February is the month of love, and love exists in many forms.
Love within AANHPI storytelling is expansive. It shows up as romance, yes, but also as healing, chosen family, cultural memory, self-reclamation, and community care. These stories challenge the idea that love only looks one way, centering intimacy shaped by migration, queerness, gender, disability, friendship, and belonging.
This Cold Tea Collective Reads highlights books by AANHPI authors that explore love in its many forms, from self-acceptance to romantic desires to the bonds that sustain us.
See also: Cold Tea Reads: Reflecting on Ali Wong’s Dear Girls
Self-Love and healing
Stories about reclaiming identity, unlearning harm, and choosing yourself.
Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty by Kaila Yu
Blending memoir and cultural criticism, Taiwanese American journalist Kaila Yu examines how fetishization, beauty standards, and media representation shape Asian American women’s identity, relationships, and self-worth as she retraces her journey navigating the media landscape and the import modelling days of the 90s and early 2000s.
The Journey to Yourself: A Practical Path to Overcoming Illusion and Living Authentically by Cuong Nguyen
Drawing from Vietnamese cultural values, mindfulness, and Eastern philosophy, this reflective guide encourages slowing down, releasing external pressure, and reconnecting with inner authenticity.
I Decided to Live as Me: How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others So You Can Learn to Love Yourself by Kim Suhyun
Written within a South Korean cultural context shaped by comparison and performance, I Decided to Live as Me offers short reflections on redefining success, rest, and self-acceptance.
Local: A Memoir by Jessica Machado
Of Hawaiian-Portuguese and white heritage, Machado reflects on growing up in Hawaiʻi with a non-Hawaiian mother while navigating her connection to Native Hawaiian roots, exploring place, ancestry, and belonging within Hawaiʻi’s diverse cultural landscape.
Ocean Mother by Arielle Taitano Lowe
Written by a Chamoru poet, Ocean Mother centers Indigenous Pacific Islander identity, matriarchal lineage, and the ocean as ancestor, exploring intergenerational healing and love as stewardship.
See also: 7 books about identity, race by Asian authors for children
Romantic
Stories of desire, intimacy, vulnerability, and reconnection.
The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
This romance centers on Stella Lane, an autistic Vietnamese American econometrician, and Michael Phan, a Vietnamese Swedish man supporting his family, as they reimagine intimacy through disability, consent, and cultural responsibility.
The Girl Most Likely To by Julie Tieu
Once voted “Most Likely to Succeed,” Rachel Dang finds herself funemployed and reconnecting with former frenemy Danny Phan at their high school reunion, forcing her to reconsider ambition, nostalgia, and second chances.
Bad Queer by Gayathiri Kamalakanthan
Bad Queer is a memoir shaped by Tamil Sri Lankan diasporic experience, exploring queer love and intimacy through race, caste, migration, and the silences surrounding desire and belonging in South Asian culture.
Just Between Us by Adeline Kon
Adeline Kon’s debut graphic novel follows elite figure skater Lydia Chen as she navigates rivalry and connection with fellow skater Elaine Yee as competition for the Olympics forces her to rediscover passion and intimacy.
Redemption by Kenya Wright
Redemption is a romantic suspense novel following Black and Asian interracial protagonists whose lives intersect through danger and survival, exploring trust and vulnerability under high-stakes pressure.
Love by Numbers by Lani Young
Inspired by Polynesian mythology and Samoan culture, this contemporary romance follows Tamarina as she navigates logic, compatibility, and emotional risk in a world shaped by achievement and expectation.
See also: 5 Asian romance books for Valentine’s Day
Friendship and community
Stories of chosen family, collective care, and shared becoming.
The Queens of New York: Three Asian American Best Friends Navigate One Life-Changing Summer Apart by E. L. Shen
The Queens of New York is a young adult novel about three Asian American best friends, Jia Lee, Ariel Kim, and Everett Hoang, learning to navigate distance, identity, and change during a pivotal summer shaped by family expectations and growing independence.
Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum
Set in a Seoul neighborhood, this novel follows Yeongju, a woman who opens a small bookshop after leaving her former life behind, finding rest and connection through quiet community encounters.
Brotherhood Is a Constant Possibility: Asian Masculinity in a World Made for Whiteness by Ryan Cho
This book is a collection of essays that examine Asian American masculinity through friendship, vulnerability, cultural inheritance, patriarchy, and the reimagining of brotherhood beyond whiteness.
Shapes of Love by L. V. Pealba
Shapes of Love is an aromantic, aroace contemporary young adult novel following Sasha, an aroace-spec musician navigating fame, friendship, and identity as she challenges a world that equates happiness with romantic love.
Love in AANHPI communities is often shaped by silence, survival, and adaptation, but these stories remind us that love is also resistance, healing, and reclamation. Whether through self-acceptance, romance, or chosen family, these books offer mirrors and possibilities for how we care for ourselves and one another.
See also: Cold Tea Reads: 10 Queer Pan-Asian books to read this Pride Month`
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