#83
Title: Happy Birthday or Whatever: Track Suits, Kim Chee, and Other Family DisastersAuthor: Annie Choi
Publisher: Harper
Year: 2007
Genre: Autobiography, humor
242 pages
There's nothing wrong with this book, which is a collection of aurobiographical stories about growing up as a first-generation Korean in the U.S. There also isn't much to make the book exceptional. With the emphasis on the family's purportedly hilarious yet incessant sniping and bickering, it is somewhat monotonous. Where Choi manages to bring some emotional complexity to the work, in recounting some of the events related to her mother's health, she is a pale imitation of Amy Tan, who told very much the same story but in a much more compelling manner in 1989's The Joy Luck Club. Choi is not a bad writer, but despite a certain gloss, she comes off as a young writer. Since she is young, perhaps her style will mature. She has the misfortune to have come of age in an era in which prematurely world-weary authors posture about what their 26 years on the planet have taught them. It is ultimately tiresome.
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