Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.6 AVERAGE
3.6 AVERAGE
While I really like the TV show, I was a little disappointed to find that it's maybe only loosely based on the book. BUT I do love Huang's World and Eddie narrates his life story exactly how he speaks, you can tell from watching his show that he is far more intelligent than the general population and he really enjoys the deeper WHY behind different cultures eat what they eat.
This was a refreshing and very interesting read.
This was a refreshing and very interesting read.
great great book. Ty to dalton for making me read it. made me think about life, and privilege, and race, and everything
This was an unexpectedly rich read. Of course, it's a book about Eddie Huang's life and about food, but it's largely about race, culture, and identity. A brilliantly written book I would recommend to anyone, especially people with an interest in sociology.
I'm seeing a pattern in the people giving 1⭐s and it shows
funny
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
The ratio of rage to food talk was a surprise - I expected more about "real Taiwanese food" and less about beating people unconscious - yet the change-up was delightful. One hundred percent entertained from first page to last.
The first half of the book was very good. I listened to the audio, which the author narrates, and it was very entertaining and insightful. We tend to see and talk about race in black and white and we forget that racism rears its head in many different ways and causes the people who are experiencing the racism to react in different ways. Eddie Huang points out how racism affected him and how it affects Asian-Americans as a group. Mr. Huang isn't a great narrator, he laughed in ways that created confusion with the text as something struck him as funny. Perhaps that is really a problem with the editing; the laughter should have been edited out at least when it wan't included in the narrative.
Huang seems to get how racism creates and controls our culture and the people in the US. But he misses the way that misogyny does the same thing. He talked about women as a group as objects, as things to win, as ways for men and boys to get satisfaction. Those women had no humanity in his narrative. He also talked about some individual women in the same way. Women who he was not interested in sexually were either dismissed as worthless or acknowledged as good for something else. That aspect of his writing made him seem considerably less woke that he seems to want to think of himself.
Huang's use of slang made it seem like he was trying a bit too hard to be edgy.
I recommend Notes from A Young Black Chef for a good memoir of a young chef who is fighting against the status quo instead of this one.
Huang seems to get how racism creates and controls our culture and the people in the US. But he misses the way that misogyny does the same thing. He talked about women as a group as objects, as things to win, as ways for men and boys to get satisfaction. Those women had no humanity in his narrative. He also talked about some individual women in the same way. Women who he was not interested in sexually were either dismissed as worthless or acknowledged as good for something else. That aspect of his writing made him seem considerably less woke that he seems to want to think of himself.
Huang's use of slang made it seem like he was trying a bit too hard to be edgy.
I recommend Notes from A Young Black Chef for a good memoir of a young chef who is fighting against the status quo instead of this one.
*deep breath*
Note: Review includes Bad Words.
This is tough to review. Let's start with:
1. Eddie Huang is an engaging writer.
2. Whatever my issues with this book, I still wanted to finish it (and I did).
3. Some parts of this book I related to--a lot--and I'm glad I read it. I got some genuine insight into myself, which doesn't usually happen when I read Memoirs Of A Famous Person. Or any memoir, really.
4. Some issues are above my pay grade. I'm a white chick, so I consider myself unqualified to address how Asian-Americans might feel about him; likewise, I can't truly address his appropriation of Black culture. (If you want to know more about it, here's one place to start: this article by Arthur Chu hits some major points.)
I can speak to the sexism and misogyny, and there is a LOT of it. And what makes it hurt more is that I think Huang may not even realize he's doing it, he's so deep in the patriarchy. I don't think he notices--or noticed at the time--how incredibly misogynistic his thinking and writing is. The man quotes Audre Lorde left and right. And when he's in college, this happens:
But as just one example of the rampant misogyny in this book, when he's criticizing a friend for hiding in the car when a fight went down, he says this:
When I read that, I highlighted it and added a two-word note: "F-ck you." It was over halfway through the book and I was just so tired of the rampant sexist bullsh-t. Of course, there were still about a thousand mentions of "p-ssy" (as an insult and as a synonym for "woman"--which, per the quote above, are sometimes the same thing) yet to appear in the book, and so on. Huang knows better than this, at least on some level; he does it anyway. And still quotes Audre Lorde. The irony burns.
Like I said, I can't talk about how Asian-Americans might feel about what he has to say to them (although I'm pretty sure I know why Asian women walk out when they hear some of his jokes!), and I can't speak to his use of AAVE and Black culture generally. Others have done that. But the misogyny is overwhelming by the second half of the book.
tl;dr Engaging writer with some issues. Those issues may or may not be a dealbreaker for you; maybe do some online searches if you're unsure. (This book is NOT the show, in case you were curious. Not even a little bit.)
Note: Review includes Bad Words.
This is tough to review. Let's start with:
1. Eddie Huang is an engaging writer.
2. Whatever my issues with this book, I still wanted to finish it (and I did).
3. Some parts of this book I related to--a lot--and I'm glad I read it. I got some genuine insight into myself, which doesn't usually happen when I read Memoirs Of A Famous Person. Or any memoir, really.
4. Some issues are above my pay grade. I'm a white chick, so I consider myself unqualified to address how Asian-Americans might feel about him; likewise, I can't truly address his appropriation of Black culture. (If you want to know more about it, here's one place to start: this article by Arthur Chu hits some major points.)
I can speak to the sexism and misogyny, and there is a LOT of it. And what makes it hurt more is that I think Huang may not even realize he's doing it, he's so deep in the patriarchy. I don't think he notices--or noticed at the time--how incredibly misogynistic his thinking and writing is. The man quotes Audre Lorde left and right. And when he's in college, this happens:
I ... won college awards for women’s, African-American, and English studies. I won the Zora Neale Hurston and Barbara Lawrence Alfond Award in 2004.
But as just one example of the rampant misogyny in this book, when he's criticizing a friend for hiding in the car when a fight went down, he says this:
Hormones got you actin’ wild in the club in front of girls, but push comes to shove and you’re sitting in a Toyota Celica smoking Parliament lights like a f-ckin’ female.
When I read that, I highlighted it and added a two-word note: "F-ck you." It was over halfway through the book and I was just so tired of the rampant sexist bullsh-t. Of course, there were still about a thousand mentions of "p-ssy" (as an insult and as a synonym for "woman"--which, per the quote above, are sometimes the same thing) yet to appear in the book, and so on. Huang knows better than this, at least on some level; he does it anyway. And still quotes Audre Lorde. The irony burns.
Like I said, I can't talk about how Asian-Americans might feel about what he has to say to them (although I'm pretty sure I know why Asian women walk out when they hear some of his jokes!), and I can't speak to his use of AAVE and Black culture generally. Others have done that. But the misogyny is overwhelming by the second half of the book.
tl;dr Engaging writer with some issues. Those issues may or may not be a dealbreaker for you; maybe do some online searches if you're unsure. (This book is NOT the show, in case you were curious. Not even a little bit.)
even though I listened to double cup love before this one by mistake I stilled totally enjoyed it...was quite a few LOL moments through out it as well as a few damns