THE ISLAND OF BICYCLE DANCERS

A 20-year-old Korean-Japanese woman comes to New York City to work at her Korean uncle's grocery for one dramatic summer in Adachi's sometimes awkward but energetic debut. Yurika Song is supposed to be improving her English—and giving her parents back in Kawasaki a break from her rebellious behavior—and she promptly does so by immersing herself in the subculture of the city's bike messengers. Yurika's education evolves from banter with the sweaty messengers, who impart slang and expletives as she rings up their juice purchases, to breakfast lessons with her cousin Suzie, a party girl who works in a nail salon but aspires to more. She becomes close friends with Whitey, a particularly sensitive messenger whose affections she doesn't return. Yurika must also contend with her disapproving aunt, Hyun Jeong, a flat, wicked-stepmother figure, as well as an erotic affair with Hector, aka Bone, a troublemaking Puerto Rican messenger with little to redeem him but smoldering good looks and "long, dark muscles like a wild animal." The half-Japanese, half-Hungarian author spent time as both a bike messenger and a teacher of English as a foreign language; he portrays badass messengers and Yurika's linguistic struggles with equal facility. A triple-tiered finale of tragedy and violence overwhelms the most rewarding thread of the novel: Yurika's fascination with the English language, "a huge octopus... with so many wild and beautiful limbs writhing about" and her gradual assimilation into a new and heady culture. (Feb.)