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A review by whatpageareyouon
Naturally Tan: A Memoir by Tan France
3.0
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for review.
Tan France was the first of the Fab 5 I was immediately curious about when binge watching the infinitely charming Queer Eye. As I become more increasingly aware of the lack of Asian representation in media here in the States (even rarer, gay and Asian), I inevitably became increasingly interested in French-tucking Tan. Like Queer Eye, Naturally Tan is fun, accessible, and has a candid tone that lends itself to transparent, feel-good, and illuminating moments. Ultimately, the memoir emphasizes humorous anecdotes from Tan's perspective, such as how he met his husband (and of course, thoughts on what his husband was wearing), being employed as a flight attendant, and more.
However, as I continued my reading, I found myself less focused on Tan's misadventures and more focused on Tan's writing. The chapters often have the same formula of writing where Tan describes a story from his past, what he learned from it, and what we as readers can takeaway from it. While all of this might sound like the perfect ingredients for a memoir, it started to feel less personal and more mechanical. Tan opts for the "you" perspective when writing, depending if he is using "you" to talk to himself or using "you" to talk to the reader. Sometimes this works, but other times it leads to generalizations without much weight. One example is when Tan briefly gives two cents on women in the workplace, which feels more like an idle, judgmental observation than having any personal significance.
Some other topics that Tan discusses has more authority with personal experience, and thus more authenticity, such as moments when he talks about being a person of color, being gay, and the nuance between reality TV and reality. Even still, once landing his feet on a topic, like masculinity or having same sex gay friends, he still manages to find comfort in going for general resolutions that don't go much deeper than noticing the surface level issues about them that read as if they're meant to be revolutionary.
Overall, while Naturally Tan retains all of the fun, flavor, and doses of strife that Queer Eye does and, I think, is a book that a lot of people will enjoy and can learn new things from a person's perspective that they may be unfamiliar with, its shortcomings come from the somewhat gossipy language in the writing that, at times, feels impersonal and withholding.
Tan France was the first of the Fab 5 I was immediately curious about when binge watching the infinitely charming Queer Eye. As I become more increasingly aware of the lack of Asian representation in media here in the States (even rarer, gay and Asian), I inevitably became increasingly interested in French-tucking Tan. Like Queer Eye, Naturally Tan is fun, accessible, and has a candid tone that lends itself to transparent, feel-good, and illuminating moments. Ultimately, the memoir emphasizes humorous anecdotes from Tan's perspective, such as how he met his husband (and of course, thoughts on what his husband was wearing), being employed as a flight attendant, and more.
However, as I continued my reading, I found myself less focused on Tan's misadventures and more focused on Tan's writing. The chapters often have the same formula of writing where Tan describes a story from his past, what he learned from it, and what we as readers can takeaway from it. While all of this might sound like the perfect ingredients for a memoir, it started to feel less personal and more mechanical. Tan opts for the "you" perspective when writing, depending if he is using "you" to talk to himself or using "you" to talk to the reader. Sometimes this works, but other times it leads to generalizations without much weight. One example is when Tan briefly gives two cents on women in the workplace, which feels more like an idle, judgmental observation than having any personal significance.
Some other topics that Tan discusses has more authority with personal experience, and thus more authenticity, such as moments when he talks about being a person of color, being gay, and the nuance between reality TV and reality. Even still, once landing his feet on a topic, like masculinity or having same sex gay friends, he still manages to find comfort in going for general resolutions that don't go much deeper than noticing the surface level issues about them that read as if they're meant to be revolutionary.
Overall, while Naturally Tan retains all of the fun, flavor, and doses of strife that Queer Eye does and, I think, is a book that a lot of people will enjoy and can learn new things from a person's perspective that they may be unfamiliar with, its shortcomings come from the somewhat gossipy language in the writing that, at times, feels impersonal and withholding.