typical american

i've put off writing this review for so long, and it's because i genuinely disliked typical american and didn't want to have to think about it ever again after having to write a paper on the book for class. 

the main character, ralph chang is intolerable. he is selfish, stubborn, misogynistic, abusive, and naive, which i understand implies that he himself, a chinese immigrant, has become the "typical american," but it just made reading this book so unenjoyable. he would rather attribute everything to "luck" and "miracles" than the merits of his wife and sister. he chooses to praise a con man rather than support his sister. he takes joy out of other people's failures and can rarely be happy for other characters' successes. he has no idea what he wants. he insists on being this dominant patriarchy despite acting like an absolute child. he literally faces no backlash for the domestic abuse of his wife. there were multiple times in this book where i wanted to reach into its pages just to wring his neck because of how horrible he was treating the women in his life, the women who non-stop supported him. 

the only characters i enjoyed in this book were the women. they were huge pillars of support that functioned in silence with little to no recognition, paralleling the quiet, yet essential, role that many women play in the successes of their male counterparts, especially in asian culture. 

however, since i talked about this book for a whole entire month in class, it's hard to not find facets of the text that are commendable. one interesting element that jen emphasizes within this text is the importance of narration and storytelling as a way of conveying success. it can be seen in grover's character as a con man. when it comes to ralph's story, he is so infatuated with this concept of achieving success as a chinese immigrant in the united states that he always feels threatened by the achievements of others, since he himself hasn't attained that sort of status yet. therefore, ralph mistakes grover's narrative success for being authentic, despite grover's success being more story than truth.  

i also really loved the very subtle reference to "invisible man" by ralph ellison that my professor pointed out. it was honestly a genius way of conveying the chang family's perception of racialized hierarchies.  

typical american is just a book about ralph learning things the hard way, over and over and over again. i'm so glad that i finally finished writing this review, because now i can never think about this book ever again for the rest of my life.