Hello everyone and welcome back to Next Page Please! where I try my bestest to post consistently. So, yes I know, last week fell a bit and I have a pretty good reason why. First of all, I really did not have much time to draft things up and I didn't have much planned for that week anyway so I didn't throw myself too off of what else I have scheduled for the rest of the month.

Today's person is pretty exciting for me because, well today is Chinese New Year! Yep, as my mom is pretty superstitious, I spent a good amount of yesterday of cleaning the house and watching the Superbowl. If you don't celebrate Chinese New Year, I hope you have a great Monday but to everyone that does celebrate, I hope you have an awesome Chinese New Year filled with red envelopes, time with family, and great food. Now, in celebration of Chinese New Year, I have compiled a list of 7 characters who represent us Asians in YA. I am pretty positive I've missed some characters so if I have, definitely let me know! It actually is pretty sad to see how little Asian characters are represented in YA and that realllly needs to change because there are so many ethnicities that fall under "Asian" so there are a lot of different characters would be able to get from Asians. I hope you guys enjoy reading about these Asian characters and definitely check out the books that I have mentioned.

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1. Lara Jean | To All The Boy's I've Loved Before
Lara Jean was the first person I thought of when I came up this post idea. She is literally the one character that is Asian and everyone knows that I know of. Lara Jean is Korean and what I love about Jenny Han is how she was able to include some Korean culture into the To All The Boy's I've Loved Before duology and it is always so interesting to be reading about that. She is such a great character and I thank Jenny for including so much Korean culture into her books.

2. Maddie | Everything, Everything
Maddie is half Japanese I believe? I'm pretty sure Nicola is half Japanese as well, which is cool because it's not every day someone is half Japanese half black. There wasn't a lot of Japanese culture in Everything, Everything but the fact that she is Asian already earns her a few points.

3. Samantha | Under a Painted Sky
Ohhh Samantha is a character I totally forgot about and banged my head on the table for doing so! She is Chinese (Yes! Finally) and speaks Cantonese, I believe? (Muahahaha even better!) I really enjoyed reading from Samantha because she really believes in the Chinese zodiac calendar and it was nice reading about her Chinese cultures and beliefs and being able to compare them and contrast them to mine.

4. Park | Eleanor and Park
Ahhh, Park! Another Korean character a good amount of people know about. I want to say Park is half white and I am pretty positive on that piece of information. Again, not a lot of Korean culture written into Eleanor and Park (at least...none that I actually remember) but I am not complaining much because yay! Another Asian character!

5. Jubilee | This Shattered World
This is one of my recent reads and I was very interested to find out her mother was Chinese! Making Jubilee half Chinese. I honestly did not expect Amie and Meagan to write about her culture and stuff in this dystopian novel but I did like how there the fact that she was half-Chinese was not pushed aside! There is a line of mandarin in this book and that little small line made me feel just a bit more connected to Jubilee.

6. Alan | What You Left Behind
I know Alan is Asian, Korean or Chinese I believe. Alan is only a side character so I definitely did not expect the author to go deeper into his Asian roots. The author didn't but that is totally fine with me because the fact that Alan was Asian and not white made this book a bit more colorful, which is something I always appreciate.

7. Cinder | The Lunar Chronicles
Cinder is definitely Asian, but is she Chinese? Chinese in their world, let's put it at that. Definitely, not much Asian culture is mentioned in the book but I don't blame that because of the fact that it's dystopian, I am grateful there is an Asian character so that is definitely enough for me. I do love how they call her "Lihn, Cinder" because ya know, you call people by their first then the last name in China!

So tell me: Have you read any of the books I mentioned above and let me know if you celebrate Chinese New Year!