Days of Distraction

The absolute pinnacle of relaxing novels. Wes Anderson needs to adapt this into a film.

First I thought this would turn into a companion piece to [b:Uncanny Valley: A Memoir 45186565 Uncanny Valley A Memoir Anna Wiener https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1559568004l/45186565.SY75.jpg 69908892] with the San Francisco tech angle, but then it became a study of interracial relationships. There were interesting moments and thoughts in here, but it somehow started to fizzle out midway. I thought it was actually quite funny that the protagonist was curating news articles for social media feeds, because the writing had this snippet thread quality (a mix of opinions, mundane life details, and interesting historical facts), where there weren't clear starts and stops and I kinda just kept reading like you keep scrolling, despite it not being super engaging.

This reads like such a debut novel workshopped out of an MFA program where the POC author is forced to reckon with her Asian-American identity and biracial relationship by throwing everything she has out onto the page in a lightly fictionalized autobiography.

But as an Asian-American, bi-racially married dude working in tech this is just such a me book. The San Francisco tech environment with its open plan office spaces, standing desks and online watercooler chat fretting about the next round of imminent layoffs feels intimately familiar. The micro-aggressions experienced when travelling, the sixth sense of knowing just how much you might stand out in certain environments and how you contend with that in opposition to the blithe indifference whiteness can simply take for granted. And just the sheer fun of assembled “Snippets of Asian America” and how history has regarded the “yellow peril” over the years and how some have raised their defiant voices in demanding to be wholly seen. So yeah, I dug this book. Your mileage may vary.

I actually quite enjoyed this book, but the reason I gave it a lower rating is because unfortunately I found reading it to be a bit grating.

Let me be clear, I found the book enlightening, I just could not get over how willing the narrator was to overlook how insufferable her partner was. To be fair to her, that was a good bit of the book's innards--Much of the book was spent on self-reflection and realization of herself. I really enjoyed this and growing and learning with the narrator. However, it was so abundantly clear to me from an early stage that her partner was just taking advantage of her in many ways. My disdain for him grew as the book went on. Unfortunately, it made reading the book a bit of a chore as I pitied the narrator and felt contemptuous towards her partner and wanted her to take action over her own life.

I think despite that, I would consider rereading this in the future. I read this shortly after a tough breakup and I think that also gave me a different lens I was reading this book through, which charged some of my feelings. Maybe with a little more time behind me I will find this book still interesting but get less upset at the narrator, because I think I felt like she needed to take so much action because she reminded me in some ways of myself.