Too much to read, send help (jk send books).

I've spent the past few days obsessed with Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan's Sarong Party Girls. It's a far cry from my usual genre— written in Singlish, the English-based Singaporean slang that includes influences from Malay to Cantonese, and from the point of view of a young woman hard bent to get a husband. It's light and fun, but then also becomes darkly honest, satirical, and deeply emotionally resonant as Tan tackles sexual harassment, sexism, and the cultural complication of the valuing of white men as "a way out," with dire consequences. That's a topic I attempted to write on while I lived in Bali and saw it firsthand— I believe in writing in others' shoes through fiction, but I also believe in recognizing when you've failed at it, and I did. I was thrilled to find this subject tackled in Sarong Party Girls. I highly recommend it. What's a book outside your usual taste that became a surprise favorite for you?