Next time will be our turn

Izzy is dreading another lavish Chinese New Year dinner with the whole Chen clan. At 73, Nainai (grandmother) is still "a sight to behold," even more so as she's kissing her date, "a striking Caucasian woman." "What the fuck" seems the most common response. Long before she was Nainai, Magnolia was Izzy's age--16--in 1998, when she left Jakarta for Los Angeles to join older sister Iris for junior college. "It is a tragedy," she tells Izzy, to meet the love of your life so young, but Magnolia met Ellery--22, "and a she"--too soon. Nainai reveals their impossible love story, including the paths she chose to become "the baddest" because only Nainai sees Izzy; "I know who you are . . . I hate that . . . this place . . . doesn't allow you to be fully yourself." The chronology seems utterly disheartening. If Magnolia was 16 in 1998, and she's 73 now, then this is New Year 2055(ish). Is LGBTQIA identity still so threatened decades ahead? Prolific Sutanto presents more page-turning fiction with empathy, humor, and just enough bite.

A grandmother reveals the secret of her long-ago forbidden love. In a near-future Jakarta, Indonesia, secretly gay teenager Izzy Chen doesn't fit into her society-conscious family. Her grandmother Magnolia, the family's matriarch, knows the story of her own hidden life will help Izzy blossom, so she unfurls her saga. In mid-1990s Jakarta, Magnolia is the obedient daughter, a stark contrast to her rebellious older sister, Iris. The two are sent to Los Angeles for college, where they grapple with the residue of their rigid upbringing: What does it mean to be a good Chindo--ethnically Chinese from Indonesia--girl? On her first day of class, Magnolia meets a girl named Ellery O'Shea, and everything she thought she wanted--a respectable boy and her parents' approval--disappears in the face of real love. Ellery is openly queer, but Magnolia always thought of herself as straight. The two are in love but keep their feelings hidden, and then Ellery goes to London. Returning to Jakarta, Magnolia falls in line: marries a man named Parker, sets up house, and secretly writes Ellery heart-wrenching letters she never sends. The novel offers a biting examination of a traditional patriarchy in the Chindo community, its status-driven social scene and a culture less tolerant of queer lives. As such, Magnolia finds it easier to conform than to question. Meanwhile, Iris becomes a tech trailblazer in Jakarta, but when she becomes pregnant by an abuser, she returns to LA followed by Magnolia and Parker. And who should be there waiting to stir everything up but Ellery? Sex, tragedy, and vindication follow. This is at times a frothy rom-com, at others an absorbing portrait of South Asian women hemmed in by impossible expectations. A queer Chinese Indonesian tear-jerker: a winning combination. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.