sarah's Reviews > How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

Cringeworthy. He's in love with rich white people and seems unable to cope with the fact that he isn't one (though one could argue he's as close as you can get). At one point, he literally complains about being white-passing. Lots of references to how he "had to wait tables" and the "struggles of being middle class" when he had a trust fund that lasted 9 years and paid for him to go to Wesleyan. Chee has obviously had his own deep trauma and incredibly difficult struggles, but these essays testify to a total lack of self-awareness about his position in the world and an obsession with whiteness. This makes me despair for the state of Asian American racial politics–my only hope is books like these DO NOT age well.