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A review by circularcubes
This Is a Bust by Ed Lin
4.0
3.5*
Let me be honest: there is very little Ed Lin can do wrong in writing a book about Chinese-Americans, with Chinese-American protagonists, because this the playing field is so limited to begin with. Also, I'm predisposed to like him because we share a last name, and I get overly excited whenever I can find media created by People Who Have My Last Name. The last book I read of Lin's, Ghost Month, was, dare I say, not very good. However - limited playing field. Despite the previous book of his being a bust, nothing would dissuade me from picking up his other work and getting another all-too-rare chance to read a novel about fellow Chinese-Americans. Plus, this book is set in the 1970s, and the only thing rarer than novels about Chinese-American communities are novels about Chinese-American communities in the past.
I liked this book well enough. The murder mystery is, as other reviewers have noted, rather more secondary to the scenery and the characters, and although it was more of a sideline to the book, I enjoyed the unraveling of that particular plot line. The characters took a while to grow on me, and while I could never entirely begin to care about the apathetic, alcoholic Officer Chow, the secondary characters were more interesting and I genuinely wanted to see what their trajectories would be (good thing there are sequels?) It's hard for me to judge a book that I started off really wanting to like - even if the book is a bit sparse and dour and not quite about my community of Asian-Americans, this is about all I have.
Also, I really wanted hot dog buns the whole time I was reading this book. I think this is my cue to pay a visit to Chinatown and stock up on all the delicious pastries I day dreamed about while reading this.
Let me be honest: there is very little Ed Lin can do wrong in writing a book about Chinese-Americans, with Chinese-American protagonists, because this the playing field is so limited to begin with. Also, I'm predisposed to like him because we share a last name, and I get overly excited whenever I can find media created by People Who Have My Last Name. The last book I read of Lin's, Ghost Month, was, dare I say, not very good. However - limited playing field. Despite the previous book of his being a bust, nothing would dissuade me from picking up his other work and getting another all-too-rare chance to read a novel about fellow Chinese-Americans. Plus, this book is set in the 1970s, and the only thing rarer than novels about Chinese-American communities are novels about Chinese-American communities in the past.
I liked this book well enough. The murder mystery is, as other reviewers have noted, rather more secondary to the scenery and the characters, and although it was more of a sideline to the book, I enjoyed the unraveling of that particular plot line. The characters took a while to grow on me, and while I could never entirely begin to care about the apathetic, alcoholic Officer Chow, the secondary characters were more interesting and I genuinely wanted to see what their trajectories would be (good thing there are sequels?) It's hard for me to judge a book that I started off really wanting to like - even if the book is a bit sparse and dour and not quite about my community of Asian-Americans, this is about all I have.
Also, I really wanted hot dog buns the whole time I was reading this book. I think this is my cue to pay a visit to Chinatown and stock up on all the delicious pastries I day dreamed about while reading this.