Reviews with content warning for Colonisation - Disorientation

This is one of the best fiction books I’ve read this year. I think the primary audience of course is well-educated Asian women, but I think anyone can enjoy this book. It’s a fantastic skewering of white-dominated Asian studies departments, unstrategic student activism, and grad school.

I was also confused for most of the book regarding the arc with the white fiancé, but I think the ending of the book more or less sorted it out when Ingrid leaves Stephen not necessarily for his Asian fetish, but because she doesn’t like him as a person. As an Asian woman who is currently dating a white man (and so faced similar questions to the ones Ingrid confronts), I find interrogating your own dating preferences over and over to be counterproductive to your ultimate happiness, so I feel that arc went on a little longer than I liked.

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kathshiroma's review against another edition

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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? Yes

4.5

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frankiedoodle's review

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dark funny tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I picked up this book because I loved Yellowface by RF Kuang and Disorientation was suggested to me as a similar book. It was strikingly similar (both in subject matter and writing style), but I'm not sure that having that comparison at the front of my mind as I read set Disorientation up for success. While both books use satire and absurdism to deliver a message about anti-Asian racism and the model minority myth, I found Yellowface to be slightly more subtle and fun to read. It's always a tall, somewhat unfair task for a book to be immediately and directly competing with one of your favorites, so feel free to take this review with a grain of salt.

This book had a lot to say about identity, academia, and the way that White Supremacy subconsciously infiltrates all of our senses of self, but I didn't feel super trusted as a reader to pick up on that message. Most of this book's more thoughtful points get delivered through lectures and op-ed style blocks of text (sometimes literally coming in the form of op-ed articles written by one of the academic characters), and it made the pacing drag quite a bit. I appreciated and even learned a lot from the points this book had to make, I just wished that maybe we had gotten the chance to find our way to those points through the plot, been shown more and told less.

Every single character in this book fits neatly and completely into a trope. I couldn't decide whether I liked that or not, honestly. I think it was an intentional choice...Disorientation reads as parody, it exists in a world where, by the end, everyone has dropped any inhibition or pretense. Everyone is always at every turn saying the quiet part out loud. On the other hand, existing in the head of an unreliable narrator who's doing outrageous things gets a little less enjoyable when NOBODY in this literary universe is any more reliable or any less outrageous. I guess I was just expecting a little more grounding and had to work to suspend my disbelief as I caught up with what kind of book this was going to be.

Ingrid's visceral journey to find herself and her voice was evocative and fulfilling, and I think will likely hold a lot of validation for AAPI individuals or those in academia. It might have been a little bit on the nose about it all, but overall I found it a very ambitious and creative undertaking and I enjoyed it.

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gomhearts's review

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challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

this book provoked me so much. everything about it was so ... destructive (in both good and bad ways). at multiple points i had to stop reading just to take a breath... from either how terrified i was of the next page, trying to process what happened, or just to pace myself to enjoy the book more. (i failed -- i binged more than 200 pages within a night when i promised i'd go to bed early).

at first, i thought i knew what the book would be about: ingrid coming to terms with her asian identity and the internal racism she harbored in her childhood would manifest into her phd dissertation while researching poet xiao-wen chou.

oh my god i was so wrong.

i started to make hypotheses of what would happen next and each time i was debunked. i was in awe by how the book made you feel defenseless. as someone well-versed in the asian-american diaspora and reading about someone who was just so... anti-asian-american, i felt so frustrated with ingrid but wouldn't put the book down since i was determined to see it through that she changes in the end.
did she change?

i don't really know. and i think she's lying to us all.

it irks me to know that she doesn't divulge into academia again. it sucks that the white man wins. there's even a quote vivan says to her regarding how xiao-wen chou writes chinese poetry to benefit the white community. there's no justice for the dissertation riot. god knows i'm so happy that ingrid is foregoing her dating life but it sucks to hear that her asianness in the end depended on removing a white man from her life (WHICH IS GOOD - i never had good vibes about stephen in the first place, but her speech, as tiktok-drama-infused as it is, was only concocted through a 10-minute manipulation quiz?? seriously?) by accepting that she shouldn't date more white men, does she truly understand her belongingness in america? like come on even at the end, she gets placed on asian tour groups "always" she might add. and not to mention: john smith coming to her at the end? how could she forgive him in the first place? after his storytelling, i starting ripping my hair out in utter shock and blatant racism and ingrid, as an asian american (who may honestly be a placeholder for a white woman), forgives him immediately, even working with him in the process.

the book is satirical. it's so hyperbolic i can't even tell what's meant to be taken seriously. are we supposed to take the poc caucus protest seriously? what about her saviorism when it comes to timothy - and why didn't she do anything about it in the first place? is michael supposed to stand in as a metaphor for asian-using-online-propaganda-brain-rot? and how about alex's detachment from the blond, white woman who he only viewed as a symbol for sex. yet another glorification of the white woman as she can come and go as she pleases. vivian was maybe the most authentic character yet. i never hated her. i actually think i may have hated ingrid even though i understood what she was going through.

as i was writing this review, i went from believing this book hailed a 5-star rating to a 3.75. and i wanted to talk about that. from a book that i believe is supposed to speak about asian-american model minority myths and how these stereotypes are perpetuated in modern life, the exaggeration from Vivian's broadcast to Michael's sinophilic rant to John Smith's puppet-playing facade... felt almost backfiring to me.

i cried a lot during this book. and at its peak, i recognize that it's GREAT fiction. very well-written, humorous when needed, personal, and do touch on many aspects of an asian-american's upbringing. however, the feeling i get after reading is synonymous to dread and confusion. what do i feel about ingrid? should i be happy for her? because honestly i'm not. about eunice? about stephen's performative activism? (not to mention, but hello - why was it never addressed that he keeps those raunchy photos AND the recent search history??? ingrid, why didn't you go for it???) anyways.

after reflection, this book gets a 5 in its provocation. but in the aftermath of how i feel, i have to go to a 3.75 for it (with sadness).

Content Warnings

oceanelle's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

Voicey, fresh, important. In some ways, Ingrid, the protagonist, reads like if you just let all your intrusive thoughts win, which I loved deeply. And in other ways, that unhingedness always teeters on the side of painfully real. I’m going to be thinking about this book all year, what an excellent way to start off my 2024 reading.

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sakisreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense 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

4.5

This book really does make you feel disorientated 🫠

This was a chance find on Kindle yesterday; after reading Yellowface, the algorithm clearly wanted to give me another amazing take on academia and it’s dark side.

Someone wrote ‘I hope Michael and Stephen step on LEGOs’ in a review and I really felt that 😂 Their despicable treatment of people always left my jaw hanging.

What’s very sinister and twisted about this book is that especially at the beginning, it leads you to believe they are the ‘good guys’, and that you almost want to root for Ingrid and Stephen’s relationship 😦

I really appreciated Ingrid and felt a big pull to her throughout this tale. Her growth is undeniable ✨ I also loved Eunice (Yoon) and what a good friend she was to Ingrid throughout ✨
Initially Vivian got under my skin (as was most likely intended by the author), but she started to grow on me.

AZUMI THOUGH. I’m not going to lie, I was shocked when Stephen revealed that she was in fact, not a sex worker and had come from an affluent family, but I also thought… Props to her 🤷🏻‍♀️

4.5 out of 5 stars ✨
Would definitely recommend! 👏🏼

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danidamico's review

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dark funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

Disorientation es una sátira sobre el mundo universitario, principalmente aborda el racismo que predomina en las instituciones académicas de Estados Unidos. La protagonista es Ingrid Yang, una mujer de 29 años que está trabajando en su tesis doctoral. Todo empieza a tomar un giro extraño cuando Ingrid descubre información oculta acerca de Xiao-Wen Chou, el legendario poeta que tomó como objeto para su tesis.

La autora Elaine Hsieh Chou logra construir un texto gracioso y perturbador en partes iguales, explorando las distintas formas en las que el racismo afecta particularmente a las mujeres asiáticas, desde la subestimación e infantilización en el ámbito académico, pasando por la fetichización sexual y la misoginia. El tono de la novela me hizo acordar un poco a Everyone in this Room Will Someday Be Dead de Emily Austin, una de mis lecturas favoritas del año pasado. Comparten un sentido del humor absurdo, algo tragicómico, y protagonistas neuróticas y algo problemáticas. Me gustó mucho el desarrollo de Ingrid, en general suelo sentirme identificada con ese tipo de personajes.

Sí tengo que decir que algunas partes de la trama me parecieron un poco predecibles, en especial el descubrimiento que Ingrid hace alrededor del 30% del libro. Creo que el impacto del

caso de Rachel Dolezal y otros académicos

ya generó que ante ciertas señales uno se imagine lo que está pasando. Dentro de esta misma línea también recomiendo la película de terror Master (2022). En fin, más allá de las partes predecibles y de ciertos momentos algo forzados, Hsieh Chou crea una obra con mucha personalidad, un humor absurdo muy bien logrado y personajes complejos.

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