A review by iffer
Beijing Payback by Daniel Nieh

3.0

I wanted to like this more than I did. I was hoping for something like a gritty, violent K-drama, and while there's plenty of action and violence, and I could see what the author was going for (moral ambiguity; dichotomies of US-China and superficial law-corrupt underbelly; main character's experiences of biculturalism and biracial existence), this ultimately fell flat for me. Even though it was at least partially intended by the author, I found the main character self-indulgent and annoying. At the end, he was supposed to have matured, but then he just seemed like a possible wish-fulfillment hardened Asian-American guy who has previously been made fun of.