Marina Budhos

Marina Budhos is the author of award-winning fiction and nonfiction. Her novels for young adults are Tell Us We’re Home and Ask Me No Questions. Her nonfiction books include Remix: Conversations with Immigrant Teenagers and Sugar Changed the World, which she cowrote with her husband, Marc Aronson.

Budhos's latest novel is Watched.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

This summer I finally read Jacqueline Woodson’s memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming. What a gorgeous, spare, and apt book. I am not one of those who has taken to the novel in verse form which is especially popular in middle grade and YA. I’m something of a conventional, sink into a fictional narrative reader. But I felt myself on a silky ride and was impressed by Woodson’s conjuring magic of childhood, the South, her family, and her journey north to Brooklyn.

I also read Shining Sea, by Anne Korkeakivi, since I will be hosting her at my local bookstore, Words, in October. Anne is such a graceful writer and I was deeply impressed with how she managed to write an utterly different book from her debut novel, An Unexpected Guest. She also showed herself, in this novel, to be a very funny dialogue writer, particularly in scenes where there’s a cacophony of family voices butting in, interrupting each other.

Finally I just began The Vegetarian, by Han Kang—so far a pitch-perfect example of not just the unreliable narrator, but the ferociously unlikeable narrator of a husband. Reading the narrator is almost like exacting revenge on him, because you know, despite himself, he is revealing his wife who you are quietly cheering. I have no idea where it’s going, but it’s so far excellent.

Visit Marina Budhos's website.

My Book, The Movie: Watched.

The Page 69 Test: Watched.

--Marshal Zeringue