Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Making a Scene

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Making a Scene by Constance Wu

10 reviews

siobhanward's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

2.0

I found this book to be disappointing. Maybe Wu wrote it too early in her career. Maybe it was hard to write because the one major acting job she'd had before writing the book sounded really challenging. I don't know, but this was less a memoir of her time as an actress and was weirdly more of an account of her love life? I don't know - some stories were solid and helped me to understand why Wu is who she is (the last chapter about her mother, in particular, was great), but the majority of the book felt like it was an account of her boyfriends, her sex life and why she's not like other girls. It really just didn't resonate with me and I couldn't figure out what Wu was trying to do with this book.

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crystaltran's review

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challenging dark emotional funny inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.5

i had no idea Constance was such a beautiful writer, but reading this memoir felt a lot like reading poetry a lot of the time. it was a really wonderful recount of her life story, with a lot of focus on her theatre background, love life, and her life pre-fame. i thought there would be more detail/stories about her life after becoming famous but she mostly passed over that topic in order to talk about bigger themes in those moments of her life which i honestly really appreciated because it made her seem more relatable to the average reader.

there’s a lot of difficult and personal topics included in this memoir. a lot of chapters recount her struggles with her womanhood, pursuing the arts, struggling with her emotions and trying to suppress them, and experiencing sexual harassment/assault. there’s a lot of sensitive topics spoken about, but i thought they were handled really well and talked about in such an intelligent and deep way. a lot of her struggles with these experiences were so relatable and real even if i haven’t personally experienced the same thing that she writes about.

i really enjoyed reading this memoir, both for the actual writing style and the stories included. constance is a really gifted writer and i honestly hope she releases more writing in the future. i generally feel odd rating memoirs anything less than 5 stars because who am i to judge someone’s personal life story, but i did take away a star only because (and this is mainly from an editing perspective) a lot of the chapters felt disjointed. it’s not told in chronological order, not that it needs to be, but the order in which the chapters are don’t have much of a flow and makes reading some things a little difficult with the continuity and generally lowered the quality of reading. the last chapter especially didn’t really feel right as the last chapter- i would’ve just tweaked the order in which the chapters were presented, but otherwise, this is a really wonderful yet vulnerable read.

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zombiezami's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

3.75

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236girls's review

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emotional informative reflective

3.0

constance is a far from perfect person and it was very cool reading about her very human experiences of fucking up and learning and fixing herself and still being able to put love out into the world regardless. i cried when she talked about her bunny and i had this empty hollow feeling inside me when she talked about her running through those unfinished mansions with her sister and mom. i loved hearing about her past loves and friendships and how they shaped her and her world view. i feel like i really would have liked this if it was more linear and slightly more condensed, and maybe her writing style was just not for me -- felt a little repetitive at times.

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readingwithcoffee's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

3.5

I enjoyed this Snapchat of Constance Wu in her late thirties but I think the book she writes in her fifties or sixties we’ll be much better.

Her mostly low self esteem in the book can be odd in the book and at times make it seem like she’s being overly hard on herself or making herself more of an underdog then she might be but given what she meant through and the idea of being easily replaceable was what one Asian American producer dangled over her to sexually harass her for years I think it make sense if you step back even if it can make you wish she stepped back a bit when recounting certain events. Largely though I thought a weakness of the book was Wu being what seemed afraid of being too easy on herself, or hard on others that leads to a lot of acceptance and forgiveness of men who frankly don’t deserve it. That said in her own words Wu finds forgiving others how they harmed her a way to free herself from victim blaming herself which I think is important to be patient with, though I think some people who experienced similar harm will find really foreign to their experiences and needs if not more averse to it.

I really liked her like many other women of color talking about harm within the community being used to silence you because you’re afraid of harming the community by talking about how you are experiencing harm from someone within it or a prominent “ally”. I also really liked how she talked about when she gave a disjointed but frankly understandable and over judged response to the show she was abused being renewed no one cared that an out of character out burst signaled something was probably wrong in her life in some way but care at the idea she lost face or wasn’t grateful enough for crumbs. Similarly how she talks about how both non Asians and Asians try to force her mom to fit a Tiger mom stereotype she doesn’t to suit their comforts and limited ideas of Asians and women.

I loved the taxi Can story in NYC though I understand why someone could look at this essay collection and wonder why some were included at all and while non linear essays or books are fine there definitely were times the transitions were rough and it seemed like starting all over even if multiple events and things layer to make us who we are now.

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