describe Fowler's technique differently. She's using the book club in two ways: (1) as a space in which real, present moment interactions take place and propel the plot forward, and (2) as a backdrop for the characters' memories so that we see each as the hero of his/her own story as it plays out. For example, I would never have found myself wanting the best for priggish Prudie if I didn't know of the horrible mind games her mother subjected her to as a child. I listened to this as an audiobook.

The movie based on this book is quite different, but fun and charming in its own right.

PARIS TROUT by Pete Dexter

Gritty portrayal of a small-town loan shark who ends up killing a young black girl when he goes to collect on a debt. Shocking in the degree to which the man goes unpunished, the whole town is, in a sense, punished by him as his crime drives him crazy.

A CONCISE CHINESE-ENGLISH DICTIONARY FOR LOVERS by Xiaolu Guo

The narrator--a young Chinese woman in England for a year to learn English--charms immediately with her thoughtful (and often perplexed) observations of British life. Her voice is authentic--no staged "immigrant" grammar here. There's also a moving love story and a profound sense of homesickness. It's not so much that the protagonist is homesick for China... it's that she's homesick for a clear, simple sense of herself that she may never recover.

THE NAMESAKE by Jhumpa Lahiri

BEGINNER'S GREEK by James Collins

James Collins is destined to be the modern-day Jane Austen. The characters (who matter) are privileged, marriage is a central concern, and we're wondering from page one to the end if the two who are so right for each other will overcome all the confusion and earn their shared happiness.

THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER by Tom Perrotta

I gobbled this book up, and Perrotta nailed his portrayal of the evangelical community and the secret struggles of its members. (I grew up in a fundamentalist church.) One character slips into the barrel of "fears to give over to the Lord" a card that reads: "My greatest fear is... that I'm not part of this any more." This book left me with a strong sense--not that religion had been repudiated as a source of direction--but that true human connection had been reaffirmed as an equally important aspect of life.

AFTER DARK by Haruki Murakami

I've never read a novel by Murakami that didn't simply thrill me. This book is no different, although the story didn't stay tangled in my thoughts as long as those of HARD-BOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD, WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE, and NORWEGIAN WOOD. Might be a good entry point for those intimidated by the length of some of his other books.

AND THE SHADOWS TOOK HIM by Daniel Chacón

I ended up staying up until 3:30 the night before a busy day because I just couldn't stand not to finish this book. It follows a Mexican-American family as they make the move from a working-class neighborhood in Fresno to a middle-class neighborhood in small-town Oregon. But it's really about an impressionable boy, Billy, and how the tendencies of his childhood self--and the influence of his brilliant but deeply disturbed father--shape him into a youth who wants to do right but finds himself adrift on the winds of his own lack of resolve.

There are melodramatic moments throughout the book, but the ending takes things to a level of crisis and failure so extreme that I fell right out of the dream that the rest of the book had spun for me. Just too over-the-top.

But this is still an important book, one that I think would be worth reading for anyone interested in Latino literature or looking for a spin on the typical "ethnic" coming-of-age story. The title is, I believe, inspired by Tomás Rivera's Y NO SE TRAGO LA TIERRA, which in English translates to AND THE EARTH DID NOT DEVOUR HIM.