Happy Birthday or Whatever: Track Suits, Kim Chee, and Other Family Disasters [Paperback]

Annie Choi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 3, 2007

Meet Annie Choi. She fears cable cars and refuses to eat anything that casts a shadow. Her brother thinks chicken is a vegetable. Her father occasionally starts fires at work. Her mother collects Jesus trading cards and wears plaid like it's a job. No matter how hard Annie and her family try to understand one another, they often come up hilariously short.

But in the midst of a family crisis, Annie comes to realize that the only way to survive one another is to stick together . . . as difficult as that might be. Annie Choi's Happy Birthday or Whatever is a sidesplitting, eye-opening, and transcendent tale of coping with an infuriating, demanding, but ultimately loving Korean family.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Choi's volatile relationship with her domineering, chronically dissatisfied mother is at the heart of this memoir, a funny and often moving account of growing up in a family of Korean immigrants. The parent/child compact in Choi's childhood home was as follows: Mommy and Daddy's job is to take care of the child; the child's job is to study hard, go to Harvard and become a doctor. But Choi and her mother face each other across a seemingly unbridgeable divide: Annie has little desire to embody traditional Korean feminine virtues (and no desire to be a doctor); her mother—to whom social status is everything—cannot countenance her daughter's "shortcomings." Whether recounting the shame of bringing home a B-plus on a fourth-grade spelling test (a clear indicator that she's destined for an inferior institution) or the greater horror of having to wear Korean clothes to American school ("The fun of soup bring Spring" reads one pair of her tracksuit bottoms), Choi adds acid wit—mixed with compassion—to her descriptions of immigrant life in the San Fernando Valley. This is that rare book that delivers more than it promises; Choi tackles the theme of mother/daughter conflict with grace and humor. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

Mining the age-old tensions between mothers and daughters, Choi's strong debut is an uproariously funny memoir of growing up with her Korean American family in Los Angeles. Many stories expose the specific struggles of children of immigrants. When she entered kindergarten, for example, Choi was placed in a remedial learning program because her school didn't have an ESL specialist. Other stories focus on familiar mother-daughter battlegrounds (when her mother asks her to wear an ensemble that Choi describes as "appropriate for Paul Revere's stable boy," she writes, "I felt she had stopped loving me") and on the universal adolescent feelings of a self-described "late bloomer": "Anyone could confuse my back for my chest." From the elementary-school memories of her mother's tough-love academic views--"Don't be baby! You not wear diaper no more. You have to practice so you get A"--to the phone exchanges when college-age Choi learns of her mother's breast cancer, these are indelible, poignant, and often riotously funny scenes of a daughter's frustrations and indestructible love. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (April 3, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061132225
• ISBN-13: 978-0061132223
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #260,556 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great memior...very entertaining, April 17, 2007

By 

Aaron Isaksen (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Happy Birthday or Whatever: Track Suits, Kim Chee, and Other Family Disasters (Paperback)

This is a great memoir and really hilarious! Its just as good writing as Augusten Burroughs or David Sedaris, and written in a similar witty and sarcastic tone. But Choi's stories are much more accessible and way easier to relate to, yet the author and her family are still quite crazy in their own way. She has an incredible voice and the dialogue is very funny. My girlfriend read it and she really liked it too. I recently saw her read from the book at Barnes and Noble and it was one of the best readings I've ever been too...very entertaining and she had us all laughing.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, fast read!, April 25, 2007

By 

RaevenAngel (WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Happy Birthday or Whatever: Track Suits, Kim Chee, and Other Family Disasters (Paperback)

If you were ever born, you can probably relate to something in this book! The only problem I had with it is that it wasn't longer. Ms. Choi's writing made me see and hear all the family members in her book, and also made me giggle a lot. Unfortunately, as these things go, I finished it in 4 short, giggly hours. I would recommend it to anyone though, because most people have families, and if you have one, you can certainly sympathize with some of the situations in the book. I can't wait to read something else from her!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific--Poignant and Funny All in One, April 30, 2007

By 

Joanne Edelman (Calabasas, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Happy Birthday or Whatever: Track Suits, Kim Chee, and Other Family Disasters (Paperback)

What a delightful read! Annie Choi writes with warmth and wit as she shares her experience growing up as a Korean-American in Los Angeles. It is a personal story told with self-deprecating humor focusing on her relationship with her mother. Though her Korean-American experience is central to her memoir, it is also the story of many immigrant families attempting to blend traditional customs with the new in a land where so many describe themselves as hyphenated Americans. Annie shows herself to be a rebellious child endlessly arguing with her mother over wearing hand-me-down clothes and being pressured to be the perfect straight "A" student, but as she matures, she develops a deep affection for her mother, her family, and her cultural heritage. I anxiously await her next book!