Headley, Justina Chen - Girl Overboard

I really liked Headley's first book, Nothing But the Truth (and a Few White Lies), and I love this one.

Syrah Cheng is the daughter of millionaire Ethan Cheng; she wanted to be a pro snowboarder, but an accident tore her ACL and so far, she hasn't been snowboarding since. To make matters worse, her mom keeps telling her she's fat, her best friend Adrian (Age) is withdrawing because of his new girlfriend, and her half-siblings hate her.

This could easily have been a poor little rich girl story, but I genuinely cared about Syrah and her problems. Part of this is because Headley does address class a little -- there's not that much overt deconstruction, but while we see the dark side of wealth, we (and Syrah) also get to see how many doors money opens, particularly when comparing Syrah with her friend Age and when comparing Syrah with her half-siblings, both of whom grew up with their father before he struck metaphorical gold.

Also, some day I will get sick of saying this, but right now, I'm still delighted that she's Chinese! And she does not angst about her Chinese-ness, but it is very clearly there. I really appreciate Headley's research; she even knows that there are twelve symbols of luck on the traditional Qing dragon robes, frex. But it's not research for the sake of research; a lot of the conflict in the story comes from Syrah's family history, and it's a history very closely tied to politics.

Also also, I really appreciate that most of the things I loved about Nothing But the Truth are back here: the focus on female friendship; the focus on inter-generational relationships that go beyond simple misunderstandings; the consistent framing of romance as a factor and a problem, but not the problem; the set-up of what look like stereotypical YA problems, but quickly turn into more complex issues; the optimism; and the main character's interest in things that aren't clothes, social hierarchy and boys (I have no problem with these interests, being a clotheshorse and an avid reader/watcher of all things romantic, but it's also nice to see variety in YA books).

Like Headley's first book, the ending feels a little too optimistic to be real, but honestly, I don't care. It made me happy, and I wanted Syrah to win. Also, even though the ending to this book is a little larger than life, Syrah still doesn't solve all her problems with a magic wand. What I left with was the feeling that Syrah had gotten some tools for dealing in an adult way, and while there would still be problems ahead, she'd be better equipped to handle them.

Headley's also continued with her multi-racial world; there's a strong focus on East Asian-ness and Chinese-ness in particular, but there's also the casual mention of not one, but several, biracial kids; Age is Mexican-American, and there's just the sense that the world is not whitewashed, which I really like. Also, I cheer for interracial relationships, both romantic and not. In terms of gender politics, I do wish there were some GLBT characters. In general, though, I love how important all the female relationships are. Yeah, you get some of the high school clique girls, but you also get many other girls and women, friends and sisters and cousins and mothers and daughters and grandmothers.

And! I am still not over reading about things that are from my own life, like sitting around the kitchen table wrapping dumplings, complete with learning how to from older female relatives. The part about making dumplings that look like the Son of the Blob? OMG so my first hundred dumplings! Same with the generational divide and language, and I love love love that Headley's Chinese people live in China and Hong Kong and Seattle and Vancouver, that they move around, that some are fourth-gen sons of immigrants. I especially loved the look at Mandarin and Cantonese and the notion of mother tongues and what that actually means. As far as I could tell, most of the references are right, with the exception of girls' manga as "shonin." But hey, given how much else the book gets right, I don't really care.

I just ... I love reading something in which I actually get most or all of the cultural references, as opposed to the usual "Hrm, what is this meatloaf of which you speak?" reaction (I know what meatloaf is now! And I like it! But I spent most of childhood wondering what it was and why everyone seemed to hate it).

So: yay book! And I'm really looking forward to whatever Headley writes next.

Links:
- buymeaclue's review
- gwyneira's review

Minekura Kazuya - Wild Adapter, vol. 04 (Eng. trans.)

Icon for the wrong series, but right mangaka at least...?

Volume four is the continuing adventures of Tokitoh and Kubota, in which Tokitoh gets jealous and Kubota is scary.

( Spoilers )