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chichai

🌿 artist creating to decolonize 🌿prioritizing bipoc stories in magical realms and this one 🌿 she/her/siya 🌿 ig: chichai.intheair

2612 points

0% overlap
Mythological World Tour
Justice for All
Asian-inspired Fantasy
My Taste
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
The Killing Spell
The Spear Cuts Through Water
Martyr!
Reading...
Don't Let the Forest In
24%

Post from the Don't Let the Forest In forum

11h
  • Don't Let the Forest In
    chichai
    Edited
    Thoughts from 27% (page 120) ch.10

    I know this artwork is pretty demented but it's so sick. I'm glad this illustration is included, as nightmarish as it is!

    23
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  • chichai commented on a post

    13h
  • Don't Let the Forest In
    Thoughts from 20% (page 67)
    spoilers

    View spoiler

    9
    comments 1
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  • chichai made progress on...

    13h
    Don't Let the Forest In

    Don't Let the Forest In

    C.G. Drews

    24%
    3
    0
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    chichai commented on a post

    19h
  • Don't Let the Forest In
    chichai
    Edited
    Thoughts from 9% - ch 3

    Okay. So we have an ethnicity for Lana Lang (author writes out Chinese American) but not for the three main friends. Am I supposed to assume they are all white? Do all white authors assume our imaginations for characters are white by default?

    I know this book has great reviews but this is my biggest pet peeve when reading. Either plainly write out the ethnicities of your characters (especially the main ones?) or don't at all if it doesn't add to the story.

    What a reminder why I mainly read from BIPOC authors omg

    31
    comments 6
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  • Post from the Don't Let the Forest In forum

    20h
  • Don't Let the Forest In
    chichai
    Edited
    Thoughts from 9% - ch 3

    Okay. So we have an ethnicity for Lana Lang (author writes out Chinese American) but not for the three main friends. Am I supposed to assume they are all white? Do all white authors assume our imaginations for characters are white by default?

    I know this book has great reviews but this is my biggest pet peeve when reading. Either plainly write out the ethnicities of your characters (especially the main ones?) or don't at all if it doesn't add to the story.

    What a reminder why I mainly read from BIPOC authors omg

    31
    comments 6
    Reply
  • chichai wrote a review...

    23h
  • Hemlock & Silver
    chichai
    Aug 19, 2026
    Hemlock & Silver
    4.0
    Enjoyment: 4.5Quality: 4.0Characters: 4.0Plot: 4.0
    🪞
    🍎
    🐍

    I had a lot of fun reading Hemlock and Silver. Healer Anja is entertainingly funny, honest, and clever. It's refreshing to read about an MC who may be socially insecure but can compose herself in confidence in regards to her skills and knowledge.

    She also has the BEST tangents.

    This felt like an easy read-- one I could revisit. There was enough mystery and action to stay engaged in a fairly calm book. I know Hemlock & Silver deals with poison, violence and some disheveled imagery (aka mirror-gelds)-- some heavy stuff! However, I would still shelve it with other cozy reads.

    Shoutout to Anja's guards' sweetness, the surprise feline friend's snarkiness (is he a cat?!) and Snow's tween attitude.

    2
    comments 0
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  • chichai started reading...

    23h
    Don't Let the Forest In

    Don't Let the Forest In

    C.G. Drews

    2
    0
    Reply

    chichai commented on chichai's review of San Francisco's International Hotel: Mobilizing the Filipino American Community in the Anti-Eviction Movement (Asian American History & Cultu)

    1d
  • San Francisco's International Hotel: Mobilizing the Filipino American Community in the Anti-Eviction Movement (Asian American History & Cultu)
    chichai
    Aug 17, 2026
    San Francisco's International Hotel: Mobilizing the Filipino American Community in the Anti-Eviction Movement (Asian American History & Cultu)
    5.0
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:
    🏢
    🇵🇭

    This is an essential read for understanding the intersection of multiple social justice facets-- the housing crisis, poverty, the immigrant struggle, the crossfire of political and capital gains, and more.

    For those familiar with FIlipino-American history and ethnic studies (especially of ethnic studies history in California) the story of San Francisco's International Hotel is a known one. The I-Hotel served as low-income housing to hundreds of immigrants -- majority from the Philippines-- as well as the center of community for its tenants. The hotel was a home.

    The I-Hotel plays a pivotal point in history, representing the cross-generational solidarity that fought to protect the I-Hotel and the elders who lived in it. While I was familiar with all of the above upon reading the book... the storytelling, research, personal recounts, and interviews Dr. Habal provides adds so much more depth and humanity to this history.

    This deeper dive into I-Hotel left me:

    • enraged at the politicians and capitalists that treated my community's elders as pawns
    • inspired by the organizers' passion to protect the elders; despite internal conflicts of leadership disagreements, they all gave the fight their all
    • hopeful in that the I-Hotel stands again today as anew: the I-Hotel Manilatown Center
    10
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  • chichai commented on a post

    1d
  • Hemlock & Silver
    Thoughts from 100% (page 355)
    spoilers

    View spoiler

    16
    comments 1
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  • chichai commented on a post

    1d
  • Book Request 🍊

    Hi! Wanted to request "That Which Feeds Us" by Keala Kendall. It came out this year! And definitely has plants as a root to the scary (pun intended)

    From the author's website:

    "To uncover what happened to Ohia, Lehua will have to unearth the island’s bloody history and face the horrors that lurk within its sugarcane fields—or risk being consumed by them.

    Sharply observed and gorgeously written, That Which Feeds Us explores the true cost of paradise as Lehua must fight to reclaim the land, the stories, and the very souls of her people."

    I love the use of horror to touch upon the horrors of colonization but also the overcoming of it. It's been compared to Mexican Gothic and She is a Haunting.

    23
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  • chichai commented on a post

    1d
  • Hemlock & Silver
    Thoughts from 72%
    spoilers

    View spoiler

    3
    comments 2
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  • chichai TBR'd a book

    1d
    Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land

    Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land

    Toni Jensen

    2
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    chichai TBR'd a book

    1d
    The Lion Women of Tehran

    The Lion Women of Tehran

    Marjan Kamali

    1
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    chichai commented on a post

    2d
  • An Academy for Liars
    Thoughts from 7% (page 41)

    The writing feels very YA so far, while the content is more adult, which is disorienting. I'm hoping the plot is engaging enough that I'll stop noticing that soon... or maybe I should just try to imagine her as a teenage "chosen one" rather than an adult??

    6
    comments 3
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