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Fresh Off The Boat: A Memoir (2013)

by Eddie Huang(Favorite Author)

3.68 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0679644881 (ISBN13: 9780679644880)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Spiegel & Grau

review 1: I don't think I understood half of what this book said. It covered a ton of cultural territory I'm not familiar with and Huang went incredibly fast as he did it. But not in a bad way, in a very good way! I spent about the first 5 minutes of this audiobook listening forward 30 seconds then backing up 15 seconds trying to decipher the rapid-fire slang and cultural references. But after many attempts to figure out every single reference I just gave in to let Huang's story wash over me exactly the way he tells is. Which was just the right decision because Huang is relentless in his story-telling style. He is funny and stylized but without sacrificing substance in his content which is really something. When I picked the book I knew Huang as the hot, young chef/owner of Baohaus ... moreand I was expecting an edgy foodie book. But this book is only kind of about food. It is much more about his experience growing up the son of Taiwanese immigrants with a love of street style in places like suburban Maryland and Orlando. As you might imagine this means the book is a lot about identity, both racial and cultural, and what it means to be looking for a place that is yours. And Huang is very direct in his approach to the topic, not pulling punches nor gushing with nostalgia but always infusing humor into his telling of an experience. When I review books I talk a fair bit about voice and when I review audiobooks, this part becomes even more important because distinguishing between the author's narrative voice and the narrator's performance voice can be challenging. That's not really a problem when the author is the narrator and this audiobook may be the best example I've read in a very long time for helping me nail down this idea of voice. Because by the time I finished Fresh Off The Boat I felt like I had a clear sense of who Eddie Huang is, or at least the Eddie Huang he wants us as readers to know. I don't have much in common with him, nor can I really say that I understand his experience, but I can hear him in my head describing things with passion and wit and a very particular laugh as punctuation.
review 2: I had to skim this book heavily because it descended into long passages about sports, fights, or drugs. The author seems to be boasting about his self imposed wild life and poor choices instead of reflecting on them, which is what a memoir is supposed to do.While the writing attempts to be authentic, the dialogue is stilted, and the slang gets annoying very quickly. The only redeeming chapter is the last, in which he describes the opening of his restaurant. I was hoping to read more about food and less about him. less

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