honolulu book awards Book of the year (about Hawaiʻi)
Hiʻi is proud to be a Naupaka, a family renown for its contributions to hula and her hometown of Hilo, Hawaiʻi, but there’s a lot she doesn’t understand. She’s never met her legendary grandmother and her mother has never revealed the identity of her father. Worse, unspoken divides within her tight-knit community have started to grow, creating fractures whose origins are somehow entangled with her own family history.
In hula, Hi'i sees a chance to live up to her name and solidify her place within her family legacy. But in order to win the next Miss Aloha Hula competition, she will have to turn her back on everything she had ever been taught, and maybe even lose the very thing she was fighting for.
Told in part in the collective voice of a community fighting for its survival, Hula is a spellbinding debut that offers a rare glimpse into a forgotten kingdom that still exists in the heart of its people.
Praise
“One of the most astonishing debut novels of the year” - Booklist
“Stunning…an intricately built novel that spans decades, moving in and out of a collective voice, while also telling Hi’i’s deeply personal and devastating story of trying to find her way.” –Los Angeles Times
“A stunning ode to Hawai’i that follows three generations of women in Hilo and their secrets, bonds and questions.” —May 2023 Reads for the Rest of US, Ms. Magazine
“[An] immersive and astute debut…It is a strong testament to [Hakes’] writing that the threads of the story are clear… a deeply affecting story of mothers and daughters and what makes a family.” — Booklist
“This debut novel moves with graceful power and sings with a voice as spellbinding as the rolling surf.”
— Best Books for Spring 2023, Oprah Daily
“Hakes studs the story with marvelous details of Hawaiian cosmology and historical developments such as the formation of the Hawaiian kingdom and the purpose of hula (“It was our generational memory, our celestial genealogy. Hula told the story of who we were”). Hakes illuminates on every page.”
— starred review, Publishers Weekly
Hakes’ vigorous saga, filled with the stories of hula and the hurts of history, astonishes. — The Christian Science Monitor
A Best New Book to Read in Summer 2023 - Elle
“An unforgettable ode to Hawaii, its people, and the power and pain of its history. Through one family and its fearless women, Jasmin ‘Iolani Hakes offers a profound examination of what it means to defy and to belong.”
— QIAN JULIE WANG, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Country
“Breathes new life into island narratives, it’s impossible to come away unchanged.”
— Kawai Strong Washburn, Pen award-winning author of Sharks in the Time of Saviors
“Raw, real and richly layered, Hula is a love letter to Hawai’i, most especially Keaukaha. The words in this novel hit like a hurricane––powerful and intense and imbued with every nuance of island life, from hanabata days to the final paddle out. Brilliantly written and expertly structured, the story of the Naupaka women, and the bitter struggles of the native Hawaiian people, will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page. Jasmin ‘Iolani Hakes has penned a new classic in Hawaiian literature. I could not put this book down.”
— SARA ACKERMAN, bestselling author of Radar Girls and Red Sky Over Hawaii
“Majestic, powerful, mysterious, and captivating as Hawaiian mountains, HULA is a magnificent achievement, a courageous act of resistance against colonization, an epic love song for native Hawaiian people. I cannot wait for readers everywhere to celebrate Jasmin Iolani Hakes’ talent.”
—Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, internationally best-selling author of The Mountains Sing and Dust Child
“Hula immerses readers in a place they won’t find on any map sold to tourists, Hawaii for Hawaiians. Ferociously beautiful and beautifully ferocious, Hula is a novel soaked in the spirit of Haunani-Kay Trask.”
— Myriam Gurba, author of Mean
