Ho, Joanna. Silence that Binds Us, The. Fiction. Harper Teen, 06/14/2022. 448 [+4]pp. $17.99. 978-0-06-305934-4. OUTSTANDING. GRADES 9-12.
Maybelline Chen’s brother Danny is handsome, popular, accepted at Princeton and, horribly, unaccountably, dead by suicide, one out of a number of his peers to have jumped in front of a local train. Mourning Danny, fearing for her parents in their deep grief, May can barely begin to imagine starting life again when a schoolmate’s parent publicly blames her family’s Asian culture for her brother’s death. May fights back with poetry on social media, supported by her peers and her best friend, a daughter of Haitian immigrants. The ensuing story explores anti-Asian hate, tension between Black and Asian communities, personal grief, and the politics of blame in a Silicon Valley town. May’s growth as a character, her desire to regain her brother’s memory as a positive part of her family, and her efforts to make her community a more inclusive place are believable and affecting.
Lesley Mandros Bell, Oakland Library Advocates