Books like Quiet odyssey by Mary Paik Lee

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks follows the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer whose cancer cells were taken in 1951 without her consent and later became the first immortal human cell line, HeLa, driving major scientific breakthroughs while raising questions of ethics, race, and medical exploitation.

A compelling overview of American history through the eyes and experiences of its women, workers, African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, and the working poor.

Neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi’s poignant memoir chronicles his battle with stage IV metastatic lung cancer and his reflections on life, medicine, and mortality.

In Mumbai’s slums, families chase better lives as India’s prosperity rises, revealing the human side of global inequality.

A memoir of a woman who overcomes a strict survivalist Mormon upbringing in rural Idaho to pursue higher education, ultimately earning a PhD in history at Cambridge.

The Warmth of Other Suns is a non‑fiction study of the Great Migration, tracing the journey of nearly six million African Americans from the South to northern and western cities between 1915 and 1970.

Julia’s coming‑of‑age drama unfolds when Earth’s rotation suddenly slows, threatening all life and turning her small California family into the center of a global crisis.

A true‑story examination of a Laotian immigrant child’s illness and the clash between Hmong cultural beliefs and Western medical practice.

A powerful personal narrative tracing six‑year‑old Clemantine Wamariya and her sister’s seven‑year journey across seven African nations, culminating in asylum in the United States after surviving the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

"They called it an "honor killing," but to Elizabeth Kim, the night she watched her grandfather and uncle hang her mother from the wooden rafter in the corner of their small Korean hut, it was cold-blooded murder. Her Omma had committed the sin of lying with an American soldier, and producing not just a bastard but a honhyol - a mixed-race child, considered worth less than nothing.". "Left at a Christian orphanage in postwar Seoul like garbage, bleeding and terrified, Kim unwittingly embarked on the next phase of her life when she was adopted by a childless Fundamentalist pastor and his wife in the United States. Unfamiliar with Western customs and language, but terrified that she would be sent back to the orphanage, or even killed, Kim trained herself to be the perfect child. But just as her Western features doomed her in Korea, so her Asian features served as a constant reminder that she wasn't good enough for her new, all-white environment." "After escaping her adoptive parents' home, only to find herself in an abusive and controlling marriage, Kim finally made a break for herself by having a daughter and running away with her to a safer haven - something Omma could not do for her."--BOOK JACKET.

Korean American Ellen Sung navigates senior‑year pressures, battling peer prejudice and parental expectations while deciding on her college future.

A junior at Harvard, Ellen Sung balances her love of creative writing with a deeper exploration of her Korean heritage, navigating friendship, authorship, and prejudice on campus.