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raspberryicedtea's review against another edition
4.0
Finished right on time for lunar new year and woooooow all my feelings were hit.
This book was funny and sad and heartbreaking and hilarious all at once.
The characters were super interesting and i liked the way it was written like a screenplay as part of showing how willis sees the world and his place in it.
It showed the way asians were and are treated in america, the american dream and how it turned out to be and how it affect everyone.
I don't have any more words except for: read it. read it and cry and laugh and feel so seen in a way that you haven't before or read it and maybe understand a little bit how being asian in america can feel.
This book was funny and sad and heartbreaking and hilarious all at once.
The characters were super interesting and i liked the way it was written like a screenplay as part of showing how willis sees the world and his place in it.
It showed the way asians were and are treated in america, the american dream and how it turned out to be and how it affect everyone.
I don't have any more words except for: read it. read it and cry and laugh and feel so seen in a way that you haven't before or read it and maybe understand a little bit how being asian in america can feel.
awinkz's review against another edition
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
jsdarn's review against another edition
3.0
3.5/5! really fun, witty and intelligent! would recommend this anyone who wants a seemingly action packed social commentary :)
apobec's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
teabooksblankets's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
3.0
misterushi's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.5
tarrowood's review against another edition
5.0
Extremely impressed with this work by Yu. Yu’s episodic, experimental form makes for the perfect narrative on the Asian-American experience. It brings to light issues that are rarely discussed in history, things that are “pale” in comparison to other ethnic experiences. Yu not only brings forth these detailed issues, but he also does so in a way that blends the serious and comic.
After I read Shuggie Bain I thought it got snubbed for the 2020 NBA, now I see why Interior Chinatown beat it out (although I think Shuggie Bain still goes toe-to-toe with this one)
After I read Shuggie Bain I thought it got snubbed for the 2020 NBA, now I see why Interior Chinatown beat it out (although I think Shuggie Bain still goes toe-to-toe with this one)
lk222's review against another edition
5.0
This book literally gave me chills. It was so. dang. amazing. This dark (often tragic) comedy is largely written as a script, following Willis Wu through Chinatown as he, his family, and his peers struggle against the roles they’ve been assigned in life and in the cop show Black and White, which films in the Golden Palace restaurant. In life and on screen, Willis endeavors to be more than Generic Asian Man, aka Background Oriental Male, Oriental Guy Making a Weird Face, and endless other marginal roles that trap him in the fringes. In a similar fashion to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Chicago, and Kurt Vonnegut, Yu blends the two sides of Willis’s experience together. Willis as Generic Asian Man in life bleeds into Willis as Generic Asian Man on screen, a bleed that that at times completely obscures which Willis we’re following. Once you let go of maintaining the threads of the real vs the scripted, you’ll find yourself falling down a rabbit hole that is profound in its surrealism. This liminal realm between the bleeds allows the plot to take fantastical turns, including reliving your parents’ romance on a spotlit stage and exploring a child’s castle in the sky of Phoebe Land. But it was the final courtroom drama that Willis finds himself in--which climaxes in its own incredible surrealist/antiracist fantasy--that really drives the story home. Willis and the defendant razzle dazzle the judge and jury with devastating facts from the US’s anti-asian history, begging the questions “Who gets to be American? What does an American look like?” Positing that the crux of Willis’s problem is “two hundred years of being perpetual foreigners” in America.
I can’t recommend this book enough. Winner of the 2020 National Book Award.
I can’t recommend this book enough. Winner of the 2020 National Book Award.
birdbeech's review against another edition
1.0
This book was not for me. The format. The content. I found it painfully mundane, lacking any kind of character development, a bit immaturely written. I'm honestly shocked to see so many enjoyed it. To each their own?
book_concierge's review against another edition
3.0
Digital audiobook performed by Joel de la Fuente
From the book jacket: Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: He’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face, but he is always relegated to a prop. Yet every day he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in production. He’s a bit player here, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy – the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. At least that’s what he has been told, time and time again. Except by his mother. Who says to him: Be more..
My reactions:
Yu’s inventive novel won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2020. I suspect this is because of the very unusual way in which it is written; he uses a second-person narrative voice and writes as if this were a screenplay. Also of note, Yu includes some serious social issues regarding racism, stereotyping in film/television, and personal goals vs family obligations.
Personally, I found the structure off-putting. This was probably exacerbated by my listening to it rather than reading the text. It seemed to me that Yu was trying too hard to be clever. And referencing the characters as “Generic Asian Man” or “Old Kung Fu Master” or “Young Asian Beauty” rather than by their names made it more difficult – for me at least – to connect to the characters and care about them. Be that as it may, he had a pretty good story to tell, and eventually I came to appreciate his message.
Joel de la Fuente does a very good job of the audio, but the structure of the writing really does not lend itself well to audio. I am also puzzled, given the underlying message re racism in the performing arts, why the narrator was not Asian.
From the book jacket: Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: He’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face, but he is always relegated to a prop. Yet every day he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in production. He’s a bit player here, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy – the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. At least that’s what he has been told, time and time again. Except by his mother. Who says to him: Be more..
My reactions:
Yu’s inventive novel won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2020. I suspect this is because of the very unusual way in which it is written; he uses a second-person narrative voice and writes as if this were a screenplay. Also of note, Yu includes some serious social issues regarding racism, stereotyping in film/television, and personal goals vs family obligations.
Personally, I found the structure off-putting. This was probably exacerbated by my listening to it rather than reading the text. It seemed to me that Yu was trying too hard to be clever. And referencing the characters as “Generic Asian Man” or “Old Kung Fu Master” or “Young Asian Beauty” rather than by their names made it more difficult – for me at least – to connect to the characters and care about them. Be that as it may, he had a pretty good story to tell, and eventually I came to appreciate his message.
Joel de la Fuente does a very good job of the audio, but the structure of the writing really does not lend itself well to audio. I am also puzzled, given the underlying message re racism in the performing arts, why the narrator was not Asian.