Customer Reviews

Troublemaker and Other Saints

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am very impressed with the way the author presented many different points of view in a realistic and unforced manner. I'm not quite sure why there are so many comparisons to Joy Luck Club- this book has nothing in common with Joy Luck Club except its main characters happen to be Asian. For the reviewer who thought this book did not represent "true" Chinese- American life, my question to you is- what IS a "true" Chinese-American experience? There is no such thing. Sex, drugs, violence- all of these are present in the patchwork of society and if you think that Chinese-Americans are exempt from such, I strongly suggest you open your eyes (or move out of suburbia). The characters in this book are provocative, and multi-dimensional. A very interesting read indeed.

Christina's stories of the Asian culture is exact and emotional. When I first took a look at it, I thought it was going to be another "Joy luck Club", as many of the Asian-American writer's novels turn out to be. Thankfully, this is a breath of fresh air.

If you're looking to become a little more intuned with our culture--this is the book to help you get started. Quite an intelligent a read, and has its moments of sad humor as well.

Well written. And I can't wait for her new novel to come out!

This book encompassed everything, no stereotypes were allowed to seep in and I loved that. A gamut of personalities were explored here and there were things about racial identity, about being Asian, sprinkled in here and there but that served only to add to these characters and in the exploration of their lives. The writing style was great, the author jumped from person to person but never let the reader lose sight of the larger picture and how each character's life flowed into anothers.

A good book written with intricate prose. Unforunately, as the book got nearer to the end, so did my understanding. It was confusing keeping up with the characters towards ending because the voices of the characters were interlaced too much with each other. But a great read otherwise.. Sure did leave me thinking..

Nowadays there are so many Asian/Asian-American writers and they all seem rather similiar in terms of themes. The stories in this book are different, touching on issues of suicide, eating disorders, mental illness, and sexuality. I love the way the stories all tied in together. I'm happy to read an Asian American book that does not beat down the issue of mother-daughter relationships, or adjusting to American life. This is a great alternative for those of you who are sick of the Amy Tan type books. I can't wait for more!

This was a book with a lot of potential.

The author, Christina Chiu, gives us several vignettes, many of which are connected by characters who are related. However, after reading the book, I was asking 'What was the point? What was at stake with these characters? Why was I supposed to care about these people?'

For example: There is a curious set of events that occur on page 247, where the narrator throws Todd a kiss as he drives away in the van, but on page 248, 'Todd' is sitting in his room. (This is not made clear in the story; it could have been an oversight of the author).

On the other hand, we don't get much about Amy, who seems to have a preference for white men. Furthermore, Thomas, a white Australian man who we learn is married in one story, is suddenly divorced in another story...and we learn has a preference for Asian women. (What happened between him and his previous white-Australian wife in a previous story?)

We also don't get much about Georgianna who is married to a black man named Mark and was disowned by her parents. We only get bits--a sentence here and there--in other stories where we learn that Mark is allegedly homophobic, then later we learn that Mark and Georgianna have broken up. We don't know how they dealt with the parental bigotry, why or how they came together as Georgianna was said to be the 'golden girl' of the family.

A bi-racial girl--half-white/half-Chinese--Sarah, Todd's sister, we learn has died in a later story; yet in the first story she was seemingly in fine health....and only having issues with her boyfriend. (Again, things just happen without explanation!)

Other stories that seem to be set up without any payoff: Laurel, who has an eating disorder in the initial story is in a hold-up in the final story of the book with her boyfriend. In the initial story, she is obviously having esteem issues; she doesn't have a boy interested in her, and also she has the aforementioned eating disorder. What happened in the course of the book?

As aforementioned, the author seems to set up her readers without any real payoff. Furthermore, she has too many characters in the pot, so it is difficult to find out who is related to who, where the characters are from, and what is the purpose of certain characters; also, where certain stories take place. At certain times, it is difficult to know if certain characters are supposed to be Asian or non-Asian...(It gets confusing).

'Troublemaker' is book with some potentially great ideas that just wasn't realized. It possibly would have worked with one central idea, and a set amount characters who come together towards the end after overcoming a mutual obstacle.

The day After I put down the book after finishing it in one day, my mind was still dancing from stories to stories, from the Wongs, to the Shengs, to the Tsuis. But after I got over the excitement, part of me was thinking, "Trouble Maker" is just like the "Job Luck Club", stereotyping Chinese American, making up all the sad stories just to prove that we are different from all other races and never changes. The "face thing", the cover-up of family scandal, the fix-up, the dinner, and the "bao ying (what goes around comes around, payback)" are all there from JLC to the Trouble Maker. You almost can predict the end of the story if you know the usual stereotypes about Chinese American. Nevertheless, the book still intrigued me. I think first of all, the story's setting makes a big difference (or should I say a big step forward) from JLC. Unlike JLC, Trouble Maker is not just about love and happy endings. Instead, Chiu drew us a bigger picture of the nowaday society, sexuality, suicide, disorder, crime, devoice and global business. You can see vividly how the characters struggle in this canvas as real people. Chiu's writing is also very spiritual, nothing like the JLC begging for cheap tears. She wrote about tragidies, but she could strik up a real conversation that is also humourous. At the end, it just got me thinking, instead of crying or sympathizing for the characters. I am thinking, what'd I do, twenty years later, if my daughter tells me she is bi? I can see me reading this book again by then.

"Troublemaker" is a wonderful read of short intertwined stories. What make these stories work(apart from the delicious dialogue) is the rollercoaster of emotion the author puts you on. My suggestion to all, is pick the book up, strap yourself in and enjoy the well-written ride. You will not be disappointed.

Looking forward to more from this gifted writer.

Though this is a collection of short stories, the author manages to create some complex characters within the tales of life among a group of Asian Americans. Far from the mawkish fare derided by some other reviewers, I found Chiu's prose to be efficient and interesting. Sure, she does use a fair amount of patois in the dialogue of some of the older characters who struggle with the English language, but it isn't obnoxious. The author skillfully introduces characters as a minor part of one story and then builds on that character in a succeeding chapter. Ms. Chiu provides a window on the experiences of a group of people that may not be representative of the entire Asian American experience, which was probably not her goal anyways, but it does shed light on some of the problems universal to those outside of the mainstream. Identity crises, ghettoization, self-hate, violence are all laid bare for the reader to experience through the eyes of these characters. However I wasn't searching for any deeper meaning in this work; I accepted for what it was -- good fiction.

There were some unanswered questions that left holes in some of the stories. Just how did the golden child Georgianna wind up married to a Black man? Was she just being rebellious or did she love him? With the gay characters (there are two), how did they come out to their families? And as for the girl who isn't into Asian men -- what happened to make her that way? Surely she wasn't born with an aversion to her own kind. I realize that the constraints of the short story form prevent any in-depth treatment of those questions, but just a few sentences of background could have cleared those things up. Then again, maybe those were deliberate omissions to lend a bit of mystery to the characters. Still, I thought this was a very good read.

I found this book so refreshing. The series of cleverly intertwined short stories was a perfect change of pace after being an avid novel reader for so long. Each story kept me captivated and wanting more. The only thing I didn't like about the book was that it ended.