5 Books Local Authors Couldn’t Get Enough of in 2023

We love hearing what our local authors are reading. Following up on our roundup of books that left a big impression on da Shop staff in 2023, we had a blast chatting with some of our favorite Hawai‘i writers to learn about the books that dazzled, delighted and left a profound impression on their reading lives. From exceptional Indigenous story collections to emotionally resonant memoirs, these picks are diverse in genre, voice, and interests, yet are united by their ability to captivate these writers with their unforgettable stories.

Here are the 2023 story collections, poetry collections and memoirs that left the biggest impressions on Kristiana Kahakauwila, Mindy Pennybacker, Brandy Nālani McDougall, Lee Tonouchi, Scott Kikkawa and Chris McKinney.

Photo: Courtesy of Da Shop: Books + Curiosities

The Missing Morningstar and Other Stories

by Stacie Denetsosie

Chosen by Kristiana Kahakauwila, author of This Is Paradise

Things I love in fiction: short stories, a deep sense of place, occasional formal surprises and the feeling that the author is taking me where I’ve never gone before. Stacie Denetsosie’s The Missing Morningstar and Other Stories does all of the above. Denetsosie, a citizen of Navajo Nation, writes the Four Corners region (Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado) with intimacy, and the lives of her contemporary Diné characters are rendered with a perfect mix of humor and heartbreak. Her story “The Sheep Is a Body of Knowledge” is a standout for me, but all these stories will linger with you as they reveal resilience and love in the face of complex, painful histories.

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Local

by Jessica Machado

Chosen by Mindy Pennybacker, author of Surfing Sisterhood Hawai‘i

Jessica Machado’s stellar literary debut, a frank, fast-paced, funny memoir called Local, distills the pleasures and pain of growing up in Hawai‘i as a child of blended race, culture and class. A tough urban kid, she feels more at home in the mall and game arcades than the natural world and estranged from both her Hawaiian roots and the rich students at her private school. As the marriage of her mom, a haole public school teacher with cancer, and her dad, a Hawaiian-Asian landscaper and serial womanizer from Kalihi, breaks up, Jessica spirals into drug and alcohol abuse.

Like many islanders, she gains a deeper connection to Hawaiian history, her parents and herself after moving to Los Angeles and New York. Informed by a strong sense of place and snappy dialogue, Machado’s unforgettable story will be viscerally familiar to other locals and completely captivating to all readers, who won’t be able to put this fast-paced book down.

SEE ALSO: Mindy Eun Soo Pennybacker’s Surfing Sisterhood Hawai‘i Is a Literary Tidal Wave

Photo: Courtesy of Da Shop: Books + Curiosities

Ulu

by Kai Gaspar

Chosen by Brandy Nālani McDougall, author of ‘Āina Hānau / Birth Land

Kai Gaspar’s Ulu, released in October 2023 from Ho‘olana Publishing, is the book that has had the largest impact on me this year. As a collection, the poems share the story of an ‘Ōiwi boy coming of age as a māhū in Hōnaunau, Kona, a wahi pana shrouded in darkness and silence, offering refuge for some and danger for others. Most folks from Hawai‘i may be familiar with Hōnaunau for its pu‘uhonua or “City of Refuge,” a complex of the royal palace grounds of the Keawe ali‘i line, heiau, trails and roads, burial caves, the Keōua and Ka‘ahumanu stones, and a wai puna.

Gaspar’s Hōnaunau, however, moves through and beyond the pu‘uhonua to share the stories of human and more-than-human villagers who struggle to survive sexual and gender violence, police raids, homophobia, drug abuse and poverty, while also protecting and healing themselves and the ones they love using ancestral ‘Ōiwi wisdom. I keep returning to Gaspar’s rich and haunting storytelling, the way he weaves darkness, the grotesque, the predatory, along with the luminous, the erotic and the innocent using jarring and unexpected images and lines as mesmerizing and intentional as sorcery.

To proliferate, to grow (as a plant) and to possess (as a spirit or god) are among the multiple meanings of ulu. What Gaspar offers here is a profound story of the deep and possessive mana of Hōnaunau, of a young māhū growing and earning the knowledge of healing and ‘āina, and how we can all become pu‘uhonua—beautiful, compassionate and strong, not only in spite of whatever we survive, but also because of it.

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The Night Parade

by Jami Nakamura Lin

Chosen by Lee A. Tonouchi, editor of Chiburu: Anthology of Hawai‘i Okinawan Literature

Jami Nakamura Lin’s The Night Parade stay like one miracle stew, brah. Da meat of da story stay about her living with bipolar disorder. Her suffering from grief aftah da death of her faddah, das da potatoes. Mix in with all dat stay da vegetables, da stories about yōkai, folkloric creatures from her Japanese, Taiwanese and Okinawan heritage. And these in-gre-da-ments, dey all go perfectly togeddahs, cuz da structure, da stew broth, da ting no stay centered around one conflict, instead da narrative flow follows one four-part traditional Japanese narrative structure called kishōtenketsu. Dis one hearty literary recipe das delicious fo read and full of heart. Garanz ballbaranz you going jus devour her story! Nomonomoono.

SEE ALSO: 6 Reasons Why I Loved Chiburu, Lee A. Tonouchi’s New Book About the Hawai‘i-Okinawan Experience

Photo: Courtesy of Da Shop: Books + Curiosities

Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare

by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto

Chosen by Scott Kikkawa, author of Char Siu

This collection of short stories was a revelation. It taught me that beautiful language lurks in places as macabre as the subconscious realm of the Night Marchers and as mundane as the waiting room of a pornography production company. This book inspired me to examine my own choice of words and to endeavor to drop something exquisite in a squalid alley of a chapter.

Chosen by Chris McKinney, author of Sunset, Water City

When it comes to fiction, it’s often said that a story is only good if specific moments are unforgettable. In her debut, Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare, Megan Kamalei Kakimoto is an unforgettable moment factory, assembling indelible scenes with line craft that is precise and candid, but also brimming with emotion. These short stories, most of which are set in Hawai‘i, could very well be taught and treasured for years to come.

SEE ALSO: Megan Kamalei Kakimoto’s Debut Book Has the Literary World Buzzing

Da Shop: Books + Curiosities, 3565 Harding Ave., open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (808) 421-9460, dashophnl.com, @dashophnl