Publishers Weekly
03/25/2024
Chang channels High Fidelity for a lively if underdeveloped story of a first-generation Chinese American reckoning with his heritage and his first potentially serious relationship. It’s 1995 and NYU undergrad Young Wang works at a used record and video store. When his classmate Erena Yasuda comes into the store looking for anime recommendations, he parlays their interaction into a date. Things seem to go well—she opens up about her mixed Japanese and Korean heritage, and they kiss, but then Young flees. It turns out Young’s globe-trotting, lottery-winning uncle once told him everyone has seven great loves in their life, and Young has only loved five girls before he met Erena. What follows is a series of flashbacks to his previous infatuations, which ended either in the friend zone or with Young otherwise heartbroken. Meanwhile, in the present day, Young relentlessly emails Erena for a second date, wondering if his uncle’s theory is right after all. Stylistic flourishes abound; in addition to email transcripts and explanations of pager code, Chang imagines conversations with his favorite film directors including Rob Reiner (“You never did like All in the Family (not really the target demographic), but it’s me—Meathead! I done good, yeah?”). The numerology stuff feels a bit half-baked, but Chang strikes all the right notes in his portrayal of a tender youth. Gen Xers will revel in the nostalgia. Agent: Faye Bender, Book Group. (May)
From the Publisher
Goodreads Editor's Pick • Publishers Weekly Author to Watch
"Packed with pop culture.... A beautifully tender and funny examination of love, of identity, of making your way in a world that is getting bigger and smaller at the same time.” —Kevin Wilson, bestselling author of Nothing to See Here
Love is a numbers game...
“Abraham Chang’s debut crackles with energy and verve—a heartfelt tale about life, love, and the challenges we stumble into along the way. His thoughtful prose and sharp dialogue make his debut the kind of exploration of identity that will linger with you long after you’ve turned the final page.” —Alex Segura, bestselling author of Secret Identity
"An ecstatically written, sensory feast with a depth, range and inventiveness that perfectly encapsulates that period of your life where every time you look up your name is written in the stars. Expect to fall in love with this vibrant, powerful and memorable debut that will bowl you over—and leave your heart full." —Courtney Summers, New York Times bestselling author of Sadie and I'm the Girl
Kirkus Reviews
2024-02-17
A college student with a thing for music, movies, and numbers falls in love.
Young Wang, the protagonist of Chang’s debut novel, has a thing for numbers. The New York University student keeps an updated list of them, good and bad: 1, for example, is “the first, the best. GOOD,” while 44 is “SO BAD. ALWAYS AVOID.” So when his uncle, Su Su, tells him that “we only get seven great loves in life,” he takes it seriously, especially when he meets Erena, a fellow NYU student, at the used CD and DVD store where he works. (As you may have guessed, this novel is set in the 1990s.) Erena, whose quirk meter is off the charts, introduces herself thusly: “I’m Erena. Erena Ji-Yoon Renee Valentina Yasuda.…It’s a lot, but it accurately conveys the lineage of this petite package of pulchritude—little bit of this, little bit of that. It’s like the whole Axis ran riot over my entire family tree! Hello? Humor? I made a funny?” The novel chronicles the relationship between Young and Erena, interspersed with Young’s remembrances of his previous loves, his relationship with his family and his best friends, and letters from Su Su, a hippie who has embraced a peripatetic lifestyle. Unfortunately, these threads never come together—Young is a depressed cipher, and Erena, who says things like “So, voilà, bingobango,” is such a Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype that she makes Natalie Portman’s character in Garden State look like Nurse Ratched. (Young, himself a cinephile, would get that reference.) The pace of the novel is slow despite the hyper dialogue and Chang’s extremely liberal use of ALL CAPS and italics, and the ending is unsatisfying.
Chang has heart, there’s no doubt about that, but this novel is a misfire.
