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pearseanderson's review
3.5
Strong, posthumous anthology that makes me wish we had decades of Anthony's writing. I loved how modern it felt. Not much else to say!
rogro's review
funny
informative
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
confused_cat's review
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
The stories are often times shocking, funny, tragic, and outrageous. However, these stories feel terribly authentic. I am not Cambo American and yet I feel like I know the people in the story and these fictional characters are based on some real people's life.
If anything, just go and read the Three Women of Chuck's donuts in the New Yorker website for a quick taste of Anthony So's wonderful writing.
If anything, just go and read the Three Women of Chuck's donuts in the New Yorker website for a quick taste of Anthony So's wonderful writing.
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexual content
merrmerrs's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
cindypepper's review against another edition
5.0
I've read Afterparties over the course of a year and a half, reading and savoring each story in separate instances. Each story is sharp in dialogue and character and so vivid that I could almost feel that thick Central Valley tule fog lingering over each word. The dialogue is biting and irreverent with punctual comedic timing, yet it's accompanied by a haze of melancholy and listlessness.
My two favorites were "The Shop" and "Generational Differences".
"The Shop" features a fantastic cast of characters: the main character, his father, his father's incompetent friends who work at the car shop, monks, Dr. Heng's wife (a total riot). It is all at once a sliver of time in the life of the protagonist (a summer after finishing his college degree) and yet a rich portrait of the Cambodian-American community in which he has grown up in the past few decades. It's a lush exploration of generational trauma, what it means to be part of a community, and queerness.
"Generational Differences" -- an epistolary work about a mother trying to communicate to her young son how she survived a school shooting -- was gutting, not just in the subject matter or the tenderness but also the eerieness in which her trauma echoes today.
A common thread of So's stories is how his characters struggle to reconcile the incongruities of their everyday life and actions with the intergenerational trauma. There's the listless boy who visits the monastery. The badminton coach living in the ghost of his high school glory days. The disaffected recent college grad harboring a disdain for the tech world of San Francisco who ends up in an affair with a startup owner. The dynamics are messy but So manages to capture said messiness -- nuances and foibles and all -- in short story form.
My two favorites were "The Shop" and "Generational Differences".
"The Shop" features a fantastic cast of characters: the main character, his father, his father's incompetent friends who work at the car shop, monks, Dr. Heng's wife (a total riot). It is all at once a sliver of time in the life of the protagonist (a summer after finishing his college degree) and yet a rich portrait of the Cambodian-American community in which he has grown up in the past few decades. It's a lush exploration of generational trauma, what it means to be part of a community, and queerness.
"Generational Differences" -- an epistolary work about a mother trying to communicate to her young son how she survived a school shooting -- was gutting, not just in the subject matter or the tenderness but also the eerieness in which her trauma echoes today.
A common thread of So's stories is how his characters struggle to reconcile the incongruities of their everyday life and actions with the intergenerational trauma. There's the listless boy who visits the monastery. The badminton coach living in the ghost of his high school glory days. The disaffected recent college grad harboring a disdain for the tech world of San Francisco who ends up in an affair with a startup owner. The dynamics are messy but So manages to capture said messiness -- nuances and foibles and all -- in short story form.
djmurm's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
amu_pdf's review
2.0
I didn’t really like this book. It was okay, I guess. I definitely preferred the first half more. I thought those stories were interesting and I liked them. I stopped being interested when it got to Rithy’s story. I did not like how him and the monk jerked off the a photo of Rithy’s girlfriend and came on the photo together? For like no reason? And without his girlfriend knowing? Super weird. After that story, I didn’t think the rest of them were that interesting. My favorite story was The Shop.
jacqw8's review against another edition
3.0
I really liked this collection of short stories. Got a little boring after the first half, and also repetitive