YA Review: Come On In: 15 Stories about Immigration and Finding Home edited by Adi Alsaid

Title: Come On In: 15 Stories about Immigration and Finding Home

Author: Edited by Adi Alsaid

Year Published: 2020

Category: YA fiction (short stories)

Pages: 320

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Location (my 2020 Google Reading map): Fiji, Argentina, Australia, Fiji, Japan, USA (CA, UT, NY)

FTC Disclosure: I bought this book with my own money

Summary (from the inside flap of the book): WELCOME

From some of the most exciting bestselling and up-and-coming YA authors writing today…journey from Ecuador to New York City and Argentina to Utah…from Australia to Harlem and India to New Jersey…from Fiji, America, Mexico and more… Come On In.

With characters who face random traffic stops, TSA detention, customs anxiety, and the daunting and inspiring journey to new lands…who camp with their extended families, dance at weddings, keep diaries, teach ESL…who give up their rooms for displaced family, decide their own answer to the question “where are you from?” and so much more… Come On In illuminates fifteen of the myriad facets of the immigrant experience, from authors who have been shaped by the journeys they and their families have taken from home—and to find home.

 

Review: When I saw the description of this book I knew I wanted to read it sooner rather than later, which is strange since I hardly ever read short stories. But these are YA and about identity and immigration. What a great combination!

There are 15 stories and, while I liked some of them more than others, they are all good, interesting, emotional, and real and very different from one another. The reader hears what it feels like to be asked, "no, where are you really from?" and the struggle families have to come to the US, why people come to the US, how they are treated upon arrival and more. I also like the theme of home. What is home and where is it?There is something for everyone in these stories.

Here are the authors whose stories are included. The best part is that I've discovered new-to-me authors!

• Nafiza Azad
• Sara Farizan
• Misa Sugiura
• Lilliam Rivera
• Alaya Dawn Johnson
• Sona Charaipotra
• Maria E. Andreu
• Maurene Goo
• Varsha Bajaj
• Yamile Saied Méndez (my review of her novel Furia)
• Justine Larbalestier (my reviews of My Sister Rosa and Liar)
• Isabel Quintero
• Sharon Morse
• Zoraida Córdova
• Adi Alsaid

Challenges for which this counts: 

This counts for the Popsugar challenge because it is an anthology