Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - Interior Chinatown

Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

66 reviews

kelseyland's review against another edition

reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A surreal satire of racist Hollywood tropes that follows the protagonist's quest to move from Generic Asian Man to Kung Fu Guy in the cop drama Black and White, which films in the Chinese restaurant below his apartment. The script format is a brilliant choice, and within that limited medium Yu is able to create a story that is funny, emotional, and wholly original.

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moosegurl's review against another edition

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emotional funny inspiring fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

An interesting take on how life is a performance, especially for Asian-Americans. Didn't always love the shtick, personally, but who cares? It was brilliantly done.

"Two words that define you, flatten you, trap you and keep you here. Who you are. All you are. Your most salient feature, overshadowing any other feature about you, making irrelevant any other characteristic. Both necessary and sufficient for a complete definition of your identity: Asian. Guy."

"The thing you thought you wanted. The role of a lifetime is one you can never bring yourself to quit. Karen was right: you are trapped. Doing well is the trap."

"The truth is, she's a weirdo. Just like you were. Are. A glorious, perfectly weird weirdo. Like all kids before they forget how to be exactly how weird they really are. Into whatever they're into, pure. Before knowing. Before they learn from others how to act. Before they learn they are Asian, or Black, or Brown, or White. Before they learn about all the things they are and about all the things they will never be."

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literaryelephant's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny reflective fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Inventive, fun, and enticingly critical, this is a spoof on Hollywood filmography and a commentary on life in Chinatown, simultaneously a refuge and a trap of its own. The book examines anti-Asian racism in the US through the internal struggle of a Generic Asian Man striving to be Kung Fu Guy, along the way realizing that the success story imposed on him by white society is perhaps not the victory it purports to be. It's a quick, meta read that plays with form in exciting ways, and I loved every minute of it.

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deedireads's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

TL;DR REVIEW:

Interior Chinatown is a creative, funny, moving, uniquely told story about race, immigration, and the roles that are cast for us — by others and ourselves.

For you if: You want a big-hearted but hard-hitting book in a fun format.

FULL REVIEW

“I’m guilty, too. Guilty of playing this role. Letting it define me. Internalizing the role so completely that I’ve lost track of where reality starts and the performance begins. And letting that define how I see other people. I’m as guilty of it as anyone.”

This book. Holy moly was it good! I can absolutely see why it won the National Book Award last year — it’s super creative, it’s warm and quite funny, it’s smart and hard-hitting and emotional too. It’s rare that a book comes around that makes you think wow, that was really brilliant and truly unique — but this one does it.

This is a satirical novel about a man named Willis Wu, who’s working his way up the ranks of Generic Asian Men on a cop drama called Black and White. His ultimate dream — the dream of everyone he knows — is to become Kung Fu Guy. (His father was Kung Fu Guy once, but now he’s just Old Asian Man.) In his quest to climb ever higher up a ladder with no top, he’s forced to confront the fact that the roles he plays are cast just as much by himself as by society itself.

First of all, you absolutely have to listen to the audiobook of this one as you read along. It was extremely well voiced and produced, and it added a TON to my reading experience. Truly, don’t miss it. Hats off to Joel de la Fuente for his performance.

This book is so fun to read, and you definitely just have to go with it. Parts are written like a film script, parts in prose. It blends “reality” and metaphor, switching between them to create something that’s not quite linear or logical but super moving and effective. And it’s funny! And the ending — a dream-state court scene — is one of the best I’ve read in a really, really long time.

At its heart, this is a book about race and immigration, the futility of comparing one group’s experience with racism to another’s, holding onto your heritage while breaking out of stereotypes, family, love, identity, confidence, history, and so much more. It’s also a relatively short book you can read in a few hours. Which you absolutely should do.

“There once was a little girl who was —
You pause. Unsure of what to say next.
This is a key point in the story.
The next word, and whatever you say after that, will determine a great many things about it, will either open up the story, like a key in a lock in a door to a palace with however many rooms, too many to count, and hallways and stairways and false walls and secret passages, or the next word could be a wall itself, two walls, closing in, it could be the limits on where the story could go.”

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bella_cavicchi's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

So sharp and innovative, Yu's commentary -- about identity, representation, "likeness" -- matched expertly to the quasi screenplay form. The Kung-Fu Dad chapter is worthy of a review of its own, as is the powerful monologue at the end. One to grab, read, and ponder; I'll be thinking about this one for quite a while.

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kindredbooks's review against another edition

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funny hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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