Girls for Breakfast, by David Yoo

[pikachupacabra]

Girls for Breakfast
Amazon Link




The story of Nick Park, the only Asian-American in his school/area in an upper-class Conneticut town, starts from his arrival in third grade until his high-school graduation. It's a pretty funny, ironic, sarcastic, depressing, and altogether light-hearted yet insightful read and it's pretty short; it took me about 4 hours total.

Nick Park is obsessed with girls. In fact, he's obessed with girls girls girls girls...and girls. Secondarily, due to the fact that he's completely enamored with the XX chromosomes, he's also a popularity-whore, doing anything he thinks will make him popular so that he can...you guessed it...get the girls. This leads to a cornicopia of events and situations, both hilarious and cringe-inducing where Nick does what he thinks will make him popular, but with disastrous results. Ultimately, however, it is not girls he is obsessed with, but his own sense of self; he doesn't fit in, no one seems to like him, he's dateless, he isn't succeeding, and he can't figure out if it's because he's a loser, or because he's asian.

While I can't claim to have similar experiences (I grew up in the Bay Area...west coast represent! woot woot) of being the token Asian (and pretty much also the token minority in this novel), Nick Park's experiences really touched a nerve with me, and I saw a lot of the crap I put myself through in his actions. Some of his F-ed up motivations and strange ways of manipulating things in his head sound very familiar to me, and I'm sure all of us have been Nick Park at some point (well, men anyways...but women similarly I'm sure!). His sense of loneliness, exclusion, dissatisfaction, and sheer helplessness at the cards he is dealt (and the constant reminder of his "Asian-ness) all ring true to feelings I personally have felt in the past.


I highly recommend it. There are some parts i had trouble reading because I knew it was only going to end badly for our protagonist, but that to me just shows how connected a reader gets with the characters, and that's a good thing.

Peace out. Maybe Nick just needs to learn the FOB "peace sign" better to fit in.

[tapestrybabe]

yeah, i heard about this book...
good to hear input from other readers...

i'll definitley check this one out...

[pikachupacabra]

BTW, the price on the back of my copy says it should be selling for 15.99 but Amazon has it for 10.99 (new). Nice discount!