Reading this book made me realize how similar my life is to these girls. We are all Asians, however, I always thought that since I'm south Asian and they are Southeast Asian I thought our culture was really different. Our cultures are both similar and different, reading about their experiences made me think about my life. One of the short stories, “Tainted”, Belinda Wong talks about how she's her parents perfect piece of artwork. She was everything her parents wanted in a child. Even thought she was perfect she was still upset with herself, she wanted to find who she really was and she hid that pain with her smile that fooled everyone around her. The way she escaped from reality, she would play the piano. I didn't have to be in her shoes to understand what she was going through. I try to be the perfect child for my parents but I'm still confused about who I am. The way I cope with these feelings through drawing just as Belinda copes with her piano.

I think the theme of all the stories in book are the experiences they go through to find who they really are. The feeling of being stuck between two different cultures, whether to choose one over the other or find a different option. I understand it's really difficult, because everyday I have to make a choice between my cultures.

The majority of stories written were by female writers, which I though the main author shouldn't have done. The book is very limited because it does not have a variety of authors, meaning too many of the authors are writers, and I think that does not completely justify the experiences female Asian-Americans have. However, one thing I though was good was that she chose writers from all over the United States.

With all honesty is the only books I've enjoyed reading class. I say this because I was able to read about other people's experience that are similar to my own experiences. In my life I was only able to relate myself to people who share my culture, I was never able to relate my experiences with other people who come from different backgrounds.  

 
 When asked the question “what are you?”, what would you say? What if you had two choices, which one would you choose? The book Yell-oh Girls by Vickie Nam is about Asian-American girls and their difficult, strange, and confused experiences with there native cultures and the differences between the two cultures. The structure of the book is very much different from several books I've read, such as the cover, the table of contents, and the authors biography. It has a very unique touch to it.

The cover of the book is a very interesting cover. Usually non-fictional books are easy to identify, however this book doesn't seem like it. On the cover is a large title Yell-oh Girls and underneath that is lunch box with Southeast Asian food and above the title is female Asian yelling “Emerging Voices Explore Culture, Identity, and Growing Up Asian American”, along with a bright green background. The cover designed makes it more desirable to read.

Including a modicum about the author with her picture. This portion is located on the back of the book, where it talks about her success in several jobs she was attained. The picture is not one of those prepared-author-portrait photos, but it's a picture of her being herself.

This book doesn't have those award-winning New York Times reviews however, there are reviews from other authors. The reviews are found on the first page of the book right before the title page. Instead of putting this in the first page, this could have been on the back of the book and the authors photo and biography could have been on the first page.

The table of contents is the most peculiar part of the book. It is the skeleton of the order the chapters go. It's not really chapters rather topics with small essays and poems coalesced under it. Also with each short essay or poem is the writer's name and age. That is an actually very strange for a table of content. In my opinion I think that Nam should have not put the writers full name even though she might have gotten their approbation to do so.

Conclusively, the structure of the book might be different, but it makes it much more amusing to read.


 
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