Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for a copy of the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What a headache of a fucking book. In more ways than one.

To preface this, I can understand the angle that Canwen Xu was taking. I consider myself to be the target demographic for this—I’m an Asian Female; one might even say I’m boring, depending on who you ask—so I requested this ARC on NetGalley. Even though this is categorized as a thriller, this reads to me as a character study about an unhinged quintessential Asian female stereotype. Something along the veins of YELLOWFACE with a plot vaguely resembling that of NO OTHER CHOICE (fantastic movie, by the way). There’s certainly a lot to be said about the Asian model minority myth, proximity to whiteness, and the cultural pressures many Asian Americans feel to succeed.

I find that books like this that directly tackle cultural issues don’t do it for me, but I don’t want to not read them just because I haven’t enjoyed them in the past. I’m holding out hope that there’ll be one that tickles my brain just right.

I thought this would lean more on satire/dark comedy, since I’m of the opinion that pervasive stereotypes like the “boring Asian female” are far more engaging to interact with (as a reader) when it’s subverted by humor and absurdity. While elements of this story were absurd, it took itself a bit too seriously to be truly considered satire. It also wasn’t comedic, and I honestly didn’t find it dark. And thus, the execution of this story fell short of my expectations.

I think the main issue is that Elizabeth is too self-aware as an unlikeable character. She is not an unreliable narrator at all; she knows that she is morally or ethically wrong but doesn’t care. She literally says in the book that she knows that people don’t like her. Xu’s writing is fine from a technical standpoint, but it lacks the necessary character voice to bring Elizabeth to life. She crafted a one-dimensional character that’s supposed to be based on a one-dimensional stereotype.

The problem with books where you rely on stereotypes to craft your character is that if you don’t treat her with the same level of complexity that all humans have (yes, all, even boring Asian females), you wind up crafting a story that’s unbelievable on all fronts. This is where absurdity and unreliable narrators can do some heavy lifting, where giving your characters just enough to tickle the reader’s sympathy can do you some good. But Elizabeth has zero redeeming qualities. The “percentile” thing she does comes across as a bit too pointed. I have a hard time believing someone who’s ambitious and intelligent would be stupid enough to say to people’s faces that they’re 80th percentile in looks. I think the percentile thing was supposed to be pointing at the competitive nature of Ivy league/Asian American culture, but instead, it comes across as out of pocket and wholly unnecessary. You could have given me a passage of this narrator furiously complaining how attractive Laura Kim is, and I’d be able to read between the lines and see her jealousy. Instead, we basically get (paraphrased) “Laura is in the 90th percentile of attractiveness. I’m in the 80th percentile of attractiveness.” Like girl…be so fucking for real.

Elizabeth’s story would have had all the more impact if Xu leaned on being an unreliable narrator. She explains every single piece of logic that goes into her decision-making with the inflection of someone reading a driver’s ed manual. She is a heavy teller rather than a shower. It actually drove me nuts just how much was glossed over because it was told to us. The big plot beats felt very underwhelming for this reason. Her emotional arc also falls flat; although you can tell that Xu carefully chose the sequence of events to show her escalation in risks she’s willing to take—which coincides with her deteriorating mental state—it just…doesn’t feel convincing.

Furthermore, the side characters were woefully underdeveloped. I did like the detail that her best friend, Eunjin, is a gifted violinist and has no aspirations to go to law school. Elizabeth makes it clear that she chose Eunjin as her best friend because Eunjin is not her direct competition. I really, really wish Xu had dug in deeper to this friendship. Instead, Eunjin is the harmless, kind, and—ironically—boring side character. I don’t know if she was supposed to serve as a character foil or what, because she just was not interesting enough to have any meaningful impact on this story. She had potential to play a huge role in Elizabeth’s story (can’t state why without spoiling, sorry), but that, too, was not explored. Elizabeth’s other friendships are lukewarm at best and uncannily unrealistic at worst, which I think (?) was meant to demonstrate how Elizabeth maintains friendship because it’s a normal thing to do and not because she actually cares about anyone other than herself.

Even Laura, the primary “antagonist” (if you can call it that) is about as complex as a plain sheet of paper. Again, I understand that Elizabeth’s view of her is lacking in nuance due to her own baggage, but utilizing her unreliable perspective on Laura could have helped the reader see just how unhinged Elizabeth was. Her constant rationalizing was too much. I don’t need an increasingly unhinged character to tell me over and over again how enraged she is by Laura. I’m not stupid. I can read an interaction and see it for myself.

My other big issue with this story is that the interactions with other characters were not great. None of these characters talk like actual human beings. I don’t think I’m allowed to put quotes in my review so perhaps I’ll have to edit this later once the book is released. And the scenes with other characters—which were wicked short—felt cut and pasted rather than organically fitting into the flow of the story. It’s unclear to me if some of these “social justice”-themed conversations are meant to be satire or if they’re meant to address intersectionality in some capacity of if the writer is shoving in how she thinks university students talk. The writing just isn’t doing any of the work to provide me any clarity on that front. So instead of being moved, annoyed, or laughing at these “social justice”-themed conversations, I just gritted my teeth and waited for it to end.

Don’t even get me started on the ending. It felt like a cheap cop-out. I think Xu was going for an UNCUT GEMS kind of ending, but it really, really didn’t work for me. Especially after the sequence of events for the last few chapters.

This reads like a draft of a novel instead of one that’s quite literally going to be published. I think Xu has potential on a thematic level but needs a better editor to guide her through the craft elements to showcase ideas rather than relying on blatantly telling us her ideas. I can’t say that I could see this being something that was cathartic for Xu to write, because this wasn’t cathartic for me to read, nor was it something that was engaging enough for me to give a shit about. I found myself just waiting for this book to be over. But hey, I did keep reading to see what was going to happen next, kind of like watching a trainwreck. So I guess there’s that.

All this to say, I…really didn’t like this book. But what do I know? I, too, am a boring Asian female.

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The premise is refreshingly simple: your brain is hardware, your thoughts and habit is software. If it's glitchy from stress or bad sleep, no amount of positive thinking will fix it. She explains neuroplasticity without the textbook boredom, breaking down why we get stuck in negativity loops and how to interrupt them. Each chapter ends with actual strategies, not fluff. She even explains why gratitude isn't just woo woo nonsense (it actually rewires neural pathways) and why your phone is basically a dopamine vampire (sorry you're reading my review on one).

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