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hacktrose 's review for:
Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir
by Eddie Huang
As memoirs go, Huang's scores high on authenticity--he injected his own unique personality into every sentence of this book. Not everyone will appreciate that. Huang is a self-described outsider, a contrarian who is not interested in pleasing anyone but himself. This is by turns refreshing and off-putting, which seems to be Huang in a nutshell. Is Huang as brilliant as he thinks he is? As unique as he's convinced he is? Maybe, maybe not. You can't have achieved what he has without a fair amount of hubris, and this is on full display, but you have to, to borrow one of Huang's oft-used expressions, "respect the hustle." Readers, especially white folks, may not find Huang to be all that likeable--either because he doesn't fit into the stereotype we are comfortable with (his explanation) or because he's a bit of an asshole (in reality, most likely a combination of the two), but regardless he absolutely has a voice worth listening to, especially his musings on race in America (though I'll admit to zoning out on his enraptured descriptions of sneakers).