NEXT TIME WILL BE OUR TURN

A grandmother reveals the secret of her long-ago forbidden love.

In a near-future Jakarta, Indonesia, secretly gay teenager Izzy Chen doesn’t fit into her society-conscious family. Her grandmother Magnolia, the family’s matriarch, knows the story of her own hidden life will help Izzy blossom, so she unfurls her saga. In mid-1990s Jakarta, Magnolia is the obedient daughter, a stark contrast to her rebellious older sister, Iris. The two are sent to Los Angeles for college, where they grapple with the residue of their rigid upbringing: What does it mean to be a good Chindo—ethnically Chinese from Indonesia—girl? On her first day of class, Magnolia meets a girl named Ellery O’Shea, and everything she thought she wanted—a respectable boy and her parents’ approval—disappears in the face of real love. Ellery is openly queer, but Magnolia always thought of herself as straight. The two are in love but keep their feelings hidden, and then Ellery goes to London. Returning to Jakarta, Magnolia falls in line: marries a man named Parker, sets up house, and secretly writes Ellery heart-wrenching letters she never sends. The novel offers a biting examination of a traditional patriarchy in the Chindo community, its status-driven social scene and a culture less tolerant of queer lives. As such, Magnolia finds it easier to conform than to question. Meanwhile, Iris becomes a tech trailblazer in Jakarta, but when she becomes pregnant by an abuser, she returns to LA followed by Magnolia and Parker. And who should be there waiting to stir everything up but Ellery? Sex, tragedy, and vindication follow. This is at times a frothy rom-com, at others an absorbing portrait of South Asian women hemmed in by impossible expectations.

A queer Chinese Indonesian tear-jerker: a winning combination.